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To which Mister replied, by opening the window, and speaking into the street,–“I say, Purdy, call four officers and come up and clear this room.”

The room did not wait for the officers: it cleared itself very soon on this order, and was left a scene of wreck and dirt. Orange-peel trampled down on the floor; cake thrown down and mashed to mud, intermixed with that which had come in on boots, and the water which had been slobbered over from hasty mugs; the sugar plums which had fallen in scrambles, and little sprays of green too, trodden into the mass,–all made an aspect of filth like a market side-walk. And poor Alice was half crying and half laughing; poor Lillie was wholly crying. Gilmore and Flagg were explaining to each other how gladly they would have thrashed the whole set.

The thought uppermost in Alice’s mind was that she had been a clear, out and out fool! And that, probably, is the impression of the greater part of the readers of her story,–or would have been the impression of any one who only had her point of view.

CHAPTER II.

Perhaps the reader is willing to take another point of view.

As the group stood there, talking over the riot as Mrs. MacNeil called it,–as John Flagg tried to make Alice laugh by bringing her a half-piece of frosted pound-cake, and proving to her that it had not been on the floor,–as she said, her eyes streaming with tears, “I tell you, John! I am a fool, and I know I am, and nobody but a fool would have started such a row,”–as all this happened, Patrick Crehore came back for his little sister’s orange which he had wrapped in her handkerchief and left on one of the book-racks in the room. Patrick was alone now, and was therefore sheepish enough, and got himself and his orange out of the room as soon as he well could. But he was sharp enough to note the whole position, and keen enough to catch Alice’s words as she spoke to Mr. Flagg. Indeed, the general look of disappointment and chagrin in the room, and the contrast between this filthy ruin and the pretty elegance of half an hour ago, were distinct enough to be observed by a much more stupid boy than Patrick Crehore. He went down stairs and found Bridget waiting, and walked home with the little toddler, meditating rather more than was his wont on Alice’s phrase, “I tell you, I am a fool.” Meditating on it, he hauled Bridget up five flights of stairs and broke in on the little room where a table spread with a plentiful supply of tea, baker’s bread, butter, cheese, and cabbage, waited their return. Jerry Crehore, his father, sat smoking, and his mother was tidying up the room.

“And had ye a good time, me darling? And ye ‘ve brought home your orange, and a doll too, and mittens too. And what did you have, Pat?”

So Pat explained, almost sulkily, that he had a checker-board, and a set of checker-men, which he produced; but he put them by as if he hated the sight of them, and for a minute dropped the subject, while he helped little Biddy to cabbage. He ate something himself, drank some tea, and then delivered his rage with much unction, a little profanity, great incoherency,–but to his own relief.

“It’s a mean thing it is, all of it,” said he, “I’ll be hanged but it is! I dunno who the lady is; but we’ve made her cry bad, I know that; and the boys acted like Nick. They knew that as well as I do. The man there had to knock one of the fellows down, bedad, and served him right, too. I say, the fellows fought, and hollared, and stole, and sure ye ‘d thought ye was driving pigs down the Eighth Avenue, and I was as bad as the worst of ’em. That’s what the boys did when a lady asked ’em to Christmas.”