his poor mother!" A
current like electricity that sets a wire humming ran in waves along
Mrs. Schimm's voice. "Look!"

"Oh-oh! I say, ain't that a trouble for that poor woman? When you see
other people's trouble your own ain't so bad."

"Ain't that awful? Just look at his face! Ain't that a trouble for you?"

"She herself as much as told me not a thing does her swell brother over
on Kingston do for them. I guess such a job as that boy has got in his
banking-house he could get from a stranger too."

"'Sh-h-h, Mrs. Lissman! Here he comes. Don't let on like we been talking
about him. Speak to him like always."

"Good evening, Izzy."

Isadora Shongut paused in the act of mounting the front steps and turned
a blood-driven face toward his neighbor. His under jaw sagged and
trembled, and his well-knit body seemed to have lost its power to stand
erect, so that his clothes bagged.

"Good evening, Mrs.--Lissman."

"You're home early to-night, Izzy?"

"Y-yes."

He fitted his key into the front-door lock, but his hand trembled so
that it would not turn; and for a racking moment he stood there vainly
pushing a weak knee against the panel, and his breath came out of his
throat in a wheeze.

The maid-of-all-work, straggly and down at the heels, answered his
fumbling at the lock and opened the door to him.

"You, Mr. Izzy!"

He sprang in like a catamount, clicking the door quick as a flash behind
him. "'Sh-h-h! Where's ma?"

"Your mamma ain't home; she went up to Rindley's. You ain't sick, are
you, Mr. Izzy?"

A spasm of relief flashed over his face, and he snapped his dry fingers
in an agony of nervousness. "Where's Renie? Quick!"

"She's in her room, layin' down. She ain't goin' to be home to the
supper-party to-night, Mr. Izzy; she--What's the matter, Mr. Izzy?"

He was down the hallway in three running bounds and, without the
preliminary of knocking, into his sister's tiny, semi-darkened
bedroom, his breathing suddenly filling it. She sprang from her little
chintz-covered bed, where she had flung herself across its top, her face
and wrapper rumpled with sleep.

"Izzy!"

"'Sh-h-h!"

"Izzy, what--where--Izzy, what is it?"

"'Sh-h-h, for God's sake! 'Sh-h! Don't let 'em hear, Renie. Don't let
'em hear!"

Her swimming senses suddenly seemed to clear. "What's happened, Izzy?
Quick! What's wrong?"

He clicked the key in the lock, and in the agony of the same
dry-fingered nervousness rubbed his hand back a