omfortable in his mind on that point, Bert
hastened to say:--

"I mean rowdies, and such. Poor people, if they behave themselves, are
just as respectable to me as rich folks. I ain't at all aristocratic!"

"Ah, indeed!" And the old man smiled again, and seemed to look relieved.
"I'm very glad to hear it."

He placed his hat on the floor, and took a seat opposite Bert at a
little table which they had all to themselves. Bert offered him the bill
of fare.

"I must ask you to choose for me; nothing very extravagant, you know I
am used to plain fare."

"So am I. But I'm going to have a dinner, for once in my life, and so
are you," cried Bert, generously. "What do you say to chicken soup--and
wind up with a big piece of squash pie! How's that for a Thanksgiving
dinner?"

"Sumptuous!" said the old man, appearing to glow with the warmth of the
room and the prospect of a good dinner. "But won't it cost you too
much?"

"Too much? No, sir!" said Bert. "Chicken soup, fifteen cents; pie--they
give tremendous big pieces here, thick, I tell you--ten cents. That's
twenty-five cents; half a dollar for two. Of course, I don't do this way
every day in the year! But mother's glad to have me, once in a while.
Here! waiter!" And Bert gave his princely order as if it were no very
great thing for a liberal young fellow like him, after all.

"Where is your mother? Why don't you take dinner with her?" the little
man asked.

Bert's face grew sober in a moment.

"That's the question! Why don't I? I'll tell you why I don't. I've got
the best mother in the world! What I'm trying to do is to make a home
for her, so we can live together, and eat our Thanksgiving dinners
together, sometime. Some boys want one thing, some another; there's one
goes in for good times, another's in such a hurry to get rich, he don't
care much how he does it; but what I want most of anything is to be with
my mother and my two sisters again, and I am not ashamed to say so."

Bert's eyes grew very tender, and he went on; while his companion across
the table watched him with a very gentle, searching look.

"I haven't been with her now for two years--hardly at all since father
died. When his business was settled up,--he kept a little hosiery store
on Hanover street,--it was found he hadn't left us anything. We had
lived pretty well, up to that time, and I and my two sisters had been to
school; but then mother had to do something, and her friends got her
places t