rs had proceeded to a desperate pass with the lad. He had thought
very fast, and he had determined that no bribe and no threat should
extort a word of information from him. His cheeks grew hot and flushed,
his eyes burned, and he straightened himself in his chair as if he
expected death or torture, and was prepared to meet either, as he
replied:

"I won't tell you."

"Is your father alive? Tell me, you dirty little whelp? Don't say that
you won't do what I bid you to do again. I have a great mind to choke
you. Tell me--is your father alive?"

"I won't tell you, if you kill me."

The wheedling had failed; the threatening had failed. Then Mr. Belcher
assumed the manner of a man whose motives had been misconstrued, and who
wished for information that he might do a kind act to the lad's father.

"I should really like to help your father, and if he is poor, money
would do him a great deal of good. And here is the little boy who does
not love his father well enough to get money for him, when he can have
it and welcome! The little boy is taken care of. He has plenty to eat,
and good clothes to wear, and lives in a fine house, but his poor father
can take care of himself. I think such a boy as that ought to be ashamed
of himself. I think he ought to kneel down and say his prayers. If I had
a boy who could do that, I should be sorry that he'd ever been born."

Harry was proof against this mode of approach also, and was relieved,
because he saw that Mr. Belcher was baffled. His instincts were quick,
and they told him that he was the victor. In the meantime Mr. Belcher
was getting hot. He had closed the door of his room, while a huge coal
fire was burning in the grate. He rose and opened the door. Harry
watched the movement, and descried the grand staircase beyond his
persecutor, as the door swung back. He had looked into the house while
passing, during the previous week, and knew the relations of the
staircase to the entrance on the avenue. His determination was
instantaneously made, and Mr. Belcher was conscious of a swift figure
that passed under his arm, and was half down the staircase before he
could move or say a word. Before he cried "stop him!" Harry's hand was
on the fastening of the door, and when he reached the door, the boy was
half across the street.

He had calculated on smoothing over the rough places of the interview,
and preparing a better report of the visit of the lad's friends on the
other side of the a