Little Aliens Part 16

She spread the glittering useless things upon Miss Bailey's desk, and the force with which this bribe carried away her earlier dislike showed that Hymie Solomon had mastered the art of character reading. And Miss Bailey, as she reviewed the dainty paraphernalia spread before her, found herself wondering how soon Madame Solomon would miss her treasures and come storming in pursuit of them. And beside Miss Bailey's desk sat Isidore Cohen in an agony of doubt and disillusionment. His one childish attribute was that of believing that all he knew must be common knowledge. Therefore he argued that the powers before him knew as well as he did that Hymie Solomon was motherless, and that Miss Blake would be most unwise to look her gift purse in the pedigree. And so, as Miss Blake exhibited and Miss Bailey admired, the work of weeks was undone.

One teacher was acting as a "fence," and another was cheering and encouraging her. He had doubted this "honesty the best policy"

propaganda from the first. But he had believed in the sincerity of its prophet.

Yet he might have been prepared. Had not his father, wise and experienced in the ways of the world, armed him with the formula: "Krists is fakes"? His own adventures had corroborated this, and Miss Bailey from the very first had made no attempt to conceal her connection with that despised sect. Of course she was a fake. No more than half an hour ago she had thrilled her audience with misinformation, and manufactured biography all going to prove the n.o.bleness--even the expediency--of honesty; and now she was purring delightedly over the fruits of Hymie's sleight-of-hand.

Isidore's was not a sentimental nature. Idealism was not his forte. And yet he could not help wis.h.i.+ng that, if only for the confusion of Hymie and his father, Miss Bailey had proved to be "on the level."

Mr. Cohen _pere_ believed in nothing but the rights of man, though his opinion of man was so low as to preclude his having any rights at all.

He was especially opprobrious toward all those in authority, and he made no exception in the case of his son's teacher. "She belongs to the machine," he would a.s.severate with warmth. "Run by the machine, paid by the machine, a part of the machine. Policemen, firemen, teachers, inspectors, they are all the same. All parts of the big machine. And what is it chewing? Us. What does it live on? Us again. Don't you try to fool me about that teacher of yours."

Isidore had been making no such attempt, and he repudiated the idea with scorn. He was accustomed to vehement paternal outbreaks, for Mr. Cohen was a popular orator in his social club, and he often rehea.r.s.ed his eloquence in the home circle. Not often, however, did Isidore understand or remember the fervid periods. This attack upon Miss Bailey he did remember, though he did not understand. To him a machine was a sewing-machine, and his father, though he evidently meant something, could not have meant to a.s.sociate her with that most useful member of the family.

"Just like all the rest of them," his father had said. "A grafter," and now that Miss Blake had fallen from honesty, what proof was there that Miss Bailey was not equally approachable?

And certainly Miss Blake played the game with the promptness and surety of an old understanding. Influence or income are the counters in the game, and she dealt both cheerily. Three days after the presentation of the purse the post of Monitor of Supplies in Room 17 fell vacant, and Hymie Solomon received it. That was the influence, he was "holding down a job." Two days later he discovered a market for surplus textbooks and other school supplies. Thus was the income a.s.sured. No one could doubt Miss Blake was familiar with the rules.

"You'd never believe," said she to her neighbor in fond and unfounded pride, "what a little responsibility will do for an almost incorrigible boy. You wouldn't know Hymie. He stays behind almost every afternoon when I go home, getting things straightened out."

"They all have their good points," said Constance Bailey. "I am thinking of doing something of the same kind about Isidore Cohen. We must hold their interest, you know."

It was about a week later. Miss Bailey and her monitors were putting Room 18 to rights after the stress and storm of the day. Gold-fish, window-boxes, canaries, and pencil points were all being ministered to by their respective supervisors, and the door opened and Gertie Armusheffsky appeared. Such a distracted, tear-stained, white-lipped Gertie that Miss Bailey swept her monitors into their weird wrappings and dismissed them with all speed.

"I can't go home," cried Gertie in desperation. "Honest, Miss Bailey, he'd kill me if I did."

And after listening to the girl's story, Miss Bailey congratulated herself that she had no other charges old enough to be caught in trouble as difficult.

Old Mr. Armusheffsky had read of a fire in a Brooklyn glove factory: hundreds of pairs of damaged gloves were spoken of. Now Mr. Armusheffsky kept his store very dark, and only the most fatal damages could be detected in its dim light. Catastrophes such as this of the glove factory were his opportunities. He always--he never left the store--sent Gertie to negotiate with the bereaved manufacturers, the insurance agents, or whoever chanced to be in authority over the debris. Upon this day there chanced to be no debris: the fire and the firemen had done their work. There was no one even to interview. And Gertie, somewhat apprehensive as to her grandfather's displeasure and disappointment, set out for home. She enlivened her homeward way by a visit to a big department store, where she envied the be-pompadoured damsels behind the counters; plunged into the squirming crowd around a bargain table and secured a jabot of real German Mechlin lace for thirteen cents. After this transaction she had in her purse the twelve cents left of her quarter dollar, and the jabot, the check showing its cost and the date, an unused trolley transfer, and the five dollars deposit which she was to have paid on the purchase of gloves. The purse was of the hand-bag variety, showy yet strong. It had been given to her as a reward and an encouragement by Miss Bailey.

"An' when I got off the car at the 'loop'," she ended, "an' changed into the Second Avenue cable, somebody in the crowd swiped me bag. I didn't have even a transfer left, an' I had to walk here. I was pus.h.i.+ng along in the crowd lookin' at the signs 'Beware of pickpockets', an' thinkin'

it was good I had no pockets to pick, when it come over me that my bag was gone. Just that easy! Me what ought to have known better. Say, you know it would be just as good as suicide to go an' give that 'pipe' to Grandpa. So I was thinking maybe you'd go round and sort of break the news. He's got a lot of respect for you. An' honest, I ain't kiddin'.

