red. A short thickset man
and another man of a slighter and more gentlemanly build. They were
engaged in talking, and the latter was bringing down his right hand upon
the palm of his left with a gesture almost foreign in its expressive
energy.

"I tell you," declared he, with a voice that while low, reverberated
through the hollow vault above him with strange intensity, "I tell you
I've got my grip on a certain rich man in this city, and if you will
only wait, you shall see strange things. I don't know his name and I
don't know his face, but I do know what he has done, and a thousand
dollars down couldn't buy the knowledge of me."

"But if you don't know his name and don't know his face, how in the name
of all that's mischievous are you going to know your man?"

"Leave that to me! If I once meet him and hear him talk, one more rich
man goes down and one more poor devil goes up, or I've not the wit that
starvation usually teaches."

The nature of these sentences together with the various manifestations
of interest with which they were received, had for a moment deterred the
two girls in their hurried advance, but now they put away every thought
save that of the poor little creature awaiting his Dad, and lifting up
her voice, Paula said,

"Are either of you the father of a little lame lad--"

Instantly and before she could conclude, the taller of the two, who had
also been the chief speaker in the above conversation, turned, and she
saw his hand begrimed though it was with dirt and dark with many a
disgraceful trick, go to his heart in a gesture too natural to be
anything but involuntary.

"Is he hurt?" gasped he, but in how different a tone from that of the
woman who had used the same words a few minutes before. Then seeing that
the persons who addressed him were ladies and one of them at least a
very beautiful one, took off his hat with an easy action, that together
with what they had heard, proved him to be one of that most dangerous
class among us, a gentleman who has gone thoroughly and irretrievably to
the bad.

"I am afraid he is, sir," said Paula. "He was attempting to cross the
road, and a horse advancing hurriedly, struck him." She had not courage
to say her horse in face of the white and trembling dismay that seized
him at these words.

"Where is he?" cried he. "Where's my poor boy?" And he bounded up the
steps, his hat still in his hand, his long unkempt locks flying, and his
whole form expressive