nd not a freshy. I imagine he's been a gentleman, he's
so low down now. And we need the onion. Shall I bring him in? I'll
guarantee his behavior."

"Hetty, dear," sighed Cecilia, "I'm so hungry. What difference does it
make whether he's a prince or a burglar? I don't care. Bring him in if
he's got anything to eat with him."

Hetty went back into the hall. The onion man was gone. Her heart missed
a beat, and a gray look settled over her face except on her nose and
cheek-bones. And then the tides of life flowed in again, for she saw
him leaning out of the front window at the other end of the hall. She
hurried there. He was shouting to some one below. The noise of the
street overpowered the sound of her footsteps. She looked down over his
shoulder, saw whom he was speaking to, and heard his words. He pulled
himself in from the window-sill and saw her standing over him.

Hetty's eyes bored into him like two steel gimlets.

"Don't lie to me," she said, calmly. "What were you going to do with
that onion?"

The young man suppressed a cough and faced her resolutely. His manner
was that of one who had been bearded sufficiently.

"I was going to eat it," said he, with emphatic slowness; "just as I
told you before."

"And you have nothing else to eat at home?"

"Not a thing."

"What kind of work do you do?"

"I am not working at anything just now."

"Then why," said Hetty, with her voice set on its sharpest edge, "do you
lean out of windows and give orders to chauffeurs in green automobiles
in the street below?"

The young man flushed, and his dull eyes began to sparkle.

"Because, madam," said he, in _accelerando_ tones, "I pay the
chauffeur's wages and I own the automobile--and also this onion--this
onion, madam."

He flourished the onion within an inch of Hetty's nose. The shop-lady
did not retreat a hair's-breadth.

"Then why do you eat onions," she said, with biting contempt, "and
nothing else?"

"I never said I did," retorted the young man, heatedly. "I said I had
nothing else to eat where I live. I am not a delicatessen store-keeper."

"Then why," pursued Hetty, inflexibly, "were you going to eat a raw
onion?"

"My mother," said the young man, "always made me eat one for a cold.
Pardon my referring to a physical infirmity; but you may have noticed
that I have a very, very severe cold. I was going to eat the onion and
go to bed. I wonder why I am standing here and apologizing to you for
it."

"How