that Katy became her tower of
refuge when the cause of the fire appeared. It was no less than Amos. He
had been hired without any heartless prying into recommendations, on the
ideal Altrurian ground of Need. He was asked, to be sure, could he run a
furnace, and with the optimism of the African replied that he reckoned
he could. He did not add that he had never tried to run one before.
Doubtless it was natural that he should not discover the meaning of the
cunning chains going through the floors; and when dampers increase the
draft if shut and diminish it if open, who can wonder that Amos should
artlessly shut everything in sight--including the registers? Natural
laws did the rest.

Amos was very patient, almost tearful. He said he didn't know whatever
Sally would do when he come home outen a job; Sally be'n so satisfied
befo' but he didn't cast no blame on nobody. Sally, it came out later,
was ill.

"Is it anything infectious?" demanded Mercedes' sister, the doctor, who
by this time was on the scene.

"I dunno, ma'am; I reckon _'tis_," deprecated Amos. "Hit's a right new
baby, come a week ago, an' she ain't got up yit."

Then it was while Nellie glibly proposed a new man, a man of assured
efficiency, two years janitor of a "flat," and the brother of a friend;
and Mercedes Van Arden had only bewildered compassion to justify her
desire to forgive the culprit; and Doctor Van Arden frowned, that Katy
spoke the word of power.

"Doctor," said she, "Amos mayn't know much about the furnace, but he's
a decent, honest man that found my ten cents out on the steps and gave
it to me; and I know how to run furnaces, and I'll learn him. What's
more, I can burn up _all_ the coal, and not smoke up the house or the
neighborhood. And one good thing--if Amos can't run a furnace, he
_knows_ it now, anyhow; there's many a janitor man's been smoking up
flats for years ain't found out _that_ yet. Doctor, I'll answer for Amos
if you ladies will keep him."

Amos was kept. I fancied that Mercedes was almost as grateful as he.

After this for a time matters went on in a sufficiently prosaic and
satisfactory manner. We put both of the sisters up in the Monday Club
and the doctor consented to talk to the club on the "Smoke Nuisance" at
our meeting in which we discussed that bane of the housekeeper, under
the startling caption, "The City of Dreadful Night." We asked Mercedes
to embody her own Social Creed in a fifteen-minute paper; but she
p