MOBILE DIGITAL LIBRARY - SOCIETY OF YOUNG NIGERIAN ...

everything in the apartment went Mrs. Mowgelewsky and Morris. All the joy ofhome-coming and of well-being was darkened and blotted out by this new calamity. AndMrs. Mowgelewsky beat her breast and tore her hair, and Constance Bailey almost weptin sympathy. But the pocket-book was gone, absolutely gone, though Mrs. Mowgelewskycalled Heaven and earth to witness that she had had it in her hand when she came in.Another month's rent was due; the money to pay it was in the pocket-book. Mr.Mowgelewsky had visited his wife on Sunday, and had given her all his earnings as somesalve to the pain of her eyes. Eviction, starvation, every kind of terror and disaster werethrown into Mrs. Mowgelewsky's wailing, and Morris proved an able second to hismother.Miss Bailey was doing frantic bookkeeping in her charitable mind, and was wonderinghow much of the loss she might replace. She was about to suggest as a last resort that asearch should be made of the dark and crannied stairs, where a purse, if the Fates werevery, very kind, might lie undiscovered for hours, when a dull scratching made itselfheard through the general lamentation. It came from a point far down on the panel of thedoor, and the same horrible conviction seized upon Morris and upon Miss Bailey at thesame moment.Mrs. Mowgelewsky in her frantic round had approached the door for the one-hundredthtime, and with eyes and mind far removed from what she was doing, she turned the