ldered,
wishing to be polite, yet unable to follow the old man's mutterings.

"He's not talking to you," remarked Travis, without lowering her voice.
"You know how Papum goes on. He won't hear a word you say. Well, I
read your story in this morning's 'Times.'"

A few moments later, while Travers and Condy were still discussing this
story, Mr. Bessemer rose. "Well, Mr. Rivers," he announced, "I guess
I'll say good-night. Come, Snooky."

"Yes, take her with you, Papum," said Travis. "She'll go to sleep on
the lounge here if you don't. Howard, have you got your lessons for
to-morrow?"

It appeared that he had not. Snooky whined to stay up a little longer,
but at last consented to go with her father. They all bade Condy
good-night and took themselves away, Howard lingering a moment in the
door in the hope of the nickel he dared not ask for. Maggie reappeared
to clear away the table.

"Let's go in the parlor," suggested Travis, rising. "Don't you want
to?"

The parlor was the front room overlooking the street, and was reached
by the long hall that ran the whole length of the flat, passing by the
door of each one of its eight rooms in turn.

Travis preceded Condy, and turned up one of the burners in colored
globe of the little brass chandelier.

The parlor was a small affair, peopled by a family of chairs and sofas
robed in white drugget. A gold-and-white effect had been striven for
throughout the room. The walls had been tinted instead of papered, and
bunches of hand-painted pink flowers tied up with blue ribbons
straggled from one corner of the ceiling. Across one angle of the room
straddled a brass easel upholding a crayon portrait of Travis at the
age of nine, "enlarged from a photograph." A yellow drape ornamented
one corner of the frame, while another drape of blue depended from one
end of the mantelpiece.

The piano, upon which nobody ever played, balanced the easel in an
opposite corner. Over the mantelpiece hung in a gilded frame a steel
engraving of Priscilla and John Alden; and on the mantel itself two
bisque figures of an Italian fisher boy and girl kept company with the
clock, a huge timepiece, set in a red plush palette, that never was
known to go. But at the right of the fireplace, and balancing the tuft
of pampa-grass to the left, was an inverted section of a sewer-pipe
painted blue and decorated with daisies. Into it was thrust a sheaf of
cat-tails, gilded, and tied with a pink rib