ent,
until the little creature had to be forcibly removed and consoled with a
new wonder--a delicious cup of warm, creamy milk in which sweet cracker
had been crumbled. Accepting her change of heavens with tranquillity,
the new Ariadne fell asleep in the warm enveloping blanket, worn out
with sheer pleasure.

So the Littleton children, having the bathing facilities of the rich, if
not on so gorgeous a scale, were a really trim, decent lot to-day, and
their merry voices reached Nate Tierney, going rapidly along the street,
outside, making him waver, hesitate, then turn in, with a smile on his
honest face. He was a favorite with the younglings. With cries of "Nate!
Nate!" "Hello, Nate!" "Be on my side, Nate!" they surrounded him, and
dragged him into their game of Indian-and-white man, a willing captive.

"Well now," he laughed, "do you think it's quite fair to turn a feller
into an injun off hand, like that? However, if I've got to be one, I'll
be an awful one, you bet: A red, ramping, roaring old Apache, that'll
think nothing o' scalping and tomahawking everything he can ketch. Be
off now, or I'll snatch the whole pack of you, and make you run the
gauntlet. One--two--three--GO."

They were off, shrieking with excited fun, all white men for the minute,
with one big Indian driving them before him. The arcade could not
contain them in this wild rush for safety, and they streamed into and
across the park, Nate at their backs, giving the most approved Apache
war-whoop between his shouts of laughter.

As he stopped in the street beyond, out of breath, calling merrily,
between his gasps, that they weren't playing fair to run so far and
leave him all alone, he noticed his friend, Hapgood, just turning in at
the door of his now neat cottage, further down the block. He stopped
yelling to give the man a critical stare.

"Off his base a bit, hey?" he muttered. "Stepped into Lon's as he come
by, and didn't stop at one glass, nuther. If Bill warn't sech an
all-round good feller I'd call him a fool! A man 'ts got jest a wife
might look into a glass now and then. Like as not she could bring him to
time, if he went too far. When he's got wife and children both, he
oughter go it easy and stop off short and quick; but when he's got
children and no wife, and just a slim little gal like Lucy to look after
things, why, he ought never even to look toward a green door? I ain't no
teetotaller, goodness knows! But men 't ain't got no sense