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bowl, with professional interest.
"From gold fishes und red fishes und black fishes"--Patrick stirred uneasily and Isaac remembered--"und green fishes; the green ones is the biggest; and blue fishes und all kinds from fishes. They lives way down in the water the while they have fraids over the rubber-neck-boat-birds. Say--what you think? Sooner a rubber-neck-boat-bird needs he should eat he longs down his neck und eats a from-gold fish."
"'Out fryin'?" asked Eva, with an incredulous shudder.
"Yes, 'out fryin'. Ain't I told you little girls could to have fraids over 'em? Boys could have fraids too," cried Isaac; and then spurred by the calm of his rival, he added: "The rubber-neck-boat-birds they hollers somethin' fierce."
"I wouldn't be afraid of them. Me pop's a cop," cried Patrick stoutly. "I'd just as lief set on 'em. I'd like to."
"Ah, but you ain't seen 'em, und you ain't heard 'em holler," Isaac retorted.
"Well, I'm goin' to. An' I'm goin' to see the lions an' the tigers an' the el'phants, an' I'm goin' to ride on the water-lake."
"Oh, how I likes I should go too!" Eva broke out. "O-o-oh, how I likes I should look on them things! On'y I don't know do I need a ride on somethings what hollers. I don't know be they fer me."
"Well, I'll take ye with me if your mother leaves you go," said Patrick grandly. "An' ye can hold me hand if ye're scared."
"Me too?" implored Morris. "Oh, Patrick, c'n I go too?"
"I guess so," answered the Leader of the Line graciously. But he turned a deaf ear to Isaac Borrachsohn's implorings to be allowed to join the party. Full well did Patrick know of the grandeur of Isaac's holiday attire and the impressionable nature of Eva's soul, and gravely did he fear that his own Sunday finery, albeit fashioned from the blue cloth and brass buttons of his sire, might be outshone.
At Eva's earnest request, Sadie, her cousin, was invited, and Morris suggested that the Monitor of the Window Boxes should not be slighted by his colleagues of the gold fish and the line. So Nathan Spiderwitz was raised to Alpine heights of anticipation by visions of a window box "as big as blocks and streets," where every plant, in contrast to his lanky charges, bore innumerable blossoms. Ignatius Aloysius Diamantstein was unanimously nominated as a member of the expedition; by Patrick, because they were neighbors at St. Mary's Sunday-school; by Morris, because they were classmates under the same rabbi at the synagogue; by Nathan, because Ignatius Aloysius was a member of the "Clinton Street gang"; by Sadie, because he had "long pants sailor suit"; by Eva, because the others wanted him.
Eva reached home that afternoon tingling with anticipation and uncertainty. What if her mother, with one short word, should close forever the gates of joy and boat-birds? But Mrs. Gonorowsky met her small daughter's elaborate plea with the simple question:
"Who pays you the car-fare?"
"Does it need car-fare to go?" faltered Eva.
"Sure does it," answered her mother. "I don't know how much, but some it needs. Who pays it?"
"Patrick ain't said."
"Well, you should better ask him," Mrs. Gonorowsky advised, and, on the next morning, Eva did. She thereby buried the leader under the ruins of his fallen castle of clouds, but he struggled through them with the suggestion that each of his guests should be her, or his, own banker.
"But ain't you got no money 't all?" asked the guest of honor.
"Not a cent," responded the host. "But I'll get it. How much have you?"
"A penny. How much do I need?"
"I don't know. Let's ask Miss Bailey."
School had not yet formally begun and Teacher was reading. She was hardly disturbed when the children drove sharp elbows into her shoulder and her lap, and she answered Eva's--"Miss Bailey--oh, Missis Bailey," with an abstracted--"Well, dear?"
"Missis Bailey, how much money takes car-fare to the Central Park?"
Still with divided attention, Teacher replied--"Five cents, honey," and read on, while Patrick called a meeting of his forces and made embarrassing explanations with admirable tact.
There ensued weeks of struggle and economy for the exploring party, to which had been added a chaperon in the large and reassuring person of Becky Zalmonowsky, the class idiot. Sadie Gonorowsky's careful mother had considered Patrick too immature to bear the whole responsibility, and he, with a guile which promised well for his future, had complied with her desires and preserved his own authority unshaken. For Becky, poor child, though twelve years old and of an aspect eminently calculated to inspire trust in those who had never held speech with her, was a member of the First Reader Class only until such time as room could be found for her in some of the institutions where such unfortunates are bestowed.
Slowly and in diverse ways each of the children acquired the