pon the floor, where it was shivered against the coal-box.

"Get out o' here, ye Finnegan brat," he shouted; "I'll tache ye to come
a'guyin' o' me. I'll----"

The door closed with a bang upon the frightened child, alone in the cold
night. The sun saw not its home-coming. It had hidden behind the
night-clouds, weary of the sight of man and his cruelty.

Evening had worn into night. The busy city slept. Down by the wharves,
now deserted, a poor boy sat on the bulwark, hungry, footsore, and
shivering with cold. He sat thinking of friends and home, thousands of
miles away over the sea, whom he had left six months before to go among
strangers. He had been alone ever since, but never more so than that
night. His money gone, no work to be found, he had slept in the streets
for nights. That day he had eaten nothing; he would rather die than beg,
and one of the two he must do soon.

There was the dark river, rushing at his feet; the swirl of the unseen
waters whispered to him of rest and peace he had not known since----it
was so cold--and who was there to care, he thought bitterly. No one who
would ever know. He moved a little nearer the edge, and listened more
intently.

A low whine fell on his ear, and a cold, wet face was pressed against
his. A little, crippled dog that had been crouching silently beside him
nestled in his lap. He had picked it up in the street, as forlorn and
friendless as himself, and it had stayed by him. Its touch recalled him
to himself. He got up hastily, and, taking the dog in his arms, went to
the police station near by and asked for shelter. It was the first time
he had accepted even such charity, and as he lay down on his rough plank
he hugged a little gold locket he wore around his neck, the last link
with better days, and thought, with a hard, dry sob, of home.

In the middle of the night he awoke with a start. The locket was gone.
One of the tramps who slept with him had stolen it. With bitter tears he
went up and complained to the Sergeant at the desk, and the Sergeant
ordered him to be kicked out in the street as a liar, if not a thief.
How should a tramp boy have come honestly by a gold locket? The doorman
put him out as he was bidden, and when the little dog showed its teeth,
a policeman seized it and clubbed it to death on the step.

* * * * *

Far from the slumbering city the rising moon shines over a wide expanse
of glistening water. It silvers the sn