The Great God Success

furnished-room house" there because it was cheap. He staid b

l kinds, French and Germans, Italians and Austrians, Spaniards and Moors, Scandinavians and negroes, born New Yorkers and born citizens of most of the capitals of civilisation and semi-barbarism. There were actresses, dancers, shop girls, cocottes; touts, thieves, confidence-men, mission workers; artists and students from the musty University building, tramps and drunkards from the "barrel-houses" and "stale-beer shops;" and, across the square to the north,

ays, heard the young men and young women laughing and shouting and making love under the trees where the Washington Arch glistened in the twilight. Later came the songs-"I want you, my honey, yes I do," or "Lu, Lu, how I love my Lu!", or some other of the curre

iant ghost. There would be an occasional drunken shout or shriek; a riotous roar of song from some staggering reveller making company for himself on the journey home; the heavy step of the policeman. Or perhaps the only sound to disturb the city's sleep would

d it ring upon the walk. She rushed forward and twice kicked it away from her in her frenzy to get it. When her bare hand-or was i

left for future. Indeed, perhaps none of these storm-tossed or wrecked human craft had had more of a past than Mrs. Sands. There was no mistaking the significance of those deep furrows filled with powder and plastered with paint, those few hairs tinted and frizzed.

the retreat upward until a cubby-hole under the eaves was reached. Finally came precipitate and baggageless departure, ofte

e serving tray which he had himself put outside his door when he had finished breakfast. He looked more closely. It was "the clergyman" from up under the eaves-an unfrocked priest, thin to emaciation, misery writt

midnight, there was soon a knock at his door. He opened it and invited in the man at the threshold-a tal

eft no doubt as to his breeding though they raised the gravest doubts as to his bein

arette and some whis

of Scotch on the table. "Concentrated, double-disti

drives all others a

careless shrug of the shoulders and a lifting of the eyebrows. "But at le

he last piece of

are overlooking one friend-the one who helped our cleric

ck has

e shot himself

e up my mind to try to help

I had a slight acquaintance with him. He left a note for me-mailed it just before he shot himself. In it he asked that I insert a

iting paper on which was written: "Hel

stinct alert. And then he remembered that it was not fo

elping himself to the whiskey.

me? Yes. I saw them at the

is house. I've been wondering what tempest wrecked

wre

except you-wrecks here, a

I thought," said Howard, "the s

this kind of life, at least to poverty. I fancy Miss Black-Hair looks on it as

ard said, weary of the conversation an

ome because of a stepmother and that they are going to earn their own living. But they won't. They spend the nights racing abo

shoulders and added: "Miss Black-Hair may get on up town present

nts afterward. At the other end of the short hall light was streaming through the open door of the room the tw

began, "I

l the lines of her form. Her hair was indeed black, jet black, waving back from her forehead in a line of curving and beautiful irregularity. Her skin was clear and dark. There were deep

t, self-confident smile, "that you were

d, the circles under her eyes remindi

e girl replied, "I'm nearly dead. But

ogether. She broke it tonight. My fellow got too fresh, so I came home

young to be out al

ot, had she been less beautiful or less lonely and childish. At his remark about her

of myself. Still she hasn't much sense. She'll get into trouble yet.

suppose?" sug

small graceful head, "I know what I'm a

teach your s

hed a little, looking like a child caught i

you been withou

ths. But I saw her in the street y

ve got a s

to Mrs. Sands. But it's not so.

rom what you sai

. We just say we're sisters. I wish she'd co

y furnished, the lounge and a closed folding bed almost filling it. Upon the mantel, the bureau and the little table were a few odds and ends that stamped it a woman's room. A street gown of thi

live alone," she said, and the accompanying

ht go ba

t with no thought of turning out. "He can't treat me as he treats mother. Why, he goes away and stays for days. Then he comes home and quarrels with he

re's you

dn't let me go anywhere or let anybody come to see me. He says everyb

ave a poor opi

and craft. "I've been away, living with Nellie for four months an

u've go

as good-looking and would catch trade. So he made me cashier. I get six dollars a week to Nellie's three. But it's a bad plac

n't have to

lunch free. I pay three dollars

and carfare out of two or three dollars a week. As it was, he only wondered how long a girl who had been used at least to comfort would endure this. "It's eas

her right hand where she would have worn rings if she h

artled. "Did Nellie

at you were missing your ri

y except a bracelet. Nellie can't get alon

nk you'd rath

sides, I'm pretty well off. I go where I please, stay out as late as I please

ess. The girl started from the chair, listened, then

ed and said: "Well, good-n

the girl ans

You're a nice one!" came in "Miss Black-Hair's" indignant

sob-"Oh, Alice, you

upon the lounge, then sobs and cries of "Oh! Oh!" As Howard went into his bedroom, he could hear the voices still more plainly through the thin wal