that hung in the windows of the Italian bankers hurt him as the sound of
traffic on the street cuts to the heart of a prisoner in the Tombs. Many
of his countrymen bade good-by to Mulberry Street and sailed away; but
they had grown rich through obeying the padrones, and working night and
morning sweeping the Avenue uptown, and by living on the refuse from the
scows at Canal Street. Guido never hoped to grow rich, and no one
stopped to buy his uncle's wares.

The electric lights came out, and still the crowd passed and thronged
before him, and the snow fell and left no mark on the white figures.
Guido was growing cold, and the bustle of the hurrying hundreds which
had entertained him earlier in the day had ceased to interest him, and
his amusement had given place to the fear that no one of them would ever
stop, and that he would return to his uncle empty-handed. He was hungry
now, as well as cold, and though there was not much rich food in the
Bend at any time, to-day he had had nothing of any quality to eat since
early morning. The man with the monkeys turned his head from time to
time, and spoke to him in a language that he could not understand;
although he saw that it was something amusing and well meant that the
man said, and so smiled back and nodded. He felt it to be quite a loss
when the man moved away.

Guido thought very slowly, but he at last began to feel a certain
contempt for the stiff statues and busts which no one wanted, and
buttoned the figure of the one of the woman with her arms held out,
inside of his jacket, and tucked his scarf in around it, so that it
might not be broken, and also that it might not bear the ignominy with
the others of being overlooked. Guido was a gentle, slow-thinking boy,
and could not have told you why he did this, but he knew that this
figure was of different clay from the others. He had seen it placed high