g to overtake the lassie. "Here's
a penny. I was gangin' for milk for the porridge. We can do wi'oot the
day."

And there was the money for the broth bone, and the farthing that
would have filled the gude-man's evening pipe, and the ha'penny for the
grandmither's tea. It was the world-over story of the poor helping the
poor. The progress of Ailie and Tammy through the tenements was like
that of the piper through Hamelin. The children gathered and gathered,
and followed at their heels, until a curiously quiet mob of threescore
or more crouched in the court of the old hall of the Knights of St.
John, in the Grassmarket, to count the many copper coins in Tammy's
woolen bonnet.

"Five shullin's, ninepence, an' a ha'penny," Tammy announced. And then,
after calculation on his fingers, "It'll tak' a shullin' an' twapenny
ha'penny mair."

There was a gasping breath of bitter disappointment, and one wee laddie
wailed for lost Bobby. At that Ailie dashed the tears from her own eyes
and sprang up, spurred to desperate effort. She would storm the all but
hopeless attic chambers. Up the twisting turnpike stairs on the outer
wall she ran, to where the swallows wheeled about the cornices, and she
could hear the iron cross of the Knights Templars creak above the gable.
Then, all the way along a dark passage, at one door after another, she
knocked, and cried,

"Do ye ken Greyfriars Bobby?"

At some of the doors there was no answer. At others students stared out
at the bairn, not in the least comprehending this wild crying. Tears of
anger and despair flooded the little maid's blue eyes when she beat on
the last door of the row with her doubled fist.

"Do ye ken Greyfriars Bobby? The police are gangin' to mak' 'im be
deid--" As the door was flung open she broke into stormy weeping.

"Hey, lassie. I know the dog. What fashes you?"

There stood a tall student, a wet towel about his head, and, behind
him, the rafters of the dormer-lighted closet were as thickly hung
with bunches of dried herbs from the Botanical Garden as any auld witch
wife's kitchen.

"Oh, are ye kennin' 'im? Isna he bonny an' sonsie? Gie me the shullin'
an' twapenny ha' penny we're needin', so the police wullna put 'im
awa'."

"Losh! It's a license you're wanting? I wish I had as many shullings
as I've had gude times with Bobby, and naething to pay for his braw
company."

For this was Geordie Ross, going through the Medical College with the
help of Heriot'