young fellow, strangely
out of place on crutches. The poor always looked at him; beggars never
importuned him, yet found him agreeable to watch. Children, who seldom
look up into the air far enough to notice grown people, always became
conscious of him when he passed; often smiled, sometimes spoke. As for
stray curs and tramp cats, they were for ever making advances. As
long as he could remember, there was scarcely a week in town but some
homeless dog attached himself to Siward's heels, sometimes trotting
several blocks, sometimes following him home--where the outcast was
always cared for, washed, fed, and ultimately shipped out to the farm,
where scores of these "fresh-air" dogs resided on his bounty and rolled
in luxury on his lawns.

Cats, too, were prone to notice him, rising as he passed to hoist an
interrogative tail and make tentative observations.

In Washington Square, these, and the ragged children, knew him best of
all. The children came from Minetta Lane and the purlieus south and
west of it; the cats from the Mews, which Siward always thought most
appropriate.

And now, as he passed the marble arch and entered the square, glancing
behind him he saw the inevitable cat trotting, and, at his left, a
very dirty little girl pretending to trundle a hoop, but plainly enough
keeping sociable pace with him.

"Hello!" said Siward. The cat stopped; the child tossed her clustering
curls, gave him a rapid but fearless sidelong glance, laughed, and ran
on in the wake of her hoop. When she caught it she sat down on a bench
opposite the fountain and looked around at Siward.

"It's pretty warm, isn't it?" said Siward, coming up and seating himself
on the same bench.

"Are you lame?" asked the child.

"Oh, a little."

"Is your leg broken?"

"Oh, no, not now."

"Is that your cat?"

Siward looked around; the cat was seated on the bench beside him. But he
was accustomed to that sort of thing, and he caressed the creature with
his gloved hand.

"Are you rich?" asked the child, shaking her blond curls from her eyes
and staring up solemnly at him.

"Not very," he answered, smiling. "Why do you ask?"

"You look rich, somehow," said the child shyly.

"What! With these old and very faded clothes?"

She shook her head, swinging her plump legs: "You look it, somehow. It
isn't the clothes that matter."

"I'll tell you one thing," said Siward, laughing "I'm rich enough to buy
all the hokey-pokey you can eat!" and