ve it."

Once more his hand was raised, and a smile flashed from his eyes and as
quickly died out.

"That is very good of you, Mrs. Cleary. No, I am not a thief. And now
about the room. Can I see it? But, before you answer, let me tell you
that I have only these twenty-five dollars on which I can lay my hands.
Some of this I owe to my landlady. The balance I am quite willing to
turn over to you, and when it is all gone I will move somewhere else."
He drew a silver watch from his pocket. "You must decide at once; it is
getting late and I must be moving on."

Kitty squared herself, her hands on her hips--a favorite gesture when
her mind was fully made up--looked straight at the speaker as if to
reply, then suddenly catching sight of a strapping-looking fellow in
blue overalls, a trunk on one shoulder, a carpetbag in his hand, called
out: "John, dear, come here! I want ye. Here, Mike! You and Bobby get
that steamer baggage out on the sidewalk, and don't be slack about it,
for it goes to Hoboken, and there may be a block in the river and the
ferry-boats behind time. Wait, I'll lend ye a hand."

"You'll lend nothing, Kitty Cleary! Get out of my way," came her
husband's hearty answer. "Ye hurt yer back last week. There's men enough
round here to--stop it, I tell ye!" and he loosened her fingers from the
lifting-strap.

"I can hist the two of ye, John! Go along wid ye!"

"No, Kitty, darlin'--let go of it," and with a twist of his hand and
lurch of his shoulder John shot the trunk over the edge of the wagon,
tossed the bag after it, and joined the group, the stranger absorbed in
watching the husband and wife.

"And now the trunk's in, what's it you want, Kitty?" asked John
squeezing her plump arm, as if in compensation for having had his way.

"John, dear, here's a gentleman who--what's your name?--ye haven't told
me, or if ye did I've forgot it."

"Felix O'Day."

"Then you're Irish?"

"I am afraid I am--at least, my ancestors were."

"Afraid! Ye ought to be glad. I'm Irish, and so is my John here, and
Bobby, and Father Cruse, and Tom McGinniss, the policeman, and the
captain up at the station-house--we're all Irish, except Otto, who is
as Dutch as sauerkraut! But where was I? Oh, yes! Now, John, dear, this
gentleman is on his uppers, he says, and wants to hire our room and eat
what we can give him."

The expressman, who stood six feet in his stockings, looked first at
his wife, then at Kling, and then at the a