baby slept within reach of her father's cruel
hand. As for him, he had never known anything but blows and curses. He
could take care of himself. But his mother and the baby--And then it
came to him with shuddering cold that it was getting late, and that he
must find a place to sleep.

He weighed in his mind the merits of two or three places where he was
in the habit of hiding from the "cops" when the alley got to be too
hot for him.

There was the hay barge down by the dock, with the watchman who got
drunk sometimes, and so gave the boys a chance. The chances were at
least even of its being available on Christmas Eve, and of Santa Claus
having thus done him a good turn after all.

Then there was the snug berth in the sand-box you could curl all up
in. Nibsy thought with regret of its being, like the hay barge, so far
away and to windward, too.

Down by the printing-offices there were the steam gratings, and a
chance corner in the cellars, stories and stories underground, where
the big presses keep up such a clatter from midnight till far into the
day.

As he passed them in review, Nibsy made up his mind with sudden
determination, and, setting his face toward the south, made off down
town.

* * * * *

The rumble of the last departing news-wagon over the pavement, now
buried deep in snow, had died away in the distance, when, from out of
the bowels of the earth there issued a cry, a cry of mortal terror and
pain that was echoed by a hundred throats.

From one of the deep cellar-ways a man ran out, his clothes and hair
and beard afire; on his heels a breathless throng of men and boys;
following them, close behind, a rush of smoke and fire.

The clatter of the presses ceased suddenly, to be followed quickly by
the clangor of hurrying fire-bells. With hooks and axes the firemen
rushed in; hose was let down through the manholes, and down there in
the depths the battle was fought and won.

The building was saved; but in the midst of the rejoicing over the
victory there fell a sudden silence. From the cellar-way a grimy,
helmeted figure arose, with something black and scorched in his arms.
A tarpaulin was spread upon the snow and upon it he laid his burden,
while the silent crowd made room and word went over to the hospital
for the doctor to come quickly.

Very gently they lifted poor little Nibsy--for it was he, caught in
his berth by a worse enemy than the "cop" or the watchman of