Bowery to the busy street where Sadie plied her
peculiar trade.

She crossed the Square and went through West Broadway to Bleecker Street
and turned east on that busy and interesting thoroughfare. Suddenly, right
ahead of her, she beheld the shabby brown hat and wrinkled coat of the old
man who had stuck his head in at the door of Mr. Grimes's office, and so
disturbed the equilibrium of that individual.

Here was "Jones." At first Helen thought him to be under the influence of
drink. Then she saw that the man's erratic actions must be the result of
some physical or mental disability.

The old man could not walk in a straight line; but he tacked from one side
of the walk to the other, taking long "slants" across the walk, first
touching the iron balustrade of a step on one hand, and then bringing up
at a post on the edge of the curb.

He seemed to mutter all the time to himself, too; but what he said, or
whether it was sense, or nonsense, Helen (although she walked near him)
could not make out. She did not wish to offend the old man; yet he seemed
so helpless and peculiar that for several blocks she trailed him (as he
seemed to be going her way), fearing that he would get into some trouble.

At the busy crossings Helen was really worried. The man first started,
then dodged back, scouted up and down the way, seemed undecided, looked
all around as though for help, and then, at the very worst time, when the
vehicles in the street were the most numerous, he darted across, escaping
death and destruction half a dozen times between curb and curb.

But somehow the angel that directs the destinies of foolish people who
cross busy city streets, shielded him from harm, and Helen finally lost
him as he turned down one of the main stems of the town while she kept on
into the heart of the East Side.

And to Helen Morrell, the very "heart of the East Side" was right in the
Goronsky flat on Madison Street. She had been comparing that home at the
same number on Madison Street with that her uncle's house boasted on
Madison Avenue, with the latter mansion. The Goronsky tenement was a
_home_, for love and contentment dwelt there; the stately Starkweather
dwelling housed too many warring factions to be a real home.

Helen came, at length, to Madison Street. She had timed her coming so as
to reach Jacob Finkelstein's shop just about the time Sadie would be going
to dinner.

"Miss Helen! Ain't I glad to see you?" cried Sadie. "Is the