Lichtenstein, having carefully replaced the fire-backs, rose smiling, and clapped a hand upon Bubbles’s shoulder.

“Now then, Bubbles,” he said, “push that bell-button by the door four times, and we’ll see what Mrs. Popple can do to get us out of this.  Never met Mrs. Popple?  She’s one of us, and at heart a good one.”

The lady in question came swiftly in answer to the four rings.  At first sight she passed for a woman of hard and forbidding aspect; filmy laces and a clinging kimona of rose-pink silk neither softened nor made feminine the alabaster-colored face with its thin, straight mouth, heavy hairy eyebrows, and clean-cut Greek nose.  Only her costume and her hair, indescribably fine, and indescribably yellow, betrayed that there were follies in her nature.  But the moment she spoke you liked her.  She had a slow, deep, beautiful voice, and the slowness of her speech was offset by the fewness of her words.

“What’s wrong, Abe?”

Lichtenstein explained briefly, and added:  “Now how are we to get out of this without being spotted and followed?”

“Easy,” said Mrs. Popple.  She went to a vast wardrobe painted white, and pulled the creaking doors wide open.  “Wedge the man into one dress,” she said, “pad the boy into another.  Send ’em off in a taxi.  Now, boy.  Is this Bubbles?  Pleased to meet you.  I’m old enough to be your grandmother.”

The words were a command, and the boy, much embarrassed, began to take off his coat.

“Get busy, Abe.  Can take your own things along in a suit-case.  I don’t look, see?  I’m looking out duds for you.  What’s that?  Razor?  Find everything in medicine-closet over wash-basin in bath-room.”

Lichtenstein disappeared, and gave forth presently the rasping sounds of a man shaving in a hurry.  And in the meanwhile, always swift and sure, Mrs. Popple initiated Bubbles into the ABC’s of female attire.

“No trouble about a straight front for you,” she chuckled, and gave a sudden strong tug at the laces of Bubbles’s corsets.  He gasped, and the tears came to his eyes.

“Mind to take little steps,” she said, “and don’t swing your arms.”  She clasped a blond wig upon his head, and drew back to see the effect.

“Abe,” she called, “she’s a pippin!”

A moment later she frowned, almost savagely, laid her finger on her lips, knelt at the fireplace, thrust her head far in and listened intently.

Lichtenstein, one side of his face in lather, appeared at the bath-room door.  His eyes on the crouching figure of Mrs. Popple, he continued calmly and methodically to shave himself.

After an interval the woman rose, and shook her head.

“Can’t make out who’s in there,” she whispered.  “Have Lizzie watch front window see who goes out.”

Lichtenstein nodded, washed the tag ends of lather from his face, and proceeded in dead silence to dress himself as a lady of somewhat doubtful age, looks, and position.  But Bubbles would have made a very pretty girl, if Mrs. Popple had not insisted on powdering his face till it was as white as that of a clown.