17 fell vacant, and
Hymie Solomon received it. That was the influence, he was "holding down
a job." Two days later he discovered a market for surplus textbooks and
other school supplies. Thus was the income assured. No one could doubt
Miss Blake was familiar with the rules.

"You'd never believe," said she to her neighbor in fond and unfounded
pride, "what a little responsibility will do for an almost incorrigible
boy. You wouldn't know Hymie. He stays behind almost every afternoon
when I go home, getting things straightened out."

"They all have their good points," said Constance Bailey. "I am thinking
of doing something of the same kind about Isidore Cohen. We must hold
their interest, you know."

It was about a week later. Miss Bailey and her monitors were putting
Room 18 to rights after the stress and storm of the day. Gold-fish,
window-boxes, canaries, and pencil points were all being ministered to
by their respective supervisors, and the door opened and Gertie
Armusheffsky appeared. Such a distracted, tear-stained, white-lipped
Gertie that Miss Bailey swept her monitors into their weird wrappings
and dismissed them with all speed.

"I can't go home," cried Gertie in desperation. "Honest, Miss Bailey,
he'd kill me if I did."

And after listening to the girl's story, Miss Bailey congratulated
herself that she had no other charges old enough to be caught in trouble
as difficult.

Old Mr. Armusheffsky had read of a fire in a Brooklyn glove factory:
hundreds of pairs of damaged gloves were spoken of. Now Mr. Armusheffsky
kept his store very dark, and only the most fatal damages could be
detected in its dim light. Catastrophes such as this of the glove
factory were his opportunities. He always--he never left the store--sent
Gertie to negotiate with the bereaved manufacturers, the insurance
agents, or whoever chanced to be in authority over the debris. Upon this
day there chanced to be no debris: the fire and the firemen had done
their work. There was no one even to interview. And Gertie, somewhat
apprehensive as to her grandfather's displeasure and disappointment, set
out for home. She enlivened her homeward way by a visit to a big
department store, where she envied the be-pompadoured damsels behind the
counters; plunged into the squirming crowd around a bargain table and
secured a jabot of real German Mechlin lace for thirteen cents. After
this transaction she had in her purse the twelve cents left of her
quar