Tariff was entirely forgotten.

"Well!" exclaimed Mrs. Fenelby, when Bobberts had tapered off from
the yells of rage to the steady weeping of injured feelings. "What
are you standing there like two sticks for? Can't you see poor,
dear little Bobberts is nearly killed? Why don't you do something?"

There was really nothing they could do. Mr. and Mrs. Fenelby made
such a compact crowd around Bobberts that no one else could squeeze
in, but Kitty dropped on her knees and edged up to the crowd,
murmuring, "Poor Bobberts! Poor Bobberts!"

Billy stood awkwardly, feeling in his pockets. He had an idea that
if he could find something to jingle before Bobberts it might be
about the right thing to do, but his hand touched one of the
smuggled cigars, and he withdrew it as if his fingers had been
burnt. This poor, weeping child was the Bobberts he had been
cheating of a few pennies. He touched Kitty diffidently on the
shoulder.

"Can't I do something?" he asked, pleadingly, and Kitty took pity on
him.

"Heat some water; very hot!" she said. She was not a baby expert,
but she felt that hot water would not be a bad thing to have handy
in a case like this. There is one good thing about hot water--if it
is not wanted it does no harm, for if allowed to stand it will get
cool again--and it pleased her to be able to order Billy to do
something. The prompt and eager manner in which he obeyed the order
pleased her still more. He ran all the way to the kitchen.

Half an hour later he cautiously carried a dish-pan full of water to
the porch and stared in amazement at the place where he had left
Bobberts and his parents. They were gone! He felt that he had not
been quite as quick with the water as he might have been, for the
only burner that had been lighted on the gas range was the
"simmerer," and that had only a flame as large around as a dollar,
and not strong, but he had not dared to light another. He had a dim
remembrance that stoves of some kind sometimes exploded, and he did
not want to risk an explosion by tampering with an unknown stove. He
felt that a stove and Bobberts both exploding at the same time would
have been more than the Fenelbys could have borne. As he stood
holding the pan of hot water well away from him the sound of the
click of knives and forks on china came to him through the open
window. Only a little of the hot water spilled over the edge of the
pan upon his legs as he opened the screen door and entered the h