alias the Bussard, the man had said his name was. He couldn't get
any work; there was the shadow of a long abode in Sing Sing that
lay upon him as a curse - a job here to-day, his record discovered
to-morrow, and the next day out on the street again. It was very
old, very threadbare, that story; there were even the sick wife,
the hungry, unclothed children; but to her it had rung true. Her
father had not placed the slightest faith in it, and but for her
intervention the Bussard would have been incontinently consigned
to the mercies of the police.

Her face softened suddenly now as she walked along. She remembered
well that scene, when, at the end, she had written down the address
the man had given her.

"Father is going to let you go, McGee, because I ask him to," she
had said. "And to-morrow morning I will go to this address, and if
I find your story is true, as I believe it is, I will see what I
can do for you."

"It's true, miss, so help me God!" the man had answered brokenly.
"Youse come an' see. I'll be dere-an'-an'-God bless youse, miss!"

And so they had let the man go free, and her father, with a
whimsical, tolerant smile, had shaken his head at her. "You'll
never find that address, Rhoda-or our friend the Bussard, either!"

But she had found both the Bussard and the address, and destitution
and a squalor unspeakable. Pathetic still, but the vernacular of
the underworld where men called their women by no more gracious
names than "molls" and "skirts" no longer strange to her ears, there