Baby Mine Part 20

Jimmy positively blushed. As for Zoie, she was growing more and more impatient for a little attention to herself.

"Rock-a-bye, Baby," sang Alfred in strident tones and he swung the child high in his arms.

Jimmy and Aggie gazed at Alfred as though hypnotised. They kept time to his lullaby out of sheer nervousness. Suddenly Alfred stopped, held the child from him and gazed at it in horror. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed.

The others waited breathlessly. "Look at that baby's face," commanded Alfred.

Zoie and Aggie exchanged alarmed glances, then Zoie asked in trepidation, "What's the matter with his face?"

"He's got a fever," declared Alfred. And he started toward the bed to show the child to its mother.

"Go away!" shrieked Zoie, waving Alfred off in wild alarm.

"What?" asked Alfred, backing from her in surprise.

Aggie crossed quickly to Alfred's side and looked over his shoulder at the boy. "I don't see anything wrong with its face," she said.

"It's scarlet!" persisted Alfred.

"Oh," said Jimmy with a superior air, "they're always like that."

"Nothing of the sort," snorted Alfred, and he glared at Jimmy threateningly. "You've frozen the child parading him around the streets."

"Let me have him, Alfred," begged Aggie sweetly; "I'll put him in his crib and keep him warm."

Reluctantly Alfred released the boy. His eyes followed him to the crib with anxiety. "Where's his nurse?" he asked, as he glanced first from one to the other.

Zoie and Jimmy stared about the room as though expecting the desired person to drop from the ceiling. Then Zoie turned upon her unwary accomplice.

"Jimmy," she called in a threatening tone, "where IS his nurse?"

"Does Jimmy take the nurse out, too?" demanded Alfred, more and more annoyed by the privileges Jimmy had apparently been usurping in his absence.

"Never mind about the nurse," interposed Aggie. "Baby likes me better anyway. I'll tuck him in," and she bent fondly over the crib, but Alfred was not to be so easily pacified.

"Do you mean to tell me," he exclaimed excitedly, "that my boy hasn't any nurse?"

"We HAD a nurse," corrected Zoie, "but--but I had to discharge her."

Alfred glanced from one to the other for an explanation.

"Discharge her?" he repeated, "for what?"

"She was crazy," stammered Zoie.

Alfred's eyes sought Aggie's for confirmation. She nodded. He directed his steady gaze toward Jimmy. The latter jerked his head up and down in nervous a.s.sent.

"Well," said Alfred, amazed at their apparent lack of resource, "why didn't you get ANOTHER nurse?"

"Aggie is going to stay and take care of baby to-night," declared Zoie, and then she beamed upon Aggie as only she knew how. "Aren't you, dear?"

she asked sweetly.

"Yes, indeed," answered Aggie, studiously avoiding Jimmy's eye.

"Baby is going to sleep in the spare room with Aggie and Jimmy," said Zoie.

"What!" exclaimed Jimmy, too desperate to care what Alfred might infer.

Ignoring Jimmy's implied protest, Zoie continued sweetly to Alfred:

"Now, don't worry, dear; go back to your room and finish your shaving."

"Finish shaving?" repeated Alfred in a puzzled way. Then his hand went mechanically to his cheek and he stared at Zoie in astonishment. "By Jove!" he exclaimed, "I had forgotten all about it. That shows you how excited I am." And with a reluctant glance toward the cradle, he went quickly from the room, singing a high-pitched lullaby.

Just as the three conspirators were drawing together for consultation, Alfred returned to the room. It was apparent that there was something important on his mind.

"By the way," he said, glancing from one to another, "I forgot to ask--what's his name?"

The conspirators looked at each other without answering. To Alfred their delay was annoying. Of course his son had been given his father's name, but he wished to HEAR someone say so.

"Baby's, I mean," he explained impatiently.

Jimmy felt instinctively that Zoie's eyes were upon him. He avoided her gaze.

"Jimmy!" called Zoie, meaning only to appeal to him for a name.

"Jimmy!" thundered the infuriated Alfred. "You've called my boy 'Jimmy'?

Why 'Jimmy'?"

For once Zoie was without an answer.

After waiting in vain for any response, Alfred advanced upon the uncomfortable Jimmy.

"You seem to be very popular around here," he sneered.

Jimmy s.h.i.+fted uneasily from one foot to the other and studied the pattern of the rug upon which he was standing.

After what seemed an age to Jimmy, Alfred turned his back upon his old friend and started toward his bedroom. Jimmy peeped out uneasily from his long eyelashes. When Alfred reached the threshold, he faced about quickly and stared again at Jimmy for an explanation. It seemed to Jimmy that Alfred's nostrils were dilating. He would not have been surprised to see Alfred snort fire. He let his eyes fall before the awful spectacle of his friend's wrath. Alfred's upper lip began to curl. He cast a last withering look in Jimmy's direction, retired quickly from the scene and banged the door.

When Jimmy again had the courage to lift his eyes he was confronted by the contemptuous gaze of Zoie, who was sitting up in bed and regarding him with undisguised disapproval.

"Why didn't you tell him what the baby's name is?" she demanded.

"How do _I_ know what the baby's name is?" retorted Jimmy savagely.

"s.h.!.+ s.h.!.+" cautioned Aggie as she glanced nervously toward the door through which Alfred had just pa.s.sed.

"What does it matter WHAT the baby's name is so long as we have to send it back?"

"I'll NOT send it back," declared Zoie emphatically, "at least not until morning. That will give Jimmy a whole night to get another one."