in himself, Joey unbent. "Yer see, Bill,
Dad ain't never showed up fer to git me--seen anything of Dad since he
got out, Bill?"

Bill nodded.

"What's he up to now?" queried Joey.

"Shovin' the queer," admitted Bill laconically, "nabbed right off an' in
the cooler waitin' his turn, yer won't be troubled by him fer quite a
spell, I'll give yer dat fer a pointer, see?"

Joey saw, and for the space of half a second seemed somewhat sobered by
the intelligence. "I guessed as much," said he, "yer see, after he got
nabbed first, mammy she--yer didn't know as mammy took an' died, did
yer, Bill?" and Joey faltered and let the Angel take possession of his
cap and transfer it to her own curly head while the Tenement children
applauded with jeering commendation, seeing there was a standing feud
between Joey and the rest of the juvenile populace over its possession.

"No," Bill allowed, he did not know it, but, seeing that she was always
ailing, Bill was in no wise surprised.

"An'--an' since then, I'm stayin' over ter th' Arm'ry wid Old G. A. R.
Yer know him, Bill, Old G. A. R. what takes care of th' Arm'ry. He was
there afore yer left th' grocery."

Bill remembered the gentleman.

"I stays wid him an' he drills me an' makes me scrub, hully gee, how he
do make me wash meself, Bill! An' there's one sojer-man, th' Cap'n, he
give me these togs, he did, an' he tol' Old G. A. R. to lem'me eat along
wid him over ter Dutchy's Res'traunt," nodding toward a cheap
eating-house at the corner, "an' he'd stand fer it. They calls me major,
all of 'em to th' Arm'ry, Bill, see?" and Joey was waxing voluble
indeed, when he turned to see the mob of jeering children make off up
the street, his cap in their midst, while the wailing Angel was being
rescued from under the horse's very hoofs by Mary Carew.

Joey put his spirit of inquiry before even his cap. "Is she er Angel,
say?" he inquired of Miss Carew, turning his back on Bill without
ceremony who with a grin and a nod to the group of Tenement ladies at
the door, drove off, "I heerd yer had er Angel over there, but I didn't
know as it was straight, what they was givin' me, see?"

"That's what she is, the darling yonder," declared Miss Bonkowski from
the curbstone, nodding airily, "you've got it straight this time, Joey.
And if what Peter O'Malligan says about your picking her up just now is
so, you're welcome to come over some time and play with her."

"Yes, it's true," supplemented Ma