THE street Mace lived on was turrible narra. Why, if a long-horn had 'a' been druv through it, he could 'a' just give a wiggle of his haid and busted all the windas in the block. And her house! It was nigh as dark as the inside of a cow, and I _judged_ they was a last-year's cabbage a-wanderin' 'round somewheres. Wal, never mind. Two shakes of a lamb's tail, and I'd clumb about a hunderd steps and-- "How are y', little gal?" "Alive and kickin', Alec." She ast me in. A kinda ole lady was over to one side, cookin'. At a table was two gents, the one young, with a complexion like the bottom-side of a watermelon; the other about fifty, with a long coat, a vest all over coffee, and no more chin'n a gopher. "Mrs. Whipple," says Macie, "Mister Lloyd." "Ma'am, I'm tickled t' death." "Hair Von" (somethin'-r'-other), "Mister Lloyd." (Don't wonder she called him "_Hair._" By thunder! he had a mane two feet long!) "And Mister Jones." (I ketched _that_ name O. K.) "Mister Lloyd," says the ole lady, "will you have some breakfast?" I felt like sayin' they 'd likely be blamed little fer _me,_ 'cause them two gezabas was just a-_hoppin'_ it in to 'em. But I only answers, "Thank y', I just et in one of them bong-tong rest'rants that's down in a cellar, and so, ma'am, my breadbasket's plumb full." I sit down on a trunk (it had a tidy over it, but I knowed it was a _trunk_ all right), and Macie, she sit down byside me. "Alec," she begun,--say! she looked mighty sweet!--"t'-night is a' awful important night in my life. I been a-studyin' with Hair Von" (you know), "and now I'm a-goin' to have a _re_cital. And what d' you think? Seenyer" (I fergit who, this minute), "the grea-a-at impressyroa, is comin' to hear me. And he's goin' to put me into grand op'ra." "You don't say!" "Yas," says Long-hair, swellin' up. "The Seenyer is my friend, and any favour----" I turned and looked clost at Macie. Her face was all alive, she was so happy, and her eyes was dancin'. "You're a-goin' t' make you' big stab t'-night," I says. "Wal, I shore wish you luck." Then I took another look at that Perfessor--and of a suddent I begun to wonder _if all the cards was on the table._ 'Cause he was too oily to be genuwine. And I'd saw his stripe afore--"even up on the red and white, five to one on the blue, and ten to one on the numbers." "She'll be a second Patty," he says, puttin' out a bread-hooker fer more feed. "I'll take another slice of toast," says Melon-face, "and a' aig and a third cup--it's _so_ good, Miss Sewell, I'm really _ashamed,_ yas, I _am._" After that, I didn't say much--just plumb petryfied watchin' them two gents shovel. Talk about you' grizzly in the springtime! And you bet they was no gittin' shet of 'em till they couldn't hole no more. But, fin'lly, they moseyed, and me and Macie and the ole lady had a chin. It come out that Long-hair (_and_ his friend) showed up ev'ry mornin'. "And allus gits his breakfast," I says.