"I'm glad to know you, sir," Blind Gilbert said, deferentially. "May be you know me, sir. It's sixteen years this coming August since I've had a stand on Broadway. I don't do much business, but I'm thankful for all I have. The Lord, in all this mercy, seen fit to afflict me, but he never let old Gilbert starve."
"How did you lose your sight?" Richard asked awkardly, not wishing to express any opinion concerning the mercy of making a man blind.
"Well, it came very sudden like. I had a little shop in this very room, sir, and I lived in the one back, where I've lived ever since 1 lost my shop. I done a good business, as I had done ever since me and me old woman came out from Ireland, these forty years ago. Me old woman fell sick and after running up a long doctor bill, she died, the Lord bless her soul, for if we had our fights, she was a good woman to me. One mornin' after she had been
