The organ-grinder handed round his cap, up and down the crooked line of
his audience. The two sober boys at one end dropped in a number of
pennies, one at a time deliberately,

"Bless ye!" murmured the organ-grinder, gratefully. Jot's brown face
tweaked with the agony of keeping straight, but Old Tilly was equal to
the occasion. He assumed a benevolent, pitying expression.

"Hold on a minute!" he called. "Here's a nickel for your poor wife and
children. How many you got?"

"Five, sir, your honor," the musician murmured thickly.

"Starving?"

"Sure--all but a couple of the little uns. They're up 'n' dressed,
thank ye; bless ye!"

Jot made a strange, choking sound in his throat.

"Is the young gent took ill?" inquired the organ-grinder, solicitously.

"No, oh, no; only a slight attack of strangulating--he's liable to
attacks. It was the music--too much for him!"' Old Tilly gravely
explained, but his lips quivered and struggled to smile.

The whole little procession trailed slowly down the lane to the street.
At the next house and at all the others in succession, it turned in and
arranged itself in line again, prepared to listen with ears and dancing