gloom which had enveloped him. And then, with a quick memory of the
note and of his anger:

"Miss Bailey, who is this young man?"

And Teacher, of whose hobbies Morris was one, answered warmly: "That is
Morris Mogilewsky, the best of boys. He takes care of the gold-fish, and
does all sorts of things for me. Don't you, dear?"

"Teacher, yiss ma'an," Morris answered. "I'm lovin' much mit you. I
gives presents on the comp'ny over you."

"Ain't he rather big to speak such broken English?" asked Mr. O'Shea. "I
hope you remember that it is part of your duty to stamp out the
dialect."

"Yes, I know," Miss Bailey answered. "But Morris has been in America for
so short a time. Nine months, is it not?"

"Teacher, yiss ma'an. I comes out of Russia," responded Morris, on the
verge of tears and with his face buried in Teacher's dress.

Now Mr. O'Shea had his prejudices--strong and deep. He had been given
jurisdiction over that particular district because it was his native
heath, and the Board of Education considered that he would be more in
sympathy with the inhabitants than a stranger. The truth was absolutely
the reverse. Because he had spent his early years in a large old house
on East Broadway, because he now saw his birthplace changed to a squalid
tenement, and the happy hunting grounds of his youth grown ragged and
foreign--swarming with strange faces and noisy with strange tongues--Mr.