, imitating good-humouredly the deferential manner of a salesman
of footwear as he slipped on the shoe. "Why, it fits as if it were made
for you! Now for the other one. Yes, your feet are mates--I know a man
who wears a whole size larger on his left foot." The dazed expression
remained on the boy's face. The experience was beyond him. "That's
better," said Insall, as he finished the lacing. "Keep out of the snow,
Marcus, all you can. Wet feet aren't good for a cough, you know. And
when you come in to supper a nice doctor will be here, and we'll see if
we can't get rid of the cough."

The boy nodded. He got to his feet, stared down at the shoes, and walked
slowly toward the door, where he turned.

"Thank you, Mister Insall," he said.

And Insall, still sitting on his heels, waved his hand.

"It is not to mention it," he replied. "Perhaps you may have a clothing
store of your own some day--who knows!" He looked up at Janet amusedly
and then, with a spring, stood upright, his easy, unconscious pose
betokening command of soul and body. "I ought to have kept a store," he
observed. "I missed my vocation."

"It seems to me that you missed a great many vocations," she replied.
Commonplaces alone seemed possible, adequate. "I suppose you made all
those drawers yourself."

He bowed in acknowledgment of her implied tribute. With his fine
nose and keen eyes--set at a slightly downward angle, creased at the
corners--with his thick, greying hair, despite his comparative youth
he had the look one associates with portraits of earlier, patriarchal
Americans.... These calls of Janet's were never of long duration. She
had fallen into the habit of taking her lunch between one and two, and
usually arrived when the last installment of youngsters were finishing
their meal; sometimes they were filing out, stopping to form a group
around Insall, who always managed to say something amusing--something
pertinent and good-naturedly personal. For he knew most of them by name,
and had acquired a knowledge of certain individual propensities and
idiosyncrasies that delighted their companions.

"What's the trouble, Stepan--swallowed your spoon?" Stepan was known
to be greedy. Or he would suddenly seize an unusually solemn boy from
behind and tickle him until the child screamed with laughter. It was,
indeed, something of an achievement to get on terms of confidence with
these alien children of the tenements and the streets who from their
earliest