an cough.

"I should think anybody was crazy to come out such a night as this,
coughin' that way," murmured Fanny. "I do believe it's Joe Atkins;
sounds like his cough." Then Andrew entered with the two men
stamping and shaking themselves.

"Here's Joseph Atkins and Nahum Beals," Andrew said, in his
melancholy voice, all unstirred by the usual warmth of greeting. The
two men bowed stiffly.

"Good-evenin'," Fanny said, and rose and pushed forward the
rocking-chair in which she had been seated to Joseph Atkins, who was
a consumptive man with an invalid wife, and worked next Andrew in
Lloyd's.

"Keep your settin', keep your settin'," he returned in his quick,
nervous way, as if his very words were money for dire need, and sat
himself down in a straight chair far from the fire. The other man,
Nahum Beals, was very young. He seated himself next to Joseph, and
the two side by side looked with gloomy significance at Andrew and
Fanny. Then Joseph Atkins burst out suddenly in a rattling volley of
coughs.

"You hadn't ought to come out such a night as this, I'm afraid, Mr.
Atkins," said Fanny.

"He's been out jest as bad weather as this all winter," said the
young man, Nahum Beals, in an unexpectedly deep voice. "The workers
of this world can't afford to take no account of weather. It's for
the rich folks to look out betwixt their lace curtains and see if it
looks lowery, so they sha'n't git their gold harnesses and their
shiny carriages, an' their silks an' velvets an' ostrich feathers
wet. The poor folks that it's life and death to have to go out
whether or no, no matter if they've got an extra suit of clothes or
not. They've got to go out through the drenchin' rain and the
snow-drifts, to earn money so that the rich folks can have them
gold-plated harnesses and them silks and velvets. Joe's been out all
winter in weather as bad as this, after he's been standin' all day
in a shop as hot as hell, drenched with sweat. One more time won't
make much difference."

"It would be 'nough sight better for me if it did," said Joseph
Atkins, chokingly, and still with that same seeming of hurry.

Fanny had gone out to the dining-room, and now she returned stirring
some whiskey and molasses in a cup.

"Here," said she, "you take this, Mr. Atkins; it's real good for a
cough. Andrew cured a cold with it last month."

"Mine ain't a cold, and it can't be cured in this world, but it's
better for me, I guess," said Joe Atkins, chok