onscience for a good deal,"
whispered a spectator, "for, as sure as shooting, that gal's his
unlawful child!"

"Well, go on! What next?" asked the clerk.

"Well, sir, though the Simmonses had nothing to give me except a crust
now and then, they still let me sleep in the house, for the little jobs
I could do for them. But at last Simmons he got work on the railroad
away off somewhere, and they all moved away from the city."

"And you were left alone?"

"Yes, sir; I was left alone in the empty, unfurnished house. Still it
was a shelter, and I was glad of it, and I dreaded the time when it
would be rented by another tenant, and I should be turned into the
street."

"Oh! oh! oh, Lord!" groaned the major.

"But it was never rented again, for the word went around that the whole
row was to be pulled down, and so I thought I had leave to stay at least
as long as the rats did!" continued Capitola, with somewhat of her
natural roguish humor twinkling in her dark-gray eyes.

"But how did you get your bread?" inquired the Recorder.

"Did not get it at all, sir. Bread was too dear! I sold my clothes,
piece by piece, to the old Jew over the way and bought corn-meal and
picked up trash to make a fire and cooked a little mush every day in an
old tin can that had been left behind. And so I lived on for two or
three weeks. And then when my clothes were all gone except the suit I
had upon my back, and my meal was almost out, instead of making mush
every day I economized and made gruel."

"But, my boy--my good girl, I mean--before you became so destitute you
should have found something or other to do," said the Recorder.

"Sir, I was trying to get jobs every hour in the day. I'd have done
anything honest. I went around to all the houses Granny knew, but they
didn't want a girl. Some of the good-natured landlords said if I was a
boy, now, they could keep me opening oysters; but as I was a girl they
had no work for me. I even went to the offices to get papers to sell;
but they told me that crying papers was not proper work for a girl. I
even went down to the ferry-boats and watched for the passengers coming
ashore, and ran and offered to carry their carpet-bags or portmanteaus;
but some growled at me, and others laughed at me, and one old gentleman
asked me if I thought he was a North American Indian to strut up
Broadway with a female behind him carrying his pack. And so, sir, while
all the ragged boys I knew could get little job