"I'm three, mister!"

"I'm forty-one!"

He let them in, one by one, and they clattered up the stairs, as he
seized a tiny girl bundled in a dark red muffler and set her on the steps
above him. He smiled at Janet.

"This is my restaurant," he said.

But she could not answer. She watched him as he continued to bend over
the children, and when the smaller ones wept because they had to wait, he
whispered in their ears, astonishing one or two into laughter. Some
ceased crying and clung to him with dumb faith. And after the chosen
hundred had been admitted he turned to her again.

"You allow visitors?"

"Oh dear, yes. They'd come anyway. There's one up there now, a very swell
lady from New York--so swell I don't know what to say to her. Talk to her
for me."

"But I shouldn't know what to say, either," replied Janet. She smiled,
but she had an odd desire to cry. "What is she doing here?"

"Oh, thrashing 'round, trying to connect with life--she's one of the
unfortunate unemployed."

"Unemployed?"