He'd kill me for that five dollars." Then with sudden fury she ended, "I'd kill _him_ for five cents."

Miss Bailey had never responded with less alacrity to a cry for help.

She had a genuine horror of the fierce, sore-eyed old vulture, with whom she had had to struggle so determinedly for the privilege of teaching Gertie. "Of course," she said at last, "he will have to know--" But Miss Bailey was wrong, Mr. Armusheffsky never knew.

Room 18's door opened again to admit two policemen, one plain-clothes man, who silently showed his badge to Miss Bailey, and three garrulous and dishevelled neighbors of the Armusheffsky menage.

At sight of Gertie the neighbors grew vociferous, triumphant. The policemen stationed themselves one on either side of Gertie, and the plain-clothes man explained to Miss Bailey that old Armusheffsky had been found murdered in his store, and that every man and woman for blocks around was as ready as these incoherent samples to testify that his granddaughter had often wished him dead, and had sometimes threatened to kill him.

"So I guess," he ended pleasantly, "that 'The Tombs' will be this young lady's address for a spell."

"But I've been in Brooklyn all day," protested Gertie when at last she found speech.

"Can you prove it? Talked to anybody? Got any witnesses?"

Gertie recapitulated her story.

"Got the goods you bought? Got the check on them?"

Gertie explained the loss of the purse.

The plain-clothes man shook his head. "I'm sorry, Miss," said he to Miss Bailey, "but I guess it's a case for the sergeant. Of course if that hand satchel turns up it will be all right, but the case looks bad to me. She ain't the first what took the quickest way out of things she couldn't stand. I don't blame them myself, but that's the jury's business. Mine is to take the girl along with me. Your thinking so much of her will go a good ways to help her out. The patrol wagon is at the door. We'll just be moseying along."

Gertie went with him without a word. Her escape from her grandfather's vituperations seemed to make her oblivious to everything else. Miss Bailey, however, was comforted by no such blindness. She realized that tragedy, perhaps death, had come to Room 18, and she set about averting them with characteristic energy.

The one frail thread upon which Gertie's life hung led to one or two p.a.w.n shops whence purses, not hers, were reported. Then it snapped, and a whole mountain of circ.u.mstantial evidence was piled up in readiness to drop on her defenceless head when the days of the trial should come.

Constance Bailey had never been so close to tragedy before, and she bore the juxtaposition very badly. She persisted in, and insisted upon effort, after the police and the reporters had done their best and worst. But always she was met, though never quite daunted, by the challenge to produce the purse with the proofs of alibi.

Under these conditions it naturally occurred that the little First Readers received but a very divided attention. Affairs of state in Room 18 were left largely to the board of monitors, and more than ever did it seem desirable to Isidore Cohen to secure a portfolio within that cabinet. For more than a week he had been ready to present his application. The proof of his fitness for office was wrapped in a newspaper under the decayed mattress upon which he slept. And he only waited a propitious moment to lay it and his application before Teacher. Her new habit of das.h.i.+ng away at the stroke of three had hitherto interfered with his plan, but about a week after Gertie's arrest he found courage to elude the janitor, and to make his way to Room 18 at a quarter past eight in the morning.

And Miss Bailey arriving--pale, distraught, and heavy-eyed--at eight twenty-five, found the lost purse lying upon her blotter, and Isidore Cohen ready with the speech of presentation.

"Mine auntie," it began--he had never had an aunt--"she don't needs this pocket-book no more. You can have it."

Miss Bailey dropped into her chair. "Isidore!" cried she. "Oh, Isidore!

You're the cleverest boy! I would rather have this bag than anything else in the world."

A moment later her joy was gone again. The bag was absolutely empty, and Constance Bailey did some of the keenest thinking of her career.

"It would be quite perfect," said she, "if I only had a few little things in it. Perhaps a transfer, a lace collar, or some pieces of paper"--she caught the gleam in Isidore's rabbit eye, and amended quickly--"not money, of course. It would be foolish to carry money in a bag like this"--the gleam vanished--"but just a few papers and things would seem more natural."

"Stands somethings like that to my house," Isidore vouchsafed generously. "Mine auntie don't needs them too."

"Then perhaps," said Constance Bailey carefully, "perhaps, dear, your aunt would let me have them."

"I likes," said Isidore, das.h.i.+ng off at an unmistakably natural tangent, "I likes I shall be monitors maybe off of somethings."

Miss Bailey felt the teeth of the trap, but she knew that her hand was touching the very life of Gertie Armusheffsky, and she made no effort to escape. "And what sort of a monitor would you like to be?" she asked casually.

"Off of supplies," was his decided answer.

"I think that could be arranged," she replied. "And these little things to put in my bag?"

"I could to git 'em 'fore the other kids comes in," said Isidore.

And a few moments later she had obtained leave of absence from the princ.i.p.al, and was b.u.t.toning her gloves while she gave her final instructions to the subst.i.tute who would minister until luncheon hour to the First Readers.

"I'm quite sure you will have no trouble. The children understand that I shall be back in the afternoon. If you want pencils, paper, or anything else, Isidore Cohen will get them for you. For Isidore"--and she laid her hand upon his narrow head--"Isidore is monitor of supplies."

Very late that afternoon a disillusioned monitor of supplies fared unostentatiously homeward from Room 18. He had never met candor equal to Miss Bailey's, and he was in the grip of the paralyzing conviction that for as long as he remained within her sphere of influence, honesty would be the only expedient policy.