everything in the apartment went
Mrs. Mowgelewsky and Morris. All the joy of home-coming and of
well-being was darkened and blotted out by this new calamity. And Mrs.
Mowgelewsky beat her breast and tore her hair, and Constance Bailey
almost wept in sympathy. But the pocket-book was gone, absolutely gone,
though Mrs. Mowgelewsky called Heaven and earth to witness that she had
had it in her hand when she came in.

Another month's rent was due; the money to pay it was in the
pocket-book. Mr. Mowgelewsky had visited his wife on Sunday, and had
given her all his earnings as some salve to the pain of her eyes.
Eviction, starvation, every kind of terror and disaster were thrown
into Mrs. Mowgelewsky's wailing, and Morris proved an able second to
his mother.

Miss Bailey was doing frantic bookkeeping in her charitable mind, and
was wondering how much of the loss she might replace. She was about to
suggest as a last resort that a search should be made of the dark and
crannied stairs, where a purse, if the Fates were very, very kind,
might lie undiscovered for hours, when a dull scratching made itself
heard through the general lamentation. It came from a point far down on
the panel of the door, and the same horrible conviction seized upon
Morris and upon Miss Bailey at the same moment.

Mrs. Mowgelewsky in her frantic round had approached the door for the
one-hundredth time, and with eyes and mind far removed from what she
was doing, she turned the handle. And entered Izzie, beautifully erect
upon his hind legs, with a yard or two of rope trailing behind him, and
a pocket-book fast in his teeth.

Blank, pure surprise took Mrs. Mowgelewsky for its own. She staggered
back into a chair, fortunately of heavy architecture, and stared at the
apparition before her. Izzie came daintily in, sniffed at Morris,
sniffed at Miss Bailey, sniffed at Mrs. Mowgelewsky's ample skirts,
identified her as the owner of the pocket-book, laid it at her feet,
and extended a paw to be shaken.

"Mine Gott!" said Mrs. Mowgelewsky, "what for a dog iss that?" She
counted her wealth, shook Izzie's paw, and then stooped forward,
gathered him into her large embrace, and cried like a baby. "Mine Gott!
Mine Gott!" she wailed again, and although she spent five minutes in
apparent effort to evolve another and more suitable remark, her
research met with no greater success than the addition:

"He ain't a dog at all; he iss friends."

Miss Bailey had been se