r parts as
accurately as a spectacled student with a scalpel and microscope could
talk about a cadaver. The entire Third District, with its swamps and
canals and commons and railroad sections, and its wondrous, crooked,
tortuous streets was as an open book to Titee. There was not a nook or
corner that he did not know or could tell of. There was not a bit of
gossip among the gamins, little Creole and Spanish fellows, with dark
skins and lovely eyes like Spaniels, that Titee could not tell of. He
knew just exactly when it was time for crawfish to be plentiful down in
the Claiborne and Marigny canals; just when a poor, breadless fellow
might get a job in the big bone-yard and fertilizing factory out on the
railroad track; and as for the levee, with its ships and schooners and
sailors--Oh, how he could revel among them! The wondrous ships, the
pretty little schooners, where the foreign-looking sailors lay on long
moon-lit nights, singing gay bar carols to the tinkle of a guitar and
mandolin. All these things, and more, could Titee tell of. He had been
down to the Gulf, and out on its treacherous waters through Eads Jetties
on a fishing smack, with some jolly, brown sailors, and could interest
the whole school-room in the "talk lessons," if he chose.

Titee shivered as the wind swept round the freight cars. There isn't
much warmth in a bit of a jersey coat.

"Wish 'twas summer," he murmured, casting another sailor's glance at the
sky. "Don't believe I like snow, it's too wet and cold." And, with a
last parting caress at the little fire he had builded for a minute's
warmth, he plunged his hands in his pockets, shut his teeth, and started
manfully on his mission out the railroad track towards the swamps.

It was late when Titee came home, to such a home as it was, and he had
but illy performed his errand, so his mother beat him, and sent him to
bed supperless. A sharp strap stings in cold weather, and long walks in
the teeth of a biting wind creates a keen appetite. But if Titee cried
himself to sleep that night, he was up bright and early next morning,
and had been to early mass, devoutly kneeling on the cold floor,
blowing his fingers to keep them warm, and was home almost before the
rest of the family was awake.

There was evidently some great matter of business in this young man's
mind, for he scarcely ate his breakfast, and had left the table, eagerly
cramming the remainder of his meal in his pockets.

"I wonder what