and dropped the letter into a mail box.
But from the moment the letter left his hands, his anxiety while
waiting for an answer became such a burden that he was unable to attend
to his duties, and had to ask for a lay-off. As hours were added to
hours and days to days without an answer arriving, the strain of the
suspense finally became so fearful that mute desperation was written in
every line of his face, and to end the misery he was busily packing his
suitcase ready to leave for Rugby, letter or no letter, the following
morning and there upon his knees plead with his mother to forgive his
boyish prank, when someone knocked on the door and when he opened it he
found it was his landlady who handed him a letter, and he recognized it
as being the same one he had addressed to his mother at Rugby, but there
was this time written across its face: "Moved to Canada. Present address
unknown."

Joe stared at the letter for some moments as if dazed, then he locked
the door, and when on the following afternoon his landlady knocked to
inquire if anything was wanted he opened it. His bed was still
unruffled, showing that he had not occupied it during the night, and
when she saw the same letter she had brought to him, its writing blurred
and tear-stained, lying open upon the dresser, and noted the red and
swollen eyes and woe-begone expression of Joe's face, her motherly heart
quickly surmised the pitiful drama that had been enacted behind the
closed door of the room. She stepped close to the broken-hearted man,
who was sitting upon a chair, mutely holding his head between his hands,
and while she lightly stroked his hair she pleaded with him to go to the
street, as she thought that mingling with the crowds would prove the
best heart-balm for him.

Joe took his kind landlady's advice, and while walking about the streets
he felt that the pangs of remorse for the prank which had deprived him
of his good mother were less severe, and when he began to feel more like
his former self he retraced his steps to his lodging house.

When he reached South Clark Street, his progress was blocked by a jam
of vehicle traffic. The ever increasing crowd of delayed people forced
Joe into the vestibule of one of the many slum saloons abounding in that
locality, and here he watched the mounted police hard at work trying to
again open the thoroughfare. While he thus passed the time until he
could cross the street, he was accosted by a typical Chicago rum