"Sadie Gonorowsky, come here!" commanded Miss Bailey, in a voice which lifted Sadie bodily from the place to which she had guiltily determined to cling. And Sadie went, jaunty of air, but with shifting eyes. "Isidore Belchatosky, come here!" commanded Miss Bailey, and Isidore slunk after his divinity. Teacher was savagely angry, but bylaws forbade corporal punishment, and principles--and the Principal--forbade noisy upbraidings. And so with long, strange words, to supply the element of dread uncertainty, she began to speak, slowly and coldly as one ever should when addressing ears accustomed to much sputtering profanity. "Sadie and Isidore, did you dare to interfere with the life, the liberty and the happiness of our cherished young friend, Eva Gonorowsky? Did you _dare_?" "No ma'an," said Sadie with a sob. "It's a lie!" said Isidore with a snuffle. "Did you, Isidore, allow yourself to be tempted by beauty to such inconceivable depravity as to blacken Eva's eye?" "No ma'an. Self done it." "Did you, Sadie, descend so low as to barter kisses with Isidore Belchatosky?" "No ma'an," this with much scorn. "I wouldn't to kiss him; he's a scare-cat, und he tells out." "What did he tell?" asked Teacher. "He tells out how I say I kiss him a kiss so he make Eva a shiner. Und I wouldn't to do it. Never. So he gave me five cents even, I wouldn't to kiss no scare-cat." "Well, then, why did you promise?" "'Cause I couldn't to hit her mineself," said the doughty Sadie. She was inches taller than her victim, and stout withal. "I couldn't, 'cause I ain't so healthy; I'm a nervous child, Teacher, und I was day-before-yesterday sick on the bed." Here the plaintive plaintiff showed a desire to testify once more, and Teacher appointed three-thirty that afternoon as the hour most suitable for a thorough examination of the case. When the last arm had been twisted into the last sleeve, when the last chin had been tied into the last shawl, when the last dispute as to ownership in disreputable mittens had been settled, the great case of Gonorowsky _vs._ Gonorowsky was called. On either side of the desk stood a diminutive Gonorowsky; Eva still plaintive, and Sadie, redly, on the defensive. Directly in front stood that labourer defrauded of his hire, that tool in the hands of guileful woman--Isidore Belchatosky. "Now," Teacher began, "I want to hear nothing but the truth. Isidore, did you hit Eva?" "Yiss ma'an." "What for?" "For a kiss." "From whom?" Here Sadie muttered a threat "to lay him down dead if he tells," and Isidore required promise of safe conduct to his own block before he consented to murmur: "Sadie Gonorowsky." "Did you get the kiss?" "No ma'an." "Do you know anything about this fight?" "No ma'an." "Well, then, you may go home now, and bring your mother with you to-morrow morning." Isidore left with a heavy heart and the enquiry was continued.