"Call up the fire department quick, Leslie! Tell them to hurry.
There's some one breaking into the Johnson house, and Jane Bristol is
there alone with the children. It's Park Avenue, you know. Hustle!"
He was out the door before they could exclaim, and Leslie hastened to
the telephone.
"He went without his overcoat," said Julia Cloud, hurrying to the
closet for it. "It will be very cold riding. He ought to have it."
Leslie hung up the receiver, and flung her velvet cloak about her
hurriedly, grabbing the overcoat.
"Give it to me, Cloudy; I'm going with him!" she cried, and dashed out
the door as the car slid out of the garage.
"O Leslie! Child! You _oughtn't_ to go!" she cried, rushing to the
door; but Leslie was already climbing into the car, moving as it was.
"It's all right, Cloudy!" she called. "There's a revolver in the car,
you know!" and the car whirled away down the street.
Julia Cloud stood gasping after them; the horrible thought of a
revolver in the car did not cheer her as Leslie had evidently hoped it
would. What children they were, after all, plunging her from one
trouble into another, yet what dear, tender-hearted, loving children!
She went in, and found a heavy cloak, and went out again to listen.
Then it came to her that perhaps Leslie had not made the operator
understand; so she went back to the telephone to try to find out
whether any one had been sent. Suppose those children should try to
face a burglar alone! There might be more than one for aught they
knew. Oh, Leslie _should not_ have gone! A terrible anxiety took
possession of her, and she tried to pray as she worked the telephone
hook up and down and waited for the operator. Then into the quiet of
the night there came the loud clang of the fire-bell, and a moment
later hurried calls and voices in the distance, sounding through the
front door that Julia Cloud had left open. For an instant she was
relieved, and then she reflected that this might be a fire somewhere
else, and not the call for the Johnson house at all; so she kept on
trying to call the operator. At last a snappy voice snarled into her
ear. "We don't tell where the fire is; we're not allowed any more,"
and snap! The operator was gone again.
"But I don't want to know where the fire is!" called Julia Cloud in
dismay. "I want to ask a question."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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