sir?"

Moses, standing at the door, waited, and as he waited he talked to
himself. "Something is the matter with Mr. Laine. He ain't never
call Gineral's name since he done pass away, and I know the miss of
him has been a-smartin', but don't seem like that would have made him
so restless like he been. 'Tain't like him to come in and go right
out, and come back and go out again. He got something on his mind, a
kind of warfare like." He coughed slightly and again spoke. "Did
you ring, Mr. Laine?"

"I did. Five minutes ago. As a member of the leisure class you'd
take a blue ribbon, Moses. Where in the devil are you? Why don't
you come in? I can't talk to air."

"I was waitin' to see if I was mistook: about the bell." Moses came
inside the room.

"Where I come from folks don't step so lively as they do up here, and
old Colonel Tayloes, he used to say there ain't nothin' so inelegant
as hurry, lessen 'tis worry. But of course I shouldn't have had no
discussion in my mind about that bell. I got a bad way of projectin'
when--"

"You don't want to move. You have. Any day an affidavit is needed
to that effect I'll sign it. Did you go to that address I gave you
yesterday?"

"Yes, sir. I went and I been a-tryin' to forgit I went ever since I
got back. It's God's truth the boy told you, I seen him and his ma,
and all the other children 'cept those at work, and the whole of 'em
was livin' in two rooms, and a closet where the biggest boy slept.
Their pa he got kilt at the shops where he work, and the lawyer what
undertook to get damages got 'em, and they ain't seen him since."

"Did you notice the size of the woman and the age of the children?"

"Yes, sir. The mother she come near 'bout up to my shoulder and was
thin and wore-out lookin'. The two little ones was four and two
years old. You saw the lame one. There's a girl seven. She's a
puller-out of bastin's, her ma said, and the oldest girl is fourteen.
She's a runner, or a cash, or somethin' in a store. The biggest boy
is in a foundry-shop and the lame one sells papers."

"A mother and six children." Laine made some notes in a book and put
it back in his pocket. "I'm going out. Have a cab here at
eight-thirty. The things I bring back will be put in the room at the
end of the hall. On Christmas Eve you are to buy what I've mentioned
in this"--he handed him an envelope--"and with them take the bundles
in the room to the place you went to yes