suddenly become a public character, had ceased to be the recipient of
the dimes of the tender-hearted. Such is the capriciousness of the
human temperament at times of emotional excitement, the plan of a
subscription for the victim's family had not been mooted until what
was to its parents a small fortune had been bestowed on the rescued
child; but the scale of justice had gradually righted itself.
Contributions were now pouring in, especially since it was reported
that the mayor and several other well-known persons had headed the
list with fifty dollars each; and there was reason to believe that a
lump sum of from fifteen hundred to two thousand dollars would be
collected for the benefit of the widow and seven children before
public generosity was exhausted.

Local interest was on the wane; but, thanks to the telegraph and the
press, the facts were being disseminated through the country, and
every leading newspaper in the land was chronicling, with more or less
prominence according to the character of its readers, the item that
John Baker, the gate-keeper at a railroad crossing in a Pennsylvania
city, had snatched a toddling child from the pathway of a swiftly
moving locomotive and been crushed to death.

A few days later a dinner-company of eight was gathered at a country
house several hundred miles distant from the scene of the calamity.
The host and hostess were people of wealth and leisure, who enjoyed
inviting congenial parties from their social acquaintance in the
neighboring city to share with them for two or three days at a time
the charms of nature. The dinner was appetizing, the wine good, and
conversation turned lightly from one subject to another.

They had talked on a variety of topics: of tarpon fishing in Florida;