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“Say, Missis Pailey,” Mr. Diamantstein recommenced, “you do me the favour? You go on the Brincipal und you say like that: ‘I give him five dollars, maybe, so he don’t egspell the boys till the month.’ It makes mit me then nothings.”

“You won’t mind at the end of the month?” exclaimed Miss Bailey. “Why not?”

“Well,” said the lover tenderly, “it’s over that beautiful yonge lady. She’s awful easy scared! awful easy! Und sooner she knows them boys is egspell she don’t marry no more mit me. On’y by the month she will be married already und nothings makes then nothings. Say, I gives you too, maybe, a nice present so you says like that on the Brincipal.”

But Mr. Diamantstein’s lavish promises could avail nothing and the boys were doomed. Time passed and Isidore’s place in Miss Bailey’s kingdom was taken by another American citizen in the making, and the incident seemed closed.

On an afternoon in the first week of February, Miss Bailey, Nathan Spiderwitz, and Morris Mogilewsky were busily putting Room 18 to rights, when a small boy, in an elaborate sailor costume, appeared before them. He was spotlessly clean and the handkerchief in the pocket of his blouse was dazzling in its white abundance. Upon his brow, soap-polished until it shone, there lay two smooth and sticky curves of auburn hair, and on his face there played a smile of happy recognition and repressed pride.

Miss Bailey and her ministers stood at gaze until the new comer, with a glad cry of “Teacher, oh, mine Teacher,” threw himself upon the lady, and then surprise gave place to joy.

“Isidore, my dear boy; I’m so glad to see you! And how beautiful you look!” cried Teacher.

“Beautiful and stylish,” said Morris generously. “Sinkers on the necks und sleeves is stylish for boys,” and he gazed longingly at the neatly embroidered anchors which adorned the sailor suit.

“Oh, yes; suits mit sinkers is awful stylish. They could to cost three dollars. I seen ’em on Grand Street,” said Nathan, and Isidore’s heart beat high beneath the “sinker” on his breast.

When the first transports of joy over the reunion had abated, Isidore explained his presence and his appearance.

“My mamma,” he began proudly, “she sets by the Principal’s side und he says, like that, you should come for see my mamma. She’s new.”

Teacher deftly patted her hair and stock into place, and set out in great interest and excitement to see the “beautiful yonge uptown lady.”

“Come, Isidore,” she called.

“Mine name ain’t Isidore,” he announced “Und it ain’t Issie neither, but it’s awful stylish. I gets it off my new mamma. It’s a new name too.”

“Dear me,” cried Miss Bailey. “What is it, then?”

“I don’t know,” answered Isidore. “I couldn’t to say it even.”

“Dear me!” cried Miss Bailey again, and hurried on.

At the door of the Principal’s office Teacher halted in puzzled surprise, for the first glance at the glowing face of the new mamma, and the first sound of her pleasant voice, proclaimed, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Mrs. Lazarus Diamantstein the second was a buxom daughter of the Island of Saints. The little sailor climbed upon her lap, and the Principal introduced the matron to the maid. Miss Bailey said all that etiquette demanded and that interest prompted and Mrs. Diamantstein blushed prettily.

“Thank you kindly,” she answered.

“You’re very good, but I knew that before. Larry–me husband, you know–often told me how good you were to the child.”

“Ah, but you see,” said Teacher, “I was very fond of Isidore.”

“That’s not his name at all, Miss,” said Mrs. Diamantstein decidedly. “That’s a haythen name, and so I’m going to have him christened. Tell your name to the lady, allannah.”

Thus encouraged, Isidore toyed with a diamond stud, not much larger than a butter-plate, which glittered in the new shirtwaist of his new mamma, and uttered a perfectly unintelligible string of sounds.

“See how well he knows it,” said the parent proudly. “He says his name is Ignatius Aloysius Diamantstein. Think of him knowing it already and him not christened until next Sunday! I’ll have them all christened at once by Father Burke, over at St. Mary’s, and I came here to ask you two things. First, knowing the liking you have for the child, I ask you will you be godmother to Ignatius Aloysius?”