“Laurence! Laurence!” said Mrs. Coy. “What _is_ the matter, dear? It seems to me you’re really not at all polite to poor little Daisy.” Laurence pursued the line of conduct he had set for himself as his only means of safety. “I wouldn’t be polite to her,” he said; “I wouldn’t be polite to her if I had to eat a million——” “Laurence!” “I wouldn’t!” he stoutly maintained. “Not if I had to eat a million, _million_——” “Never mind!” his mother said with some emphasis. “Plenty of the other boys will be delighted to play with dear little Daisy.” “No,” said Daisy brightly, “I _got_ to play with Laurence.” Laurence looked at her. When a grown person looks at another in that way, it is time for the police, and Mrs. Coy was conscious of an emergency. She took Laurence by the shoulders, faced him about and told him to run and play with some one else; then she turned back to Daisy. “We’ll find some _nice_ little boy——” she began. But Daisy had followed Laurence. She gave him a lively tap on the shoulder. “Got your tag!” she cried, and darted away, but as he did not follow, she returned to him. “Well, what _are_ we goin’ to play?” she inquired. Laurence gave her another look. “You hang around me a little longer,” he said, “an’ I’ll—I’ll—I’ll——” Again came the giggled whisper: “_She’s your girl!_” Laurence ran amuck. Head down, he charged into the group whence came the whisper, and successfully dispersed it. The component parts fled, squawking; Laurence pursued; boys tripped one another, wrestled, skirmished in groups; and, such moods being instantly contagious among males under twelve, many joined in the assault with a liveliness not remote, at least in appearance, from lunacy. “Laurence! Laurence!” his mother exclaimed in vain, for he was the chief disturber; but he was too actively occupied in that capacity to be aware of her. She and Aunt Ella could only lament and begin to teach the little girls and two or three of the older and nobler boys to “play games,” while troups of gangsters swept out of the room, then through it and out again, through other rooms, through halls and then were heard whooping and thumping on the front stairway. One little girl was not with the rather insulted players of the cardboard games in the living-room. She accompanied the gangsters, rioting with the best, her little muslin skirt fluttering with the speed of her going; while ever was heard, with slight intermission, her piercing battle-cry: “_Hay_, there, Mister! _I’ll_ show you!” But the male chorus had a new libretto to work from, evidently: all through the house, upstairs, downstairs and in my lady’s chamber, their merciless gaieties resounded: “Ya-a-ay, Laur-runce! Wait for your _girl_! Your _girl_ wants you, Laurunce!” “What a curious child that Daisy Mears is!” Aunt Ella said to Laurence’s mother. “I’d always thought she was such a quiet little girl.”