There was a curious mixture of complaint and satisfaction in Dick's
tone. Mrs. Roberts gathered from it that the young man, Mark Calkins, in
whom the policeman had tried to interest her, was superior to the rest
of the miserable people in the alley, and that they resented it as an
insult to themselves; but that, at the same time, the reflected honor of
having a "swell" doctor come into their midst, attendant upon one who
really belonged to their class, was very great. Could she possibly get a
little influence over them by following up the injured young man, and
giving what help was needful? She had hardly meant to call, though
trying to find the house. Her method of reasoning had been something
like this: "The policeman said he lived about two blocks from my poor
Dirk's home. Since there has so recently been an accident, there may be
something to mark the house,--a doctor passing in, possibly, or
something that shall give me a landmark, and I can have a glimpse of the
outside of one of the homes." In her ignorance of life at that end of
the social scale she did not know that a doctor passing in and out, even
after an accident, was a sufficiently rare occurrence to make much more
of a mark than she was looking for. So absorbed had she been over the
boys belonging to her class that she had rather ignored the policeman's
manifest hint to add this one to her list. Yet, was it possibly an
answer to her prayer, an entering-wedge of some sort, that might open
the way to influence?

"Who is the doctor?" she asked her guide, as the possibility of making
an entrance through him occurred to her. "Do you know his name?"

Oh yes, Dick knew his name and where he lived, and even the names of
some of his "swell" patients;--trust him for gaining information about
anything that came into the alley.