d gnomes craning their
necks over the banisters, Fudge barking every step of the way down the
stairs.

Chapter VI

The glimpse which Felix had caught of these two poor, unappreciated old
men, living contentedly from hand to mouth, gayly propping each other
up when one or the other weakened, had strangely affected him. If, as
he reasoned, such battered hulks, stranded these many years on the dry
sands of incompetency, with no outlook for themselves across the wide
sea over which their contemporaries were scudding with all sails set
before the wind of success--if these castaways, their past always with
them and their hoped-for future forever out of their reach, could laugh
and be merry, why should not he carry some of their spirit into his
relations with the people among whom his lot was now thrown?

That these people had all been more than good to him, and that he owed
them in return something more than common politeness now took possession
of his mind. Few such helping hands had ever been held out to him.
When they had been, the proffered palm had generally concealed a hidden
motive. Hereafter he would try to add what he could of his own to the
general fund of good-fellowship and good deeds.

He would continue his nightly search--and he had not missed a single
evening--but he would return earlier, so as to be able to spend an hour
reading to Masie before she went to bed, or with his other friends and
acquaintances of "The Avenue"--especially with Kitty and John. He had
been too unmindful of them, getting back to his lodgings at any hour of
the night, either to let himself in by his pass-key--all the lights out
and everybody asleep--or to find only Kitty or John, or both, at work
over their accounts or waiting up for Mike or Bobby or for one of their
wagons detained on some dock. And since Kling had raised his salary,
enabling him not only to recover his dressing-case, which then rested
on his mantel, but to take his meals wherever he happened to be at the
moment--he had seldom dined at home--a great relief in many ways to a
man of his tastes.

Kitty, though he did not know it, had demurred and had talked the matter
over with John, wondering whether she had neglected his comfort. When
she had questioned him, he had settled it with a pat on her shoulders.
"Just let me have my way this time, my dear Mrs. Cleary," he had said
gently but firmly. "I am a bad boarder and cause you no end of trouble,
for I am ne