s, it's nothin' if you get used to it. There's nothin' dull
about my business, unless it rains, and you get used to havin' people
look at you."

"It isn't all that are worth looking at like you, Mrs. O'Keefe," said
Dodger, slyly.

"Oh, go away wid your fun, Dodger," said the apple-woman,
good-naturedly. "I ain't much to look at, I know."

"I think there's a good deal of you to look at, Mrs. O'Keefe. You must
weigh near three hundred."

"I've a good mind to box your ears, Dodger. I only weigh a hundred and
ninety-five. But I can't be bothered wid your jokes. Can you sew, Miss
Florence?"

"Yes; but I would rather earn my living some other way, if possible."

"Small blame to you for that. I had a girl in Dodger's room last year
who used to sew for a livin'. Early and late she worked, poor thing,
and she couldn't make but two dollars a week."

"How could she live?" asked Florence, startled, for she knew very
little of the starvation wages paid to toiling women.

"She didn't live. She just faded away, and it's my belief the poor
thing didn't get enough to eat. Every day or two I'd make an excuse to
take her in something from my own table, a plate of meat, or a bit of
toast and a cup of tay, makin' belave she didn't get a chance to cook
for herself, but she got thinner and thinner, and her poor cheeks got
hollow, and she died in the hospital at last."

The warm-hearted apple-woman wiped away a tear with the corner of her
apron, as she thought of the poor girl whose sad fate she described.

"You won't die of consumption, Mrs. O'Keefe," said Dodger. "It'll take
a good while for you to fade away."

"Hear him now," said the apple-woman, laughing. "He will have his
joke, Miss Florence, but he's a good bye for all that, and I'm glad
he's goin' to lave Tim Bolton, that ould thafe of the worruld."

"Now, Mrs. O'Keefe, you know you'd marry Tim if he'd only ask you."

"Marry him, is it? I'd lay my broom over his head if he had the
impudence to ask me. When Maggie O'Keefe marries ag'in, she won't
marry a man wid a red nose."

"Break it gently to him, Mrs. O'Keefe. Tim is just the man to break
his heart for love of you."

Mrs. O'Keefe aimed a blow at Dodger, but he proved true to his name,
and skillfully evaded it.

"I must be goin'," he said. "I've got to work, or I can't pay room
rent when the week comes round."

"What are you going to do, Dodger?" asked Florence.

"It isn't time for the evenin' papers yet, so I