INTRODUCING "MUMBLES"  Major Gregory Doyle paced nervously up and down the floor of the cosy sitting room. "Something's surely happened to our Patsy!" he exclaimed. A little man with a calm face and a bald head, who was seated near the fire, continued to read his newspaper and paid no attention to the outburst. "Something has happened to Patsy!" repeated the Major, "Patsy" meaning his own and only daughter Patricia. "Something is always happening to everyone," said the little man, turning his paper indifferently. "Something is happening to me, for I can't find the rest of this article. Something is happening to you, for you're losing your temper." "I'm not, sir! I deny it." "As for Patsy," continued the other, "she is sixteen years old and knows New York like a book. The girl is safe enough." "Then where is she? Tell me that, sir. Here it is, seven o'clock, dark as pitch and raining hard, and Patsy is never out after six. Can you, John Merrick, sit there like a lump o' putty and do nothing, when your niece and my own darlin' Patsy is lost--or strayed or stolen?" "What would you propose doing?" asked Uncle John, looking up with a smile. "We ought to get out the police department. It's raining and cold, and--" "Then we ought to get out the fire department. Call Mary to put on more coal and let's have it warm and cheerful when Patsy comes in." "But, sir--" "The trouble with you, Major, is that dinner is half an hour late. One can imagine all sorts of horrible things on an empty stomach. Now, then--" He paused, for a pass-key rattled in the hall door and a moment later Patsy Doyle, rosy and animated, fresh from the cold and wet outside, smilingly greeted them. She had an umbrella, but her cloak was dripping with moisture and in its ample folds was something huddled and bundled up like a baby, which she carefully protected.  

THE DOYLES ARE ASTONISHED  It was Sunday afternoon in Miss Patricia Doyle's pretty flat at 3708 Willing Square. In the small drawing room Patricia--or Patsy, as she preferred to be called--was seated at the piano softly playing the one "piece" the music teacher had succeeded in drilling into her flighty head by virtue of much patience and perseverance. In a thick cushioned morris-chair reclined the motionless form of Uncle John, a chubby little man in a gray suit, whose features were temporarily eclipsed by the newspaper that was spread carefully over them. Occasionally a gasp or a snore from beneath the paper suggested that the little man was "snoozing" as he sometimes gravely called it, instead of listening to the music. Major Doyle sat opposite, stiffly erect, with his admiring eyes full upon Patsy. At times he drummed upon the arms of his chair in unison with the music, nodding his grizzled head to mark the time as well as to emphasize his evident approbation. Patsy had played this same piece from start to finish seven times since dinner, because it was the only one she knew; but the Major could have listened to it seven hundred times without the flicker of an eyelash. It was not that he admired so much the "piece" the girl was playing as the girl who was playing the "piece." His pride in Patsy was unbounded. That she should have succeeded at all in mastering that imposing looking instrument--making it actually "play chunes"--was surely a thing to wonder at. But then, Patsy could do anything, if she but tried. Suddenly Uncle John gave a dreadful snort and sat bolt upright, gazing at his companions with a startled look that melted into one of benign complacency as he observed his surroundings and realized where he was. The interruption gave Patsy an opportunity to stop playing the tune. She swung around on the stool and looked with amusement at her newly awakened uncle. "You've been asleep," she said. "No, indeed; quite a mistake," replied the little man, seriously. "I've only been thinking." "An' such _beaut_chiful thoughts," observed the Major, testily, for he resented the interruption of his Sunday afternoon treat. "You thought 'em aloud, sir, and the sound of it was a bad imithation of a bullfrog in a marsh. You'll have to give up eating the salad, sir."