ngement.

It was late at night before he reeled into Blind Alley, and stumbled up
the steep stairs to his squalid home. Tired though Terry felt, owing
to the stress and strain of the day, he had, in spite of his mother's
protests, stayed up to keep her company. Not a word did either speak
when the drunkard lurched into the room and fell heavily across the
bed. They knew better than to arouse his anger by addressing either
himself or one another.

He rolled about uneasily on the hard bed, grunting and growling more
like some wild animal than a human being. As he did so the clank of
coins in his pocket could be heard, and presently in his contortions
several of them worked out, and fell with a loud clang upon the floor.
He made as though he would get up to recover them; but the effort was
too much for him, and sinking back with a smothered oath, he fell into
the heavy stupor of the drunkard's sleep.

It was not until he felt perfectly sure of his father's helplessness
that Terry ventured to pick up the coins. To his astonishment they
were not copper pennies, as he had supposed from the sound of their
fall, but great golden double-eagles of the value of twenty dollars
each.

With a bewildered expression of countenance he laid them on his
mother's lap.

"Sure it's a heap of money," he whispered; "and how could father get
hold of so much?"

Mrs. Ahearn felt the splendid coins one by one as though to convince
herself that they were no optical illusion.

"The blessed saints preserve us, Terry!" she replied, crossing herself
almost mechanically. "Maybe it's goblin gold, and we should not be
touchin' it at all."

Not only was Terry far less superstitious than his mother, but he had
enjoyed the advantage of a wider experience. He had often seen Mr.
Hobart counting over precisely similar coins, and he felt pretty sure
that there was no goblin element about the contents of his father's
pockets.

"Och! no, mother," he answered, "it's not goblin gold at all. We often
have the same at the office."

There was a certain perceptible note of pride in his voice as he
brought out the last sentence, reassured by which Mrs. Ahearn took the
coins into her hands again, and permitted her sense of beauty to
indulge itself in admiring their perfection.

Neither spoke for the next minute; their brains were busy with
perplexing thoughts. Meantime Black Mike lay motionless as a log, only
an occasional gurgling gasp showing th