preliminary study of the shuttered windows,
assailed the door with a pair of grimy knuckles.

He had expected a long delay, possibly no response at all. But the door
opened as promptly as if some one had been standing there awaiting his
signal, and on its threshold a forbidding-looking woman, haglike as to
hair and features but cleanly dressed, stood regarding him with strong
disapproval. In the kitchen range back of her a coal fire was burning. A
tea-kettle bubbled domestically on its top, and cheek by jowl with this
a big-bellied coffee-pot exhaled a delicious aroma.

The entire tableau was so different from anything Laurie had expected
that for an instant he stared at the woman, speechless and almost
open-mouthed. Then the smell of the coffee gave him his cue. He suddenly
remembered that he had eaten nothing that day, and the fact gave a
thrill of sincerity to the professional whine in which he made his
request.

"Say, lady," he begged urgently, "I'm down an' out. Gimme a cup o'
cawfee, will yuh?"

Her impulse, he saw clearly, had been to close the door in his face.
Already her hand was automatically responding to it. But he whipped off
his dirty cap and, shivering on the door-step, looked at her with
Laurie's eyes, whose beauty no amount of disguise could wholly conceal.
There was real appeal in them now. Much, indeed almost everything,
depended on what this creature would do in the next minute. She
hesitated.

"I ain't had a mouthful since yesterday," croaked the visitor,
pleadingly and truthfully.

"Well, wait there a minute. I'll bring you a cup of coffee."

She turned from the door and started to close it, evidently expecting
him to remain outside, but he promptly followed her in, and her face,
hardening into quick anger, softened a little as she saw him cowering
over the big hot stove and warming his dirty hands. In silence she
filled a cup with coffee, cut a thick slice from a loaf of bread,
buttered it, and set the collation on the kitchen table.

"Hurry up and eat that," she muttered, "and then clear out. If any one
saw you here, I'd get into trouble."

Laurie grunted acquiescence and wolfed the food. He had not sat down,
and now, as he ate, his black eyes swept the room while he planned his
next move. Drying on a stout cord back of the stove were several
dish-towels. They gave him his first suggestion. His second came when he
observed that his hostess, evidently reassured by his haste, had turned