Dear Mr. Halloran: Won't you come down to the Settlement Friday evening? The young men's class and the girls' class are going to entertain themselves, and Mr. Appleton Le Duc has promised to help them. I want to have another talk with you about George. We have heard nothing from him for a week, and I am afraid he is in trouble. After such encouragement as he has given us I don't like to let go of him.

“Be sure to come if you can.

“Very sincerely yours,

“Margaret Davies.”

The above note accounts for the presence of Halloran and Le Duc (he of the nimble legs) in a suburban train, on that Friday evening, bound for Clybourn and the Settlement. A few seats behind them sat Miss Davies, escorted by Mr. Babcock, a young business man who seemed to be going in heartily for charity work at this time. Le Duc was talking earnestly with Halloran. Apparently a momentous question had arisen in his life, and the young man beside him, who had had plenty of experience in earning his own living, who could steer a life-boat in a boiling sea, whose generalship alone, it was conceded by one party in college, had won the Chicago game that fall, was, he felt sure, the best counselor to be found in the difficult task of guiding a life straight toward its destiny.

“I don't know another fellow I could come to with a question like this, Jack; but you understand these things; you know life. You've learned things already that the rest of us spend the most of our lives finding out. Now what would you say—how far do you think a man ought to go in sticking to the idea of an education?” Le Due's “education,” for several years now, had consisted of the study of elocution, with an occasional peck at English Literature or the French language, and a few, a very few, disastrous examinations. “I've got an offer to quit college right now to go in as second comedian with the Pooh Bah Company. They offer thirty dollars a week to begin with, with every prospect for a future. It is a rising company, you see—a sure thing. They are as safe as the First National Bank. If that were just the work I wanted, I couldn't do better.”

Halloran was sitting back with his hat down on his forehead, listening conscientiously, but losing a word now and then, thanks to the roar of the train.

“You see, old chap, I set my mind on Shakespeare when I first came to college. I decided then it would be Shakespeare or nothing with me. A man's got to have a goal, you know; he's got to aim high or he will never get anywhere; and my goal has been Shakespeare. But the question is just this: Ought I to give up this offer, when it may be my chance to get a good start on the stage? I might be able to work up into Shakespeare by keeping at this for awhile, and making a professional acquaintance, and saving up money. Men have done it, you know. What do you say?” He evidently really expected an answer, so Halloran gave it to him.

“I am afraid you'll have to decide that for yourself, Apples. If you care enough for first-class work to stick it out in college and then take your chances, you ought to do it: if you don't, take this. That's all I can say.”

With which casual conversation did an evening begin that later promised to influence considerably the lives of several members of the party.

They found a crowd of ragged boys and girls at the Settlement. Le Duc was to “read” for them; but he found himself fairly eclipsed by the performances of two of their own number, one a youthful dancer with a wizened face and remarkably thin legs, named Jimmie McGinnis, the other a dark-eyed girl, one Lizzie Bigelow, who sang some popular songs in a really good natural voice.

This girl made an immediate impression on Apples. At the close of her first song he stopped applauding long enough to say confidentially to Halloran, “Remarkable what a lot of talent you find among these people. That girl ought to be in the profession. Really a stunning girl—and clever, awfully clever. Splendid! Splendid!” he exclaimed again, turning toward her as she came into the hall, and applauding vigorously.

She laughed and shook her head, but made no reply. She evidently liked applause.

“You must have studied—to sing like that,” Le Duc went on.

She flushed with pleasure, but only shook her head again and sat down on the stairs to listen to the next recitation.

As Le Duc stepped out, bowing with his easy, good-natured smile, Miss Davies saw her opportunity to speak to Halloran. At the beginning of the evening she had talked a moment with Lizzie Bigelow, but with unsatisfactory results as her troubled expression showed. She now led the way to a sitting-room behind the stairs. For a short space they were silent—this young woman who, with the buoyancy of youth, with sanguineness hardly justified by the facts of the black city that was pulsing around her, had plunged into its darkness the feeble light of her hopes—and this young man who knew so well the difficulty of climbing up from sloth and incompetency and vicious ignorance that he was willing to help. He put his hands in his pockets and stood waiting for her to begin. He liked to look at her, she was so earnest and unconscious of herself; perhaps, too, because she was well worth looking at, with her clear, delicate skin now a little flushed and the masses of brown hair above her forehead.

“I wrote you,” she began, “that we have lost track of George. He was here as usual a week ago Wednesday, but then he disappeared. Lizzie, his sister, says they have no idea where he is; and I don't think she cares very much. She says he can look out for himself, and that is more than they can do for him at home. Now what are we to do?”

“Have you seen his mother?”

“No—not yet. She always rebuffs me. If she were more like our other women it would be easier. I wanted to talk with you first, and see if we couldn't think of some way to find him.”

