st time I saw
him, was in an old tumble-down building, where the wind played hide and
go seek through the timbers; and where more men, women, dogs and
children were huddled together, than four walls of the like size ever
held before.

In one of the smallest of these rooms, I first saw Tom; sitting, with a
white cotton cap upon his head, cross-legged on the floor, stitching
away by the dim light of a tallow candle. A line stretched across the
room, on which hung some coarse pea-jackets and trousers which he had
finished, while at his side stood a rough table, with the remains of
some supper, and two unwashed cups and saucers.

_Two_ cups and saucers, thought I: pray, who shares this little room
with that poor, pale tailor?

Ah, I see! In yonder bed, which I had not noticed, lies a woman, and on
her breast a little wee baby. Well may Tom sit drawing out his thread,
hour after hour, by that dim candle.

1 coughed a little bit. Tom shaded his eyes with his hand, looked up,
and invited me in. That was just what I wanted, you know. Then, he
dusted off a chair with the tail of his coat, and I sat down.

"Is that your baby?" said I.

"It is _ours_," said he, looking over, with a proud smile, at his wife.

I liked Tom from that very minute. Of course, his wife wanted to own
half of such a nice little baby--and the first one, too--and it was
very gallant of tailor Tom, to say "_ours_," instead of "mine:" it
showed he had a soul above buttons. Ask your mother if it didn't.

Then I asked Tom if he got good pay for making those jackets. He
clipped off his thread with his great shears, and, shaking his head,
said, "My boss is a Jew, Missis."

What did he mean by that? Why, "boss" means master, and Jew, I am sorry
to say, is but another name for a person who gets all the work he can
out of poor people, and pays them as little for it as possible.

Tom's answer made me feel very bad,--he said it in such a quiet,
uncomplaining way, as if, hard as it was, he had quite made up his mind
to it, for the sake of that new baby and its mother.

I wanted to jump right up and take him by the hand, and say, "Tom, you
are a hero!" but, I dare say he wouldn't have understood that. Your
father, Charley, would probably call him a "philosopher," but you and
I, who can't afford to use up the dictionary that way, will say he is a
clever, good-hearted fellow.

When Tom was first married, he had a little shop of his own, and was
"quite before