"Sure do I," cried Morris. "I had once a auntie what was loving mit a awful stylish salesman--he's now floorwalkers--und I see how they makes." "Well," said Patrick, "I had a sister Mary and she married the milkman, so I know, too. But umbrellas doesn't mean much." "But the loving looks," Morris insisted. "My auntie makes such looks on the salesman--he's now floorwalkers--und sooner she marries mit him." "Say, Patrick," suggested Nathan; "I'll tell you what to do. You ask her if she's goin' to get married." "Naw," said Patrick. "Let Morris ask her. She'd tell him before she'd tell any of us. She's been soft on him ever since Christmas. Say, Morris, do you hear? You've got to ask Teacher if she's going to get married." "Oo-o-oh! I dassent. It ain't polite how you says," cried Morris in his shocked little voice. "It _ain't_ polite you asks like that. It's fierce." "Well, you've got to do it, anyway," said Patrick darkly, "and you've got to do it soon, and you've got to let us hear you." "It's fierce," protested Morris, but he was overruled by the dominant spirit of Patrick Brennan, that grandson of the kings of Munster and son of the policeman on the beat. His opportunity found him on the very next morning. Isidore Wishnewsky, the gentlest of gentle children, came to school wearing his accustomed air of melancholy shot across with a tender pride. His subdued "Good morning" was accompanied with much strenuous exertion directed, apparently, to the removal and exhibition of a portion of his spine. After much wriggling he paused long enough to say: "Teacher, what you think? I'm got a present for you," and then recommenced his search in another layer of his many flannels. His efforts being at length crowned with success, he drew forth and spread before Teacher's admiring eyes a Japanese paper napkin. "My sister," he explained. "She gets it to a weddinge." "Oh, Isidore," cried the flattered Teacher; "it's very pretty, isn't it?" "Teacher--yiss ma'an," gurgled Isidore. "It's stylish. You could to look on how stands birds on it and flowers. Mine sister she gives it to me und I gives it to you. _I_ don't need it. She gives me all times something the while she's got such a kind feelin' over me. She goes all times on weddinges. Most all her younge lady friends gettin' married; ain't it funny?" At the fateful word "married," the uneasy cabinet closed in about Teacher. Their three pairs of eyes clung to her face as Isidore repeated: "All gettin' married. Ain't it funny?" "Well, no, dear," answered Teacher musingly. "You know nearly all young ladies do it." Patrick took a pin from Teacher's desk and kneeled to tie his shoe-string. When he rose the point of the pin projected half an inch beyond the frayed toe of his shoe, and he was armed. Morris was most evidently losing courage--he was indeed trying to steal away when Patrick pressed close beside him and held him to his post.