ong emotion when he took it
away. "Your family know about this?"

"My Uncle James knows."

"He thinks it would be a good plan for you?"

"He thought that by this time I ought to be able to trust my own
judgment."

"Do you suppose I could see your uncle at his office?"

"I imagine he's there."

"Well, I want to have a talk with him, one of these days." He sat
pondering a while, and then rose, and went with Corey to his door. "I
guess I shan't change my mind about taking you into the business in
that way," he said coldly. "If there was any reason why I shouldn't at
first, there's more now."

"Very well, sir," answered the young man, and went to close his desk.
The outer office was empty; but while Corey was putting his papers in
order it was suddenly invaded by two women, who pushed by the
protesting porter on the stairs and made their way towards Lapham's
room. One of them was Miss Dewey, the type-writer girl, and the other
was a woman whom she would resemble in face and figure twenty years
hence, if she led a life of hard work varied by paroxysms of hard
drinking.

"That his room, Z'rilla?" asked this woman, pointing towards Lapham's
door with a hand that had not freed itself from the fringe of dirty
shawl under which it had hung. She went forward without waiting for
the answer, but before she could reach it the door opened, and Lapham
stood filling its space.

"Look here, Colonel Lapham!" began the woman, in a high key of
challenge. "I want to know if this is the way you're goin' back on me
and Z'rilla?"

"What do you want?" asked Lapham.

"What do I want? What do you s'pose I want? I want the money to pay my
month's rent; there ain't a bite to eat in the house; and I want some
money to market."

Lapham bent a frown on the woman, under which she shrank back a step.
"You've taken the wrong way to get it. Clear out!"

"I WON'T clear out!" said the woman, beginning to whimper.

"Corey!" said Lapham, in the peremptory voice of a master,--he had
seemed so indifferent to Corey's presence that the young man thought he
must have forgotten he was there,--"Is Dennis anywhere round?"

"Yissor," said Dennis, answering for himself from the head of the
stairs, and appearing in the ware-room.

Lapham spoke to the woman again. "Do you want I should call a hack, or
do you want I should call an officer?"

The woman began to cry into an end of her shawl. "I don't know what
we're goin' to do."

"You're g