gs the telephone at night. It's her."

"What on earth for?" I demanded as ungrammatical and hardly less uneasy
than Maggie.

"She wakes us up, so we can get out in time. She's a preacher's
daughter. More than likely she draws the line at bloodshed. That's one
reason. Maybe there's another. What if by pressing a button somewhere
and ringing that bell, it sets off a bomb somewhere?"

"It never has," I observed dryly.

But however absurd Maggie's logic might be, she was firm in her
major premise. Miss Emily had been on her hands and knees by the
telephone-stand, and had, on seeing Maggie, observed that she had
dropped the money for the hackman out of her glove.

"Which I don't believe. Her gloves were on the stand. If you'll come
back, Miss Agnes, I'll show you how she was."

We made rather an absurd procession, Maggie leading with the saucer, I
following, and the cat, appearing from nowhere as usual, bringing up the
rear. Maggie placed the jelly on the stand, and dropped on her hands
and knees, crawling under the stand, a confused huddle of gingham apron,
jelly-stains, and suspicion.

"She had her head down like this," she said, in rather a smothered
voice. "I'm her, and you're me. And I says: 'If it's rolled off
somewhere I'll find it next time I sweep, and give it back to you.'
Well, what d'you think of that! Here it is!"

My attention had by this time been caught by the jelly, now unmistakably
solidifying in the center. I moved to the kitchen door to tell Delia
to take it off the fire. When I returned, Maggie was digging under the
telephone battery-box with a hair-pin and muttering to herself.

"Darnation!" she said, "it's gone under!"

"If you do get it," I reminded her, "it belongs to Miss Emily."

There is a curious strain of cupidity in Maggie. I have never been able
to understand it. With her own money she is as free as air. But let her
see a chance for illegitimate gain, of finding a penny on the street,
of not paying her fare on the cars, of passing a bad quarter, and she is
filled with an unholy joy. And so today. The jelly was forgotten. Terror
was gone. All that existed for Maggie was a twenty-five cent piece under
a battery-box.

Suddenly she wailed: "It's gone, Miss Agnes. It's clear under!"

"Good heavens, Maggie! What difference does it make?"

"W'you mind if I got the ice-pick and unscrewed the box?"

My menage is always notoriously short of tools.

I forbade it at once, and ordered he