“Why?  To have them read in my face what I’ve been, and go back home to die of shame?”

The Probationer looked at the Avenue Girl’s face.

“There—­there is nothing in your face to hurt them,” she said, flushing—­because there were some things the Probationer had never discussed, even with herself.  “You—­look sad.  Honestly, that’s all.”

The Avenue Girl held up her thin right hand.  The forefinger was still yellow from cigarettes.

“What about that?” she sneered.

“If I bleach it will you let me send for your people?”

“I’ll—­perhaps,” was the most the Probationer could get.

Many people would have been discouraged.  Even the Senior was a bit cynical.  It took a Probationer still heartsick for home to read in the Avenue Girl’s eyes the terrible longing for the things she had given up—­for home and home folks; for a clean slate again.  The Probationer bleached and scrubbed the finger, and gradually a little of her hopeful spirit touched the other girl.

“What day is it?” the Avenue Girl asked once.

“Friday.”

“That’s baking day at home.  We bake in an out-oven.  Did you ever smell bread as it comes from an out-oven?” Or:  “That’s a pretty shade of blue you nurses wear.  It would be nice for working in the dairy, wouldn’t it?”

“Fine!” said the Probationer, and scrubbed away to hide the triumph in her eyes.

III

That was the day the Dummy stole the parrot.  The parrot belonged to the Girl; but how did he know it?  So many things he should have known the Dummy never learned; so many things he knew that he seemed never to have learned!  He did not know, for instance, of Father Feeny and the Holy Name students; but he knew of the Avenue Girl’s loneliness and heartache, and of the cabal against her.  It is one of the black marks on record against him that he refused to polish the plate on Old Maggie’s bed, and that he shook his fist at her more than once when the Senior was out of the ward.

And he knew of the parrot.  That day, then, a short, stout woman with a hard face appeared in the superintendent’s office and demanded a parrot.

“Parrot?” said the superintendent blandly.

“Parrot!  That crazy man you keep here walked into my house to-day and stole a parrot—­and I want it.”

“The Dummy!  But what on earth——­”

“It was my parrot,” said the woman.  “It belonged to one of my boarders.  She’s a burned case up in one of the wards—­and she owed me money.  I took it for a debt.  You call that man and let him look me in the eye while I say parrot to him.”

“He cannot speak or hear.”

“You call him.  He’ll understand me!”

They found the Dummy coming stealthily down from the top of the stable and haled him into the office.  He was very calm—­quite impassive.  Apparently he had never seen the woman before; as she raged he smiled cheerfully and shook his head.