ked his meals and washed his clothes and aired his bed as only
good old mothers can. Over this floor were two others, let, as I have
said, in lodgings--to whom, who knows? Who ever knows to whom lodgings
are let in this big, crowded city?

Billy finished his dinner and drew up his chair and one for his mother
by the stove, and filled his huge mug with beer, and his huge pipe with
tobacco, and talked it all over with his mother. She was a fine woman,
was Billy's mother, and she drew a straight, steady rein over her big,
burly, good-natured boy. She was Billy's best friend, and he knew it,
and when she told him she would stand by and help him, and save for him
and look out after him, Billy reached forth his brawny arm, and drew her
over on his knee and danced her up and down, smoothing back her gray
hair and kissing her old cheeks as if she were a baby.

Then, when the clock struck nine, she got up to wash the dishes, and
Billy took his lantern to go down among his forges again. Not that he
had anything particular to do, though there never was a time when Billy
couldn't find something, but the novelty of owning a business was strong
with him, and he wanted to hammer just for the fun of hammering. He
descended into the cellar through a side-door which opened from the back
hall upon a short ladder. The street doors were barred and bolted. He
set his lantern on the ladder steps and lit an oil lamp that hung over
his anvil, picked up his iron and his hammer, thrust the one into the
coals and laid the other on his anvil, and blew away. Oh, what an arm
that was of Billy's! How it made the bellows bulge and the wind roar up
the great chimney! How the black coals reddened and flamed and blazed!
How the iron glowed and whitened with the heat, and when Billy drew
his great hammer down upon it with a hoarse grunt accompanying each blow
as if to give it effectiveness, how the sparks scampered about in a
furious effort to escape!

[Illustration: OH, WHAT AN ARM WAS THAT OF BILLY'S!]

Billy was hammering and grunting at a great rate, and the forge fire was
throwing upon the ceiling fantastic illuminations and causing a thousand
still more fantastic shadows, when, wholly without preliminary warning
or greeting, Billy felt a slight touch on his arm. It was a slight
touch, as I said, but a cold one, a very cold one indeed. Billy turned
swiftly around with his hammer in one hand and his red-hot iron in the
other. Standing almost beside