tle mouths open, their eyes following the
queer human animals imprisoned on the other side of the plate-glass
window. Canary birds by the hundreds made the shop a trying one for
sensitive ears. There were no monkeys. Koschinsky, whose heart was as
soft as butter, though he was a formidable revolutionist--so he swore
over at Schwab's--declared that monkeys were made in the image of
tyrannical humans. He would have none of them. Parrots? There were
enough of the breed around him, he told the gossiping women, who, with
their _scheitels_, curved noses, and shining eyes, lent to the quarter
its Oriental quality.

It was in Koschinsky's place that Arthur first encountered Yetta. He was
always prowling about the East Side in search of sociological prey, and
the modest little woman with her intelligent and determined face
attracted him strongly. They fell into easy conversation near a cage of
canaries, and the acquaintance soon bloomed into a friendship. A week
after the raid on Schwab's, Arthur, very haggard and nervous, wandered
into Koschinsky's. The old man greeted him:--

"Hu! So you've just come down from the Island! Well--how did you like it
up there? Plenty water--eh?" The sarcasm was too plain, and the young
man, mumbling some sort of an answer, turned to go.

"Hold on there!" said Koschinsky. "I expect a very fine bird soon. You'd
better wait. It was here only last night; and the bird asked whether you
had been in." Arthur started.

"For me? Miss Silverman?"

"I said a bird," was the dogged reply. And then Yetta walked up to
Arthur and asked:--

"Where have you been? Why haven't you called?" He blushed.

"I was ashamed."

"Because you were so, so--frightened, that night?"

"Yes."

"But nothing came of the affair. The police could get no evidence. We
had no flags--"

"That scarlet one I saw you with--what of it?" She smiled.

"Did you look in your pockets when you got home? I stuffed the flag in
one of them while we were downstairs." He burst into genteel laughter.

"No, I threw off my clothes in such disgust that night that I vowed I
would never get into them again. I gave the suit to my valet."

"Your valet," she gravely returned; "he may become _one of us_."

"Fancy, when I reached the house--I went up in a hansom, for I was
bareheaded--my mother was giving the biggest kind of a ball. I had no
end of trouble trying to sneak in unobserved."

She regarded him steadily. "Isn't it strange," she went