"Hello!" he called, and waved the haze away with his open palm.

"Come on down! Been tinkering with this blamed furnace since
supper. She don't draw like she ought. 'Long toward spring a
furnace always gets balky. How many tons you used this winter?"

"Oh-five," said the Very Young Husband shortly. Alderman
Mooney considered it thoughtfully. The Young Husband leaned up
against the side of the water tank, his hands in his pockets.
"Say, Mooney, is that right about Blanche Devine's having bought
the house on the corner?"

"You're the fourth man that's been in to ask me that this
evening. I'm expecting the rest of the block before bedtime.
She bought it all right."

The Young Husband flushed and kicked at a piece of coal with the
toe of his boot.

"Well, it's a darned shame!" he began hotly. "Jen was ready
to cry at supper. This'll be a fine neighborhood for Snooky to
grow up in! What's a woman like that want to come into a
respectable street for, anyway? I own my home and pay my
taxes--"

Alderman Mooney looked up.

"So does she," he interrupted. "She's going to improve the
place--paint it, and put in a cellar and a furnace, and build a
porch, and lay a cement walk all round."