d to. I won it for fair. I'd kept quiet, and that's
why Tooley come across my quarter."

Mrs. Maxwell was sorting over her music, while Maxwell's face was
hidden behind a paper. Mrs. Burke was silent through despair. Nickey
glanced furtively at his hearers for a moment and then continued:

"Yes, the kids was tickled; but they got awful quiet when I told them
to fork over another cent apiece for the jack-pot."

"What in the name of conscience is a jack-pot?" Hepsey asked.

Donald laughed and Nickey continued:

"A jack-pot's a jack-pot; there isn't no other name that I ever heard
of. We caught Tooley and stuck him under the basket, and made him do
it all over again. You see, every time when Tooley got loose, the kids
all leant forward and yelled like mad; but I just kept my mouth shut,
and leaned way back out of the way so that Tooley'd run out through my
quarter. So I won most all the time."

There was a pause, while Nickey looked a bit apprehensively at his
audience. But he went on gamely to the end of the chapter.

"Once Tooley made a bolt in a straight line through Dimp's quarter,
and hit Dimp in the mouth, and bowled him over like a nine-pin. Dimp
was scared to death, and howled like murder till he found he'd scooped
the pot; then he got quiet. After we made Tooley run ten times, he
struck work and wouldn't run any more; so we just had to let him go;
but I didn't care nothn' about that, 'cause you see I had the kids'
cash in my pants pocket, and that was what I was after. Well, sir,
when it was all over, 'cause I'd busted the bank----"

"Nicholas Burke, I am ashamed of you."

"Never mind, ma; I'm most through now. When they found I'd busted the
bank, they looked kind of blue, and Dimp Perkins said it was a skin
game, and I was a bunco steerer."

"What did you say to that?" Donald inquired.

"Oh, I just said it was all for religion, it was church money, and it
was all right. I was just gleanin' what few cents they had, to pay the
church debt to the missionary; and they ought to be ashamed to have a
church debt hangin' over 'em, and they'd oughter be more cheerful
'bout givin' a little somethin' toward raisin' of it."

When Nickey had finished, there was an ominous silence for a moment
or two, and then his mother said sternly:

"What do you suppose Mrs. Perkins will say when she finds that you've
tricked her son into a regular gambling scheme, to get his money away
from him?"

"Mrs. Perkins," retorted