"The Avenue"--a clear-skinned, well-built man,
barely forty, whose muscular body just filled his black cassock so that
it neither fell in folds nor wrinkled crosswise, and whose fresh, ruddy
face was an index of the humane, kindly, helpful life that he led. For
him Kitty could never do enough.

The office, sitting-room, and kitchen, however, were not all that
the expressman and his wife possessed in the way of accommodations.
Up-stairs were two front bedrooms, one occupied by John and Kitty,
and the other by their boy Bobby, while in the extreme rear, over the
kitchen, was a single room which was let to any respectable man who
could pay for it. These rooms were all reached by a staircase ascending
from a narrow hall entered by a separate street-door adjoining that
of the office. The door and staircase were convenient for the lodger
wishing to stumble up to bed without disturbing his hosts--an event,
however, that seldom happened, as Kitty was generally the last person
awake in her house.

The horses, as has been said, were kept in the livery-stable next
door--the brown mare, a recent purchase, and the old white horse, Jim,
the pride of Kitty's heart, in a special stall. The wagons were either
backed in the shed in the rear or left overnight close to the curb, with
chains on the hind wheels. This was contrary to regulations, and
would have been so considered but for the fact that the captain of
the precinct often got his coffee in Kitty's back kitchen, as did Tom
McGinniss, the big policeman, whose beat reached nearly to the tunnel,
both men soothing their consciences with the argument that Kitty's job
lasted so late and began so early, sometimes a couple of hours or so
before daylight, that it was not worth while to bother about her wagons,
when everybody else was in bed, or ought to be.

She was smoothing old Jim's neck, crooning over him, talking to him in
her motherly way, telling him what a ruffian he was and how ashamed
she was of him for getting the hair worn off under his collar, and he a
horse old enough to know better, Bobby's "Toodles," an animated doormat
of a dog, sniffing at her skirt, when Otto and his friend hove in sight.

"The top of the mornin' to ye, Otto Kling, and ye never see a better
and a finer. And what can I do for ye?--for ye wouldn't be lavin' them
gimcracks of yours this time O'day unless there was somethin' up."

"No, I don't got nudding you can do for me, Kitty. It's dis gentlemans
w