two old
maids, Misses Walsh, who complained every day about the noise in the
halls, inquired immediately if anybody had looked behind the clock.

Major Grigg, who sat by his fat wife on the top step, arose and buttoned
his coat. "The little one lost?" he exclaimed. "I will scour the city."
His wife never allowed him out after dark. But now she said: "Go,
Ludovic!" in a baritone voice. "Whoever can look upon that mother's
grief without springing to her relief has a heart of stone." "Give me
some thirty or--sixty cents, my love," said the Major. "Lost children
sometimes stray far. I may need carfares."

Old man Denny, hall room, fourth floor back, who sat on the lowest step,
trying to read a paper by the street lamp, turned over a page to follow
up the article about the carpenters' strike. Mrs. Murphy shrieked to the
moon: "Oh, ar-r-Mike, f'r Gawd's sake, where is me little bit av a boy?"

"When'd ye see him last?" asked old man Denny, with one eye on the
report of the Building Trades League.

"Oh," wailed Mrs. Murphy, "'twas yisterday, or maybe four hours ago!
I dunno. But it's lost he is, me little boy Mike. He was playin' on
the sidewalk only this mornin'--or was it Wednesday? I'm that busy with
work, 'tis hard to keep up with dates. But I've looked the house over
from top to cellar, and it's gone he is. Oh, for the love av Hiven--"

Silent, grim, colossal, the big city has ever stood against its
revilers. They call it hard as iron; they say that no pulse of pity
beats in its bosom; they compare its streets with lonely forests and
deserts of lava. But beneath the hard crust of the lobster is found a
delectable and luscious food. Perhaps a different simile would have been
wiser. Still, nobody should take offence. We would call no one a lobster
without good and sufficient claws.

No calamity so touches the common heart of humanity as does the straying
of a little child. Their feet are so uncertain and feeble; the ways are
so steep and strange.

Major Griggs hurried down to the corner, and up the avenue into Billy's
place. "Gimme a rye-high," he said to the servitor. "Haven't seen a
bow-legged, dirty-faced little devil of a six-year-old lost kid around
here anywhere, have you?"

Mr. Toomey retained Miss Purdy's hand on the steps. "Think of that dear
little babe," said Miss Purdy, "lost from his mother's side--perhaps
already fallen beneath the iron hoofs of galloping steeds--oh, isn't it
dreadful?"

"Ain't tha