how to live straight, just as I can remember how to talk
straight. Let me show you that I'm not all bad. Give me a chance.
Take the boy and then give him back to me when you are satisfied. I'll
try--God only knows how I'll try. Only don't take him away forever,
Judge! Don't do that!"

Judge Wheeling ran an uncomfortable finger around his collar's edge.

"Any friends living here?"

"No! No!"

"Sure about that?"

"Quite sure."

"Now see here; I'm going to give you your chance. I shall take this boy
away from you for a year. In that time you will stop drinking and become
a decent, self-supporting woman. You will be given in charge of one of
these probation officers. She will find work for you, and a good home,
and she'll stand by you, and you must report to her. If she is satisfied
with you at the end of the year, the boy goes back to you."

"She will be satisfied," the woman said, simply. She stooped and taking
Bennie's face between her hands kissed him once. Then she stepped aside
and stood quite still, looking after the little figure that passed out
of the court room with his hand in that of a big, kindly police officer.
She looked until the big door had opened and closed upon them.

Then--well, it was just another newspaper story. It made a good one.
That evening I told Frau Nirlanger about it, and she wept, softly, and
murmured: "Ach, das arme baby! Like my little Oscar he is, without a
mother." I told Ernst about him too, and Blackie, because I could not
get his grave little face out of my mind. I wondered if those who had
charge of him now would take the time to bathe the little body, and
brush the soft hair until it shone, and tie the gay plaid silk tie as
lovingly as "Daddy" Arnett of the Detention Home had done.

Then it was that I, quite unwittingly, stepped into Bennie's life.

There was an anniversary, or a change in the board of directors, or a
new coat of paint or something of the kind in one of the orphan homes,
and the story fell to me. I found the orphan home to be typical of its
kind--a big, dreary, prison-like structure. The woman at the door did
not in the least care to let me in. She was a fish-mouthed woman with
a hard eye, and as I told my errand her mouth grew fishier and the
eye harder. Finally she led me down a long, dark, airless stretch of
corridor and departed in search of the matron, leaving me seated in
the unfriendly reception room, with its straight-backed chairs placed
stonily