The tips that lady gave the bad boy Nat! I knew I couldn't make
you believe it any other way; that's why I passed 'em on to you,
Tommy-boy.

The hotel woman, you know, girls, is a hotel woman because she
isn't fit to be anything else. She's lazy and selfish and little,
and she's shifted all her legitimate cares on to the proprietor's
shoulders. She actually--you can understand and share my
indignation, can't you, Tom, as you've shared other things?--she
even gives over her black tin box full of valuables to the hotel
clerk to put in the safe; the coward! But her vanity--ah, there's
where we get her, such speculators as you and myself. She's got
to outshine the woman who sits at the next table, and so she
borrows her diamonds from the clerk, wears 'em like the peacock
she is, and trembles till they're back in the safe again.

In the meantime she locks them up in the tin box which she puts
in her top bureau-drawer, hides the key, forgets where she hid
it, and--O Tom! after searching for it for hours and making
herself sick with anxiety, she ties up her head in a wet
handkerchief with vinegar on it and--rings the bell for the
bell-boy!

He comes.

As I said, he's a prompt, gentle little bell-boy, slight, looks
rather young for his job, but that very youth and innocence of
his make him such a fellow to trust!

"Nat," says Mrs. Kingdon, tearfully pressing half a dollar into