an exclamation of surprise he
released the arm.

"Pretty skinny," the superintendent laughed anxiously.

"Pipe stems," was the answer. "Look at those legs. The boy's got the
rickets--incipient, but he's got them. If epilepsy doesn't get him in
the end, it will be because tuberculosis gets him first."

Johnny listened, but did not understand. Furthermore he was not
interested in future ills. There was an immediate and more serious ill
that threatened him in the form of the inspector.

"Now, my boy, I want you to tell me the truth," the inspector said, or
shouted, bending close to the boy's ear to make him hear. "How old are
you?"

"Fourteen," Johnny lied, and he lied with the full force of his lungs.
So loudly did he lie that it started him off in a dry, hacking cough
that lifted the lint which had been settling in his lungs all morning.

"Looks sixteen at least," said the superintendent.

"Or sixty," snapped the inspector.

"He's always looked that way."

"How long?" asked the inspector, quickly.

"For years. Never gets a bit older."

"Or younger, I dare say. I suppose he's worked here all those years?"

"Off and on--but that was before the new law was passed," the
superintendent hastened to add.

"Machine idle?" the inspector asked, pointing at the unoccupied machine
beside Johnny's, in which the part-filled bobbins were flying like mad.

"Looks that way." The superintendent motioned the overseer to him and
shouted in his ear and pointed at the machine. "Machine's idle," he
reported back to the inspector.

They passed on, and Johnny returned to his work, relieved in that the
ill had been averted. But the one-legged boy was not so fortunate. The
sharp-eyed inspector haled him out at arms length from the bin truck.
His lips were quivering, and his face had all the expression of one upon
whom was fallen profound and irremediable disaster. The overseer looked
astounded, as though for the first time he had laid eyes on the boy,
while the superintendent's face expressed shock and displeasure.

"I know him," the inspector said. "He's twelve years old. I've had him
discharged from three factories inside the year. This makes the fourth."

He turned to the one-legged boy. "You promised me, word and honour, that
you'd go to school."

The one-legged boy burst into tears. "Please, Mr. Inspector, two babies
died on us, and we're awful poor."

"What makes you cough that way?" the inspector demanded, as though