For a little while there was quite a scene at the little grocery, and it repented Mandoline that she had ever hidden Dotty’s hat.  The trundle-bed waked up at both ends and screamed; the black and tan dog, who slept under the counter in the store, barked lustily; the parrot in the blue cage called out, “Quit that! quit that!” and Mrs. Rosenberg was afraid a policeman would come in to inquire the cause of the uproar.  She pattered about in a pair of her husband’s cotton-velvet slippers, and tucked all her little ones into bed again, very much as if they had been clothes in a boiler, which she was forcing down with a stick.  She was a woman who would be obeyed; and Dotty, finding it of no use to hold out against fate, went up stairs at last, and lay down beside Mandoline on the “pin-feathers.”

This stolen visit had turned out quite, quite different from her anticipations.  Instead of a delightful supper of some mysterious Jewish cookery, she had been drinking gall and wormwood.  That Lina would not let her go—­THAT was the gall; that her father made her stay—­THIS was the wormwood.

“She is a tough piece,” sighed Mrs. Rosenberg, as she laid her weary limbs to repose; “I didn’t know, one while, but she’d get away in spite of me.  I wonder what her father’ll pay me.  He seems to think this is a house of correction.  Her mother won’t be likely to let her stay more than one day.  I’ll have on the best table-cloth for breakfast; and along in the forenoon I’ll fetch out some macaroni cakes and lager beer; that’ll coax her up, I guess.”

Just then Mrs. Rosenberg down stairs and Dotty Dimple up stairs both fell asleep.  One dreamed of running away and being chased by a dog with a hat on his head, who barked “Good-night” as fiercely as a bite.  The other dreamed of money and brown sugar.  And all the while the rats were treating themselves to nibbles of wood; but nobody heard them.  Be careful, old rats!  Your teeth have done mischief before now!  The night wore on to the wee small hours, when a loud noise like a cannon startled Mrs. Rosenberg; or was she dreaming?  The house was shaken to its very foundation, as if by an earthquake, and the room was full of smoke.  She was just running for the children, when the building fell together with a crash, the roof was blown off into the street, the windows were shivered to atoms, and tongues of flame leaped madly up from the ruins.

What did it mean?  She was so stunned by the shock that she scarcely cared whether one of her children was spared or not; she only thought in her stupor that Mr. Parlin would not pay her for Dotty’s lodging if the child was blown to pieces.

“I know how it happened,” said she, twitching at her own hair to arouse herself.  “Just as Abraham always said; the rats have been nibbling matches in the store; they’ve burned a hole through the floor, and set fire to that keg of gunpowder.  Yes, that’s it!”

CHAPTER VII.