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“Your auntie makes me sick,” snapped Patrick. But Morris went on quite undisturbedly:

“I had once a auntie und she had awful kind feelings over a stylish floorwalker, und he was loving mit her. So-o-oh! They marries! Und they don’t say nothings to nobody. On’y the stylish floor walker he writes on my auntie whole bunches of lovin’ letters.”

“She ain’t married,” Patrick reiterated. “She ain’t.”

“Well, she will be,” muttered Nathan vindictively. “Und the new teacher will lick you the while you fights. It’s fierce how you make me biles on my bones. Think shame.”

When the ruffled Monitor of the Window Boxes had been soothed by the peaceful Guardian of the Gold-Fish, the cabinet held council. Nathan suggested that it might be possible to bribe the interloper. They would give him their combined wealth and urge him to turn his eyes upon Miss Blake, whose room was across the hall. She was very big and would do excellently well for him, whereas she was entirely too long and too wide for them.

Morris maintained that Teacher might be held by gratitude. A list should be made out, and, each in turn, a child a day, should give her a present.

Patrick listened to these ideas in deep and restive disgust. He urged instant and copious bloodshed. His big brother’s gang could “let daylight into the dude” with enjoyment and despatch. They would watch him ceaselessly and they would track him down.

The watching was an easy matter, for Teacher, in common with the majority of rulers, lived much in the public eye. The stranger was often detected prowling in her vicinity. He even began to bring her to school in the mornings, and on these occasions there were always violets in her coat. He used to appear at luncheon time and vanish with her. He used to come in the afternoon and have tea in Room 18 with two other teachers and with Teacher. The antagonism of the Monitor of Gold Fish became so marked that Miss Bailey was forced to remonstrate.

“Morris, dear,” she began one afternoon, when they were alone together, “you were very rude to Doctor Ingraham yesterday. I can’t allow you to stay here with me if you’re going to behave so badly. You sulked horribly and you slammed the door against his foot. Of course it was an accident, but how would you feel, Morris, if you had hurt him?”

“Glad,” said the Monitor of the Gold-Fish savagely. “Glad.”

“Morris! What do you mean by saying such a thing? I’m ashamed of you. Why should you want to hurt a friend of mine?”

“Don’t you be friends mit him!” cried Morris, deserting his fish and throwing himself upon his teacher. “Don’t you do it, Teacher Missis Bailey. He ain’t no friends for a lady.” And then, in answer to Teacher’s stare of blank surprise, he went on:

“My mamma she seen him by your side und she says–I got to tell you in whispering how she says.”

Teacher bent her head and Morris whispered in an awe-struck voice:

“My mamma says she like that: ‘He could to be a Krisht,'” and then drew back to study Teacher’s consternation. But she seemed quite calm. Perhaps she had already faced the devastating fact, for she said:

“Yes, I know he’s a Christian. I’m not afraid of them. Are you?”

“Teacher, no ma’an, Missis Bailey, I ain’t got no scare over Krishts, on’y they ain’t no friends for ladies. My papa says like that on my auntie, und my auntie she’s married now mit a stylish floorwalker. We’m got a Krisht in our house for boarder, so I know. But you couldn’t to know ’bout Krishts.”

“Yes, I do. They’re very nice people.”

“No ma’an,” said Morris gently. And then still more courteously: “It’s a lie. You couldn’t to know about Krishts.”

“But I do know all about them, Morris dear. I’m a Christian.”

Again Morris remembered his manners. Again he replied in his courtly phrase: