n' else?" echoed the child, going to the door
and tossing an imitation doll into the ash-heap, "why, I want better
clothes, so't the fellers about town'll pay some 'tention to me, like
they do to sister Jane."

The slight, bent form of the father straightened up, as he asked,
quickly,--

"Does the fellers around town pay attention to your sister Jane?"

"Why, of course they do," said little Mary, entirely unable to
translate the gaze which her father bent upon her. "Jane never gets
through her work at the hotel before there's a lot o' fellers hangin'
round the door an' wantin' to see her, an' takin' her out to get
ice-cream or sody-water, or to go to the circus if there's one in town,
or to go to the dramatic representation,--that's what they call it on
the bills,--if there happens to be one in the village that night."

"Wife," said Sam, turning to his helpmate, "what wages does Jane get?"

"Six dollars a month," said the wife.

"Does she bring any of it home? Does the family get the good of any of
it?"

"Not one cent," said Mrs. Kimper, with a pitiful whine. "She says she
has to wear decent clothes at the hotel or they won't keep her there
any more."

Sam Kimper stayed awake all that night, although his manners to his
family next morning were those of a staid and respectable citizen who
had nothing upon his mind but the ordinary duties of the day.

Nevertheless, he was out and about soon after breakfast, and he
wandered through every street of the village in which any business was
being done. Again and again he asked for work, and as often the offer
was refused or declined or relegated into the uncertain future for a
decision. The surplus in his pocket had grown lamentably small. As he
made his way homeward in a physical and mental condition which made it
impossible for him either to argue to himself or to express a sense of
hope to any extent, he passed the shop of Larry Highgetty. Larry was a
shoemaker. Sam had worked at shoemaking while he was in State prison.
He felt, although Larry might have been offended at the imputation,
that there ought to be a fellow-feeling between them; so he ventured
into the shop. Larry was sitting at his bench with a lady's shoe in one
hand and with his head leaning against the wall of the room. From the
stertorous noise which escaped his nostrils, it was quite evident that
he was asleep, and an odor which filled the room left the visitor in
no doubt as to the nature of the o