uddenly they were all
inside, overwrought Ailie on the floor, clasping the little dog and
crying hysterically.

"Bobby's no' deid! Bobby's no' deid! Oh, Maister Traill, ye wullna hae
to gie 'im up to the police! Tammy's got the seven shullin's in 'is
bonnet!"

And there was small Tammy, crutches dropped and pouring that offering
of love and mercy out at the foot of an altar in old St. Giles. Such an
astonishing pile of copper coins it was, that it looked to the landlord
like the loot of some shopkeeper's change drawer.

"Eh, puir laddie, whaur did ye get it a' noo?" he asked, gravely.

Tammy was very self-possessed and proud. "The bairnies aroond the
kirkyaird gie'd it to pay the police no' to mak' Bobby be deid."

Mr. Traill flashed a glance at Glenormiston. It was a look at once of
triumph and of humility over the Herculean deed of these disinherited
children. But the Lord Provost was gazing at that crowd of pale bairns,
products of the Old Town's ancient slums, and feeling, in his own
person, the civic shame of it. And he was thinking, thinking, that he
must hasten that other project nearest his heart, of knocking holes in
solid rows of foul cliffs, in the Cowgate, on High Street, and around
Greyfriars. It was an incredible thing that such a flower of affection
should have bloomed so sweetly in such sunless cells. And it was a new
gospel, at that time, that a dog or a horse or a bird might have its
mission in this world of making people kinder and happier.

They were all down on the floor, in the space before the altar,
unwashed, uncombed, unconscious of the dirty rags that scarce covered
them; quite happy and self-forgetful in the charming friskings and
friendly lollings of the well-fed, carefully groomed, beautiful little
dog. Ailie, still so excited that she forgot to be shy, put Bobby
through his pretty tricks. He rolled over and over, he jumped, he danced
to Tammy's whistling of "Bonnie Dundee," he walked on his hind legs and
louped at a bonnet, he begged, he lifted his short shagged paw and shook
hands. Then he sniffed at the heap of coins, looked up inquiringly at
Mr. Traill, and, concluding that here was some property to be guarded,
stood by the "siller" as stanchly as a soldier. It was just pure
pleasure to watch him.

Very suddenly the Lord Provost changed his mind. A sacred kirk was the
very best place of all to settle this little dog's affairs. The offering
of these children could not be refused.