“But we have no clue. She might be able to give us a hint. Even to learn something about his loafing places would be a start—something to work from.”

“I suppose—if she would tell. She is proud, you know. But we must do something. I can't leave that boy wandering around the city like this. The first thing we will hear of him in jail, and after that———” She ended with a shake of the head.

At a thought that entered his mind Halloran smiled slightly. “Have you talked with Jimmie?” he asked. .

“Jimmie McGinnis?” She had to smile, too.

“He might tell something. One always knows what the other is up to. I can't think of any other way.”

She looked earnestly at him as she asked:

“Will you try it—if I bring him here?”

He nodded, and soon she returned with him.

Jimmie looked from one to the other, his small eyes devoid of expression, his inscrutable thin face as innocent as that of a sleeping baby.

“Sit down, Jimmie,” said Halloran, “Miss Davies and I want to talk with you about George.”

Jimmie seated himself and waited respectfully, his thin legs dangling off the floor, his hands clasped meekly in his lap. He was always willing to be talked to—rather enjoyed it, in fact—was particularly fond of moral lectures; had a keen little mind somewhere behind his narrow forehead, and could bring himself to discuss moral questions with his lady teachers, showing all the symptoms of an eager water-lily striving upward from its dark bed toward the light of day. Miss Davies he understood perfectly and really liked, in a way. She was good—and why not? Who wouldn't be good with plenty to eat and wear, with fathers and mothers, and grand suburban homes with real trees about them (he had been taken out there once for some Fresh Air, on which occasion he had seen a cow for the first time in his life). But he was a little afraid of Halloran, and inclined to grow secretive in his presence. To sum him up, Jimmie was already launched upon a professional career—he sold score-cards at the baseball park—and he fully realized the importance of his place in life; even hoped some day to be a manager and walk out to the players' bench before the game in a checked suit, announce the battery of the day, and toss out the new ball from a capacious pocket, a new ball in a red box with a white seal around it.

“Now, Jimmie, do you know where he is?”

Jimmie shook his head.

“No, sir. I heard some one say he hadn't been around for a week.”

Halloran threw a quick glance at Miss Davies; but it was not too quick for Jimmie.

“He has run off, Jimmie, and we want to find him. It don't make any difference why he went. Anybody's likely to get into trouble now and then; and I'm not going to ask any questions. But if he has lost his job or got into trouble I think we could help him.”

“Yes, sir, I'm sure you could,” Jimmie replied gratefully; and what little expression there was in his face said plainly enough, “Don't I know how you have helped me?” And then he added in eagerness to assist, “I could stop at the box-factory, if you like, and see if he ain't working any more.”

“All right, I wish you would. Tell us about it Monday at class. That's all.”

At this Jimmie got soberly down from the chair and went out, leaving Miss Davies and Halloran to look at each other expressively.

“Well, what do you think?” said she.

“He is going straight to warn him. Something is the matter. We must try his mother now. And we ought to do it quickly—before Monday.” Miss Davies mused for a moment. “We could hardly get there to-night—we might go to-morrow afternoon, when she gets back from her work. I will arrange to have dinner here.”

Halloran nodded; and they returned to the hall. Jimmie was dancing again when they reached the parlour door, to music by one of the resident teachers who had volunteered to take the place of Miss Davies. Apples had disappeared and Lizzie Bigelow also. Miss Davies looked around for them; then, realizing after a moment that Jimmie's feet were not the only ones that were stepping in time to the music, she glanced up the stairway. A laugh from the upper hall and the fling of a skirt at the head of the stairs brought a puzzled expression to her face. But the explanation came in a moment. Just as Jimmie stopped dancing and was turning toward the hall, Apples came running down the stairs, a cane in his hand, and after him Lizzie Bigelow, laughing, nearly breathless, and with a heightened colour.

“Oh, Miss Davies,” Apples exclaimed with all his good-natured assurance on the surface, “Miss Bigelow and I are going to do a cake-walk, and we want you to play for us—a good, lively march, with a lot of jump in it.”

Miss Davies looked at him surprised, then at Lizzie; finally, in distress, she turned to Halloran. But he found nothing to say. Before Miss Davies could collect her wits and think of some excuse Apples was blundering on.

“Play the one you did for the boy—that'll do splendidly. We've been practising up-stairs, and it goes mighty well. We'd better do it now, before we get our steps mixed. Miss Bigelow says she'd rather do this than the song she is down to sing—didn't you?” he added, appealing to her.

She assented rather shamefacedly, and Miss Davies gave up. There was no rule against cakewalks, and she herself had invited Le Duc to entertain the boys and girls; so she concealed her dislike for this juvenile way of overstepping boundaries and went to the piano. Halloran was downright sorry for her, but he did not see what he could do..