ice."

"With the gweatez of pleazheh, seh." The clerk began his usual shifting
of costume. "Yesseh! I assu' you, Doctah, that is a p'oposition moze
enti'ly to my satizfagtion; faw I am suffe'ing faw a smoke, and
deztitute of a ciga'ette! I am aztonizh' 'ow I did that, to egshauz them
unconsciouzly, in fact." He received the advertisement in an envelope,
whipped his shoes a little with his handkerchief, and went out. One
would think to hear him thundering down the stairs, that it was
twenty-five cents' worth of ice.

"Hold o--" The Doctor started from his seat, then turned and paced
feebly up and down. Who, besides Richling, might see that notice? What
might be its unexpected results? Who was John Richling? A man with a
secret at the best; and a secret, in Dr. Sevier's eyes, was detestable.
Might not Richling be a man who had fled from something? "No! no!" The
Doctor spoke aloud. He had promised to think nothing ill of him. Let the
poor children have their silly secret. He spoke again: "They'll find out
the folly of it by and by." He let the advertisement go; and it went.

CHAPTER XVII.

RAPHAEL RISTOFALO.

Richling had a dollar in his pocket. A man touched him on the shoulder.

But let us see. On the day that John and Mary had sold their only
bedstead, Mrs. Riley, watching them, had proposed the joint home. The
offer had been accepted with an eagerness that showed itself in nervous
laughter. Mrs. Riley then took quarters in Prieur street, where John and
Mary, for a due consideration, were given a single neatly furnished back
room. The bedstead had brought seven dollars. Richling, on the day after
the removal, was in the commercial quarter, looking, as usual, for
employment.

The young man whom Dr. Sevier had first seen, in the previous October,
moving with a springing step and alert, inquiring glances from number to
number in Carondelet street was slightly changed. His step was firm, but
something less elastic, and not quite so hurried. His face was more
thoughtful, and his glance wanting in a certain dancing freshness that
had been extremely pleasant. He was walking in Poydras street toward the
river.

As he came near to a certain man who sat in the entrance of a store with
the freshly whittled corner of a chair between his knees, his look and
bow were grave, but amiable, quietly hearty, deferential, and also
self-respectful--and uncommercial: so palpably uncommercial that the
sitter did not rise or e