“She wakes us up, so we can get out in time.  She’s a preacher’s daughter.  More than likely she draws the line at bloodshed.  That’s one reason.  Maybe there’s another.  What if by pressing a button somewhere and ringing that bell, it sets off a bomb somewhere?”

“It never has,” I observed dryly.

But however absurd Maggie’s logic might be, she was firm in her major premise.  Miss Emily had been on her hands and knees by the telephone-stand, and had, on seeing Maggie, observed that she had dropped the money for the hackman out of her glove.

“Which I don’t believe.  Her gloves were on the stand.  If you’ll come back, Miss Agnes, I’ll show you how she was.”

We made rather an absurd procession, Maggie leading with the saucer, I following, and the cat, appearing from nowhere as usual, bringing up the rear.  Maggie placed the jelly on the stand, and dropped on her hands and knees, crawling under the stand, a confused huddle of gingham apron, jelly-stains, and suspicion.

“She had her head down like this,” she said, in rather a smothered voice.  “I’m her, and you’re me.  And I says:  ’If it’s rolled off somewhere I’ll find it next time I sweep, and give it back to you.’  Well, what d’you think of that!  Here it is!”

My attention had by this time been caught by the jelly, now unmistakably solidifying in the center.  I moved to the kitchen door to tell Delia to take it off the fire.  When I returned, Maggie was digging under the telephone battery-box with a hair-pin and muttering to herself.

“Darnation!” she said, “it’s gone under!”

“If you do get it,” I reminded her, “it belongs to Miss Emily.”

There is a curious strain of cupidity in Maggie.  I have never been able to understand it.  With her own money she is as free as air.  But let her see a chance for illegitimate gain, of finding a penny on the street, of not paying her fare on the cars, of passing a bad quarter, and she is filled with an unholy joy.  And so today.  The jelly was forgotten.  Terror was gone.  All that existed for Maggie was a twenty-five cent piece under a battery-box.

Suddenly she wailed:  “It’s gone, Miss Agnes.  It’s clear under!”

“Good heavens, Maggie!  What difference does it make?”

“W’you mind if I got the ice-pick and unscrewed the box?”

My menage is always notoriously short of tools.

I forbade it at once, and ordered her back to the kitchen, and after a final squint along the carpet, head flat, she dragged herself out and to her feet.

“I’ll get the jelly off,” she said, “and then maybe a hat pin’ll reach it.  I can see the edge of it.”

A loud crack from the kitchen announced that cook had forgotten the silver spoon, and took Maggie off on a jump.  I went back to the library and “Bolivar County,” and, I must confess, to a nap in my chair.

I was roused by the feeling that some one was staring at me.  My eyes focused first on the icepick, then, as I slowly raised them, on Maggie’s face, set in hard and uncompromising lines.