window shades were down. The room was quite dark. On the bed was a
dimly distinguishable heap.

"Sh!" whispered Madame Rousseau, putting a finger to her lips--which
in the light of the sun were singularly red and unstarved.

"Sh!" echoed her husband.

"Sh!" said Rouquin.

On tip-toe they all advanced upon the heap, now resolved into a pile
of pink blankets. Mr. Bingle leaned far over the heap. Then he put on
his spectacles.

"Where is it?" he whispered.

"Mon dieu!" gulped the young mother, in consternation. She whipped the
blankets off the bed. There was no baby. A second later she darted
through a door on the opposite side of the room, slamming it violently
behind her. Monsieur Rousseau started to laugh but cut it short and
sputtered Mon dieu three or four times in a choked voice.

"What does all this mean?" demanded Mr. Bingle. "God bless my soul!"

In the meantime, Madame Rousseau was confronting a motherly looking
person in Monsieur Rouquin's bath-room, down the little hall. The
motherly looking person was holding a fat, yellow-headed baby on her
lap and to the mouth of the fat, yellow-headed baby was attached the
business end of a half-emptied milk-bottle.