superintendent's face expressed shock and displeasure.

"I know him," the inspector said. "He's twelve years old. I've had him
discharged from three factories inside the year. This makes the fourth."

He turned to the one-legged boy. "You promised me, word and honour, that
you'd go to school."

The one-legged boy burst into tears. "Please, Mr. Inspector, two babies
died on us, and we're awful poor."

"What makes you cough that way?" the inspector demanded, as though charging
him with crime.

And as in denial of guilt, the one-legged boy replied: "It ain't nothin'.
I jes' caught a cold last week, Mr. Inspector, that's all."

In the end the one-legged boy went out of the room with the inspector, the
latter accompanied by the anxious and protesting superintendent. After
that monotony settled down again. The long morning and the longer
afternoon wore away and the whistle blew for quitting time. Darkness had
already fallen when Johnny passed out through the factory gate. In the
interval the sun had made a golden ladder of the sky, flooded the world
with its gracious warmth, and dropped down and disappeared in the west
behind a ragged sky-line of housetops.

Supper was the family meal of the day--the one meal at which Johnny
encountered his younger brothers and sisters. It partook of the nature of
an encounter, to him, for he was very old, while they were distressingly
young. He had no patience with their excessive and amazing juvenility. He