him away, and struggling darkly in her mind after some way to reach the incorruptible and obstinate Paulsen.
Tommy, meanwhile, had gone easily to Chicago, and the next morning, having found the box, was loitering, with a conscience at rest, among a hundred odd people who were at the sale of "unclaimed and seized merchandise" in the government warehouse. Next to Tommy stood a yellow-haired young man with his hat on the back of his head and a pad bulging his breast-pocket. Tommy and he were the only persons present not bidding.
"Live in Chicago?" said the young man.
Tommy, flattered by the inference, shook his head and named his town.
"Pretty town," said the young man. "I used to live there; I used to be on the 'Evening Scimitar.' Now"—he flung his coat open, disclosing his reporter's badge. Tommy read the name of the great city paper with a tinge of respect. The reporter asked questions about familiar names, ending with Tommy's own personality—"Fitzmaurice? Fitzmaurice? You aren't—"
"I'm Patrick Fitzmaurice's son," said Tommy, composedly. "His place was down on Third Street."
The reporter eyed Tommy askance. He could not place this well-dressed, well-mannered young man, with his handsome Irish-Norman face (that clean-cut, delicate face which is no more like the caricatures of the Irish-Celtic face than the newspaper "Celt" is like the man himself). He knew Pat Fitzmaurice's place, but here was a flower from a saloon window. He did not quite know how to take Tommy's calmness. "I must have been at the university when you were there," said Tommy, still unconscious, "for I don't remember you."
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". . . HE FLUNG HIS COAT OPEN, DISCLOSING HIS REPORTER'S BADGE."
"They had a son at school. Mrs. Fitzmaurice used to tell me about him. I hope your mother is well, Mr. Fitzmaurice. She was an angel of mercy to me. One awfully cold night, when I was out on an assignment about a fire, got wet through, and my clothes froze on me, I went in, and she made me hot coffee herself—she said I was too young for whisky—loaned me some of your clothes, by the way, to get home in—all not knowing I wasn't reeling off a lie to her."
"Well, the clothes came back," said Tommy. "I heard about it. Mother's always up to such tricks."
"Mothers are a big thing; they keep a fellow sure there's some good left in the world, and yours was one of the motherliest mothers going."
Tommy blushed with pleasure, but could think of nothing better than to hand the reporter a cigar. And it was at this softened moment that his eyes fell on an old woman who had just entered. She was poorly clad in a worn, limp, black skirt made short enough to show her coarse shoes, and a basque of that unchanging model affected by elderly German women of the humbler kind. The hair under the old-fashioned bonnet was gray, almost white. She walked in with a quick step, like one in haste, her dim eyes wandering anxiously over the array of boxes on the platform. Then she whispered to the young girl at her side, who seemed to be a servant, and was a comely, fresh-colored, honest-looking lass, in the cheap travesty of the fashion that so soon replaces the trusty old blue stuffs in this
