Helen stood, half
fearful, and reached it, Sadie Goronsky came bounding out of the house.
Instantly she took a hand--and as usual a master hand--in the affair.

"What you doin' to that old man, you Izzy Strefonifsky? And, Freddie
Bloom, you stop or I'll tell your mommer! Ike, let him alone, or I'll make
your ears tingle myself--I can do it, too!"

Sadie charged as she commanded. The hoodlums scattered--some laughing,
some not so easily intimidated. But the old man was clinging to the rail
and muttering over and over to himself:

"They got my dollar--they got my dollar."

"What's that?" cried Sadie, coming back after chasing the last of the boys
off the block. "What's the matter, Mr. Lurcher?"

"My dollar--they got my dollar," muttered the old man.

"Oh, dear!" whispered Helen. "And perhaps it was all he had."

"You can bet it was," said Sadie, angrily. "The likes of him wouldn't
likely have _two_ dollars all at once! I'd like to scalp those imps! That
I would!"

The old man, paying little attention to the two girls, but still muttering
about his loss, lurched away on his erratic course homeward.

"Chee!" said Sadie. "Ain't that tough luck? He lives right around the
corner, all alone. And he's just as poor as he can be. I don't know what
his real name is. But the boys guy him sumpin' fierce! Ain't it mean?"

"It certainly is," agreed Helen.

"Say!" said Sadie, abruptly, but looking at Helen with sheepish eye.

"Well, what?"

"Say, was yer _honest_ goin' to blow seventy cents for that feed I spoke
of up on Grand Street?"

"Certainly. And I----"

"And a dime to the waiter?"

"Of course."

"That's eighty cents," ran on Sadie, glibly enough now. "And twenty would
make a dollar. I'll dig up the twenty cents to put with your eighty, and
what d'ye say we run after old Lurcher an' give him a dollar--say we found
it, you know--and then go upstairs to my house for dinner? Mommer's got a
nice dinner, and she'd like to see you again fine!"

"I'll do it!" cried Helen, pulling out her purse at once. "Here! Here's a
dollar bill. You run after him and give it to him. You can give me the
twenty cents later."

"Sure!" cried the Russian girl, and she was off around the corner in the
wake of the Lurcher, with flying feet.

Helen waited for her friend to return, just inside the tenement house
door. When Sadie reappeared, Helen hugged her tight and kissed her.

"You are a _dear_!" the Western girl cried. "I do love