welcomed by him,
though most important. "Oh, y' seen that guy, Davis, eh?" he demanded.

"Not one hour ago," answered the priest, quietly.

"Tuh!"--it was an angry sneer. "And I s'pose he whined 'bout me takin'
the kid?--though he could do nothin' for Johnnie. Sophie was dead, and
the kid was too little t' be left alone."

"Ye took the lad the day Albert Davis was half crazed over his wife,"
charged the Father; "--hurried him off without a word or a line! A bad
trick altogether! Oh, Davis guessed ye had the boy--the wee Johnnie he
loved like a father. But he had small time t' hunt, what with his work.
And at last he had t' give up."

All that told Johnnie a great deal. He shot a look at Cis. Barber had
taunted him often with his Uncle Albert's indifference--with the fact
that not even a post card had ever come from the rich man's garage to
the lonely little boy in the area building. But how _could_ Uncle Albert
send a post card to some one if he did not know that some one's address?

Barber kicked the morris chair out of his way. "That's the thanks I git
for supportin' a youngster who ain't no kin t' me!" he stormed.

Father Pat drew himself up. The red stubble on his bare head seemed
stiff with righteous wrath. "Then I'll ask ye why ye kidnapped the lad?"
he cried. "No kin t' ye, eh? And ye knew it, didn't ye? Then! So why
didn't ye leave the boy with Davis?--Because ye wanted his work!"

"Work!" repeated Barber, and broke into a shrill laugh. "Why, he wasn't
worth his feed! I took him jus' t' be decent!"

"Barber," returned the Father, firmly, "the tellin' o' a lie against
annybody is always a bad thing. But there's another kind o' lie that's
even worse, and that's lying t' _yerself_--that ye was thinkin' o' _his_
good when ye rushed him away, and not o' yer own pocket!" Then, nodding
wisely as he took the chair Big Tom booted aside, "_If_ ye wanted t' be
so decent, why didn't ye take the lad when his father and mother died?
Ha-a-a! He was too tiny t' be useful then, wasn't he? So ye let Sophie
Davis bring him up; ye let his uncle support him."

"Oh, all right," rejoined the longshoreman, resentfully. "I guess when
y've made up your mind about a man, there ain't no use talkin' t' y', is
there?"

"No use, Mr. Barber," answered the other. "And this very mornin', while
I've still got the breath and the strength t' do it, I mean t' tell the
lad the truth!"

"I been intendin' t' tell him myself," asserted Barbe