him," said Leslie.

"No. You can always pick the brothered boys," said Douglas. "The first
thing that happens to them is a clean-up and better clothing; then an air
of possessed importance. No man has attached this one."

"Douglas, describe him," she commanded. "I'll watch for him. How did he
look? What was the trouble?"

"One at a time," cautioned the man. "He was a little chap, a white, clean,
threadbare little chap, with such a big voice, so wonderfully intoned, and
such a bigger principle, for which he was fighting. One of these overgrown
newsboys the public won't stand for unless he is in the way when they are
making a car, had hired him to sell his papers while he loafed.
Mickey----"

"'Mickey?'" repeated Leslie questioningly.

"The big fellow called him 'Mickey'; no doubt a mother who adored him
named him Michael, and thought him 'like unto God' when she did it. The
big fellow had loafed all afternoon. When Mickey came back and turned over
the money, and waited to be paid off, his employer laughed at the boy for
not keeping it when he had it. Mickey begged him 'to be square' and told
him that 'was not business'--'_not business_,' mind you, but the big
fellow jeered at him and was starting away. Mickey and I reached him at
the same time; so I got in the gutter again. I don't see how I can be so
slow! I don't see how I did it!"

"I don't either," she said, with a twinkle that might have referred to the
first of the two exclamations. "It must be your Scotch habit of going