to find out."

"You have got to look out for him after this."

"I am going to do that."

They went up Broadway to Grand street, and then turned toward the
Bowery. Both lived on the east side, above Grand street, in the densely
populated districts where rents were cheap and everybody poor. Adah had
not come in from the store. His aunt was very tired from the labor of a
hard day's wash, and therefore not in the best of humor.

"What brought you home so soon?" she asked, looking at him.

"Just to make you stop work. You are killing yourself, aunt."

"Would you tell me which is the best way to die--of hard work or
starvation?" she asked.

"Oh, we are not going to die for a long time yet. You'll marry again,
and we'll all be rich."

She straightened herself up by the side of the tub and glared at him.

"What's the matter with you, Freddie?" she asked. "Are you sick, child?"

Fred laughed and said:

"Not sick, but tired."

"Well, so am I, and all poor people, as for that matter. Did you give up
selling papers and come home to rest?"

"No, aunt. I came home to give you a rest. Just look at the color of
that, and tell me what you think of it," and as he spoke he laid a
ten-dollar bill on the corner of a little table near where she stood.

She glanced at the bill and almost gasped out:

"Ten dollars! Fred Halsey, where did you get that money?"

"Downtown, aunt. Does it relieve that tired feeling to look at it?"

"Whose is it? Why don't you tell me about it?"

"It's yours, every cent of it, and I've got fifteen more bills of that
size in the bank."

The good woman dropped down into a chair and glared at her nephew. Fred
went to her, put his arms about her neck, kissed her and said:

"I've had good luck to-day, aunt. Just read that and you will understand
it all," and he gave her a copy of an afternoon paper in which was the
story of the capture of the forger in Barron's bank.

"And they gave you this money for what you did?" she exclaimed, when she
had finished reading it.

"Yes. They just chipped in and gave me a pile of money. I left all in
the bank but this, which I wanted to give to you. And you can have every
cent of the rest whenever you want it--you and sister."

"Oh, you dear, good boy!" she exclaimed, her eyes filling with tears as
she caught him in her arms. "I knew you would always be good to me."

"You've been a mother to us, aunt, and I'll never go back on my mother!"

Adah came home fr