give to his most determined efforts. There was nothing for
it but to wait until the blind men should rest from their labors.

He got used to them gradually; lost his fear of them. Once in a while
they spoke to each other, always with a kind of lugubrious gentleness in
their voices. He began to feel sorry for them. He wished to be of
service to them in some way or other. Their wild beards and shaggy,
matted hair no longer terrified him. They were two lambs made up to
represent wolves, but the merest child must have seen through the
disguisement.

Upon the ball of twine which Bubbles still held in his hand there was a
sudden tug. It fell to the ground with a thump and rolled toward the
blind laborer who had just filled his barrow. He was much startled and
turned his blind eyes this way and that; then called to his mate, at
that moment coming from the passageway.

"I heard something drop," he said; "somebody dropped something. I
thought I heard steps on the stairs, and now I know I did."

But the other had found the twine lying the length of the passage. "Some
one's come in from the river," he said, "and dropped all this string,"

He began to gather it in, hand over hand, paused suddenly, and then,
with a kind of bravado of terrified politeness, and with a bob of his
wild, dark head, exclaimed:

"Good evening, Mr. Blizzard!"

Then the pair cowered as if they expected to be struck, and after a long
while the blond one said:

"It ain't him."

Then the dark one:

"Don't be scared of us. We couldn't hurt a fly if we wanted to. Who is
it?"

Now it seemed to Bubbles all of a sudden (though the mention of
Blizzard's name had once more given him the horrors) that any risk run
in revealing his presence to the blind men was more than compensated by
the consequent possibility of "finding out things" from them. So
he said:

"It's only me--just a boy. I found this hole swimmin' and come in to see
what it was for."

"It's only a boy," said the blond man.

"He wouldn't hurt us," said the dark one.

"Maybe you'll tell me what all this cellar work is for," said Bubbles.

The dark man scratched his matted head. "We don't know," he said; "we
was just put in here to dig. At first there was ten of us; but we was
kep' on to give the finishin' touches."

"What became of the others?"

"Oh, Mr. Blizzard, he's got other work for them."

"Is this place under his house?"

"No, sir, it ain't. But the cellar at the head of t