igar, bit off the end, and spat the crumbs of tobacco
from his lips.

"You could put me on to the mantilla, couldn't you?--spot it for me once
I come across it?"

"Of course I could, the minute I clapped my eyes on it."

"It's a kind of lace shawl, ain't it?"

"Yes. All black--a big one with a frill around it and a tear in one
side--that's what she was mending. A good piece, I should think, because
it was so fine and silky. You could squash it up in one hand, it was
that soft. That's why she took such care of it, putting it back in that
box every night to keep the dust out of it."

"Well, what's the matter with your coming along with me?"

"And where are you going to take me?"

"To one or two pawn-shops around here."

"Well, I'm not going with you. If I go anywhere it will be up to
Rosenthal's. I'm getting worried. It's after three o'clock now. She's
got no money to get anything to eat. She'll come home dead beat out if
she's been hungry all this time."

"Well, it's right on the way. We'll take in a few of the small shops,
and then we'll keep on up. There are two on Second Avenue, and then
there's Blobbs's, one of the biggest around here. The old woman gets
a lot of that kind of stuff and she'll open up when she finds out who
wants to know. I've done business with her--where does this fellow,
Dalton, live?"

"Up on the East Side."

"Well, then, we are all right. He will make for some fence where he is
not known. Come along."

Martha hesitated for an instant, abandoned her decision, and retied her
bonnet-strings; she might find her mistress the quicker if she acceded
to his request. She stepped to the stove, examined the fire to see that
it was all right, added a shovel of coal and, with Pickert at her
heels, groped her way down the dingy stairs, her fingers following the
handrail. In the front hall she stopped to say to the janitress that she
was going to Rosenthal's and to tell Mrs. Stanton, when she came, that
she was not to leave the apartment again, as Mr. Carlin was coming to
see her.

When they reached the corner of the next block, Pickert halted outside
a small loan-office, told her to wait, and disappeared inside, only to
emerge five minutes later and continue his walk with her up-town. The
performance was repeated twice, his last stop being in front of a gold
sign notifying the indigent and the guilty that one Blobbs bought,
sold, and exchanged various articles of wearing-apparel for cash or it