at all, not a
word of it, any of the time. I see it in his eyes, and I've tried to
coax Tommy away from there, but he thinks he can't find anything else to
do, and they are good to him there, and he's kind of bent on staying,
and I've done every blessed thing I could think of, and now I am at my
wits' ends."

And the voluble little woman paused long enough to wipe two glistening
tears from her withered cheeks, while her listener, roused and
sympathetic, asked in earnest tones:

"And what is it you would like to have me do? Tommy is in danger, that
is evident. I do not wonder that you are alarmed, and I am ready to help
you in any possible way. Have you any plan in view in which you would
like my assistance?"

Before Mrs. Jenkins answered she bestowed a look of undisguised
admiration on the earnest face before her, as she said:

"They told me you'd do it. Jim said--says he, 'if that man can't help
you no man can, and if he _can_ he will. He told my Katie that last
night, and I made up my mind to come right straight to you." And then
she dashed eagerly into the important part of her subject. "I've laid
awake nights, and I've thought and thought, and planned. Now that Mr.
Roberts, he's a slippery man, and when you talk to him he says he's
under orders, and he does just as he is directed. Now, according to my
way of thinking, it ain't no ways likely that Mr. Hastings goes and
orders him to feed them boys on rum. But then it flashed on me last
night about that Mr. Hastings--why he must be a good kind of a man, he
give five hundred dollars to the Orphans' Home only last week."

"He ought to," interrupted Mallery. "He helps to manufacture the
orphans."

"Well, that's true, too; but then like enough he don't stop and think
what he is about--that's the way with half the folks in this world,
anyhow; he may be willing to kind of help to keep them boys from ruin,
and save his rum at the same time, and I was just thinking if somebody
would just go and have a good kind plain talk with him, like enough he
would promise to send Mr. Roberts word not to let them boys have any
more drink, and that would help along the other boys as well as mine."

Theodore could scarcely restrain a smile at the poor woman's simple
faith in human nature; he almost dreaded to explain to her how utterly
improbable he felt it to be that Mr. Hastings would listen to any such
plea as the one proposed.

"Why don't you go to him?" he questioned suddenly