"They took the servant with them," said Slinn, briefly. "There is
no one here."

"All right," said the millionaire, briskly. "I'll go myself. Do
you think you can manage to light up a little more, and build a
fire in the kitchen while I'm gone? It used to be mighty
comfortable in the old times."

He helped the old man to rise from his chair, and seemed to have
infused into him some of his own energy. He then added, "Now,
don't you get yourself down again into that chair until I come
back," and darted out into the night once more.

In a quarter of an hour he returned with a bag on his broad
shoulders, which one of his porters would have shrunk from lifting,
and laid it before the blazing hearth of the now lighted kitchen.
"It's something the old woman got for her party, that didn't come
off," he said, apologetically. "I reckon we can pick out enough
for a spread. That darned Chinaman wouldn't come with me," he
added, with a laugh, "because, he said, he'd knocked off work
'allee same, Mellican man!' Look here, Slinn," he said, with a
sudden decisiveness, "my pay-roll of the men around here don't run
short of a hundred and fifty dollars a day, and yet I couldn't get
a hand to help me bring this truck over for my Christmas dinner."

"Of course," said Slinn, gloomily.

"Of course; so it oughter be," returned Mulrady, shortly. "Why,
it's only their one day out of 364; and I can have 363 days off, as
I am their boss. I don't mind a man's being independent," he