"Chuckey" Martin, who blacked boots in front of the corner saloon in
summer and swept out the bar-room in winter, came out through the family
entrance and dumped a pan of hot ashes into the snow-bank, and then
turned into the house with a shiver. He saw a mass of something lying
curled up on the steps of the next house, and remembered it after he had
closed the door of the family entrance behind him and shoved the pan
under the stove. He decided at last that it might be one of the saloon's
customers, or a stray sailor with loose change in his pockets, which he
would not miss when he awoke. So he went out again, and picking Guido
up, brought him in in his arms and laid him out on the floor.

There were over thirty men in the place; they had been celebrating the
coming of Christmas; and three of them pushed each other out of the way
in their eagerness to pour very bad brandy between Guido's teeth.
"Chuckey" Martin felt a sense of proprietorship in Guido, by the right
of discovery, and resented this, pushing them away, and protesting that
the thing to do was to rub his feet with snow.

A fat oily chief engineer of an Italian tramp steamer dropped on his
knees beside Guido and beat the boy's hands, and with unsteady fingers
tore open his scarf and jacket, and as he did this the figure of the
plaster Virgin with her hands stretched out looked up at him from its
bed on Guido's chest.

Some of the sailors drew their hands quickly across their breasts, and
others swore in some alarm, and the bar-keeper drank the glass of
whiskey he had brought for Guido at a gulp, and then readjusted his
apron to show that nothing had disturbed his equanimity. Guido sat up,
with his head against the chief engineer's knees, and opened his eyes,