“That roll of fiddle-de-dees has cost me about five hundred dollars,” she said.  “It’s been worth it if it teaches me that I’m an old fool and that you are two others!  If that boy shows his face here again, I’ll hand him over to the police.”

However, as it happened, she did nothing of the sort.  At four o’clock that afternoon there was a timid ring at the doorbell and I answered it.  Outside was Tufik, forlorn and drooping, and held up by main force by a tall, dark-skinned man with a heavy mustache.

“I bring your boy!” said the mustached person, smiling.  “He has great trouble—­sorrow; he faint with grief.”

I took a good look at Tufik then.  He was pale and shaky, and his new suit looked as if he had slept in it.  His collar was bent and wilted, and the green necktie had been taken off and exchanged for a ragged black one.

“Miss Liz!” he said huskily.  “I die; the heart is gone!  My parent—­”

He broke down again; and leaning against the door jamb he buried his face in a handkerchief that I could not believe was one of the lot we had bought only yesterday.  I hardly knew what to do.  Tish had said she was through with the boy.  I decided to close them out in the hallway until we had held a council; but Tufik’s foot was on the sill, and the more I asked him to move it, the harder he wept.

The mustached person said it was quite true.  Tufik’s father had died of the plague; the letter had come early that morning.  Beirut was full of the plague.  He waved the letter at me; but I ordered him to burn it immediately—­on account of germs.  I brought him a shovel to burn it on; and when that was over Tufik had worked out his own salvation.  He was at the door of Tish’s room, pouring out to Aggie and Tish his grief, and offering the black necktie as proof.

We were just where we had started, but minus one hundred and twenty dollars; for, the black-mustached gentleman having gone after trying to sell Tish another silk kimono, I demanded Tufik’s ticket—­to be redeemed—­and was met with two empty hands, outstretched.

“Oh, my friends,—­my Miss Tish, my Miss Liz, my Miss Ag,—­what must I say?  I have not the ticket!  I have been wikkid—­but for my sister—­only for my sister!  She must not die—­she so young, so little girl!”

“Tufik,” said Tish sternly, “I want you to tell us everything this minute, and get it over.”

“She ees so little!” he said wistfully.  “And the body of my parent—­could I let it lie and rot in the so hot sun?  Ah, no; Miss Tish, Miss Liz, Miss Ag,—­not so.  To-day I take back my ticket, get the money, and send it to my sister.  She will bury my parent, and then—­she comes to this so great America, the land of my good friends!”

There was a moment’s silence.  Then Aggie sneezed!

IV