The young man was inwardly tortured by this abrupt announcement. He was very much in love with Josie, and he had felt deeper and deeper thrills of anticipation all day long, as the hour of their rendezvous drew near. He was a youth of about two-and-twenty. His stature was so low as to be almost dwarfish; both Claire's and Josie's well overtopped it. He was very stout, however; the breadth of his shoulders and the solid girth of his limbs might have suited six feet of clean height. He had a large, smooth, moon-like face, a pair of little black eyes, and a pair of huge red ears. He was immoderately ugly, but with an expression so simply amiable as quite to escape repulsiveness. You felt that his ready smile possessed vast hidden funds of geniality; there was no telling what supple resources that long slit of big-lipped mouth might draw upon, at a really mirthful emergency. One glance at his abnormal hands, where every joint was an uncouth protuberance and every nail a line of inky darkness, left it certain that they held no dainty share of the world's manual requirements. Mr. James MacNab was an oyster-opener for about eight months in the year, and a clam-opener through the remaining four. The narrow window of his employer's shop looked upon Greenpoint Avenue, wedged between the stores of a butcher and a candy-seller. Like Josie Morley, James was of Irish parentage; like her, he abjured the accent of his ancestors, having been born here, and having breathed into his being at an early age that peculiar shame of Celtic origin which belongs among our curiosities of immigration. His wages were meagre, and his hours of work numerous. To-night was a precious interval of relaxation. He had been released at three o'clock that afternoon, and had gone heavy-lidded to a tiny cot in a garret-room, where he had slept the exhausted sleep of one who is always in arrears to the drowsy god. Not long ago he had waked, highly refreshed, and pierced with the expectation of soon meeting his beloved Josie. He had four dollars and seventy-five cents in his pocket, and the possession of this sum gave him a firm sense of pecuniary security. The strong faith that he was finely dressed, too, increased his confidence. He had a little low hat of black felt, tipped sideways on his ungainly head; an overcoat of muddy cinnamon-brown, with broad black binding along its lappels and edges; and a pair of boots so capably polished that their lustre dissuaded you from too close scrutiny of the toe-joint bulging from either clumsy foot. He was entirely satisfied with his general effect. He knew that nature had not made him comely, but he felt complete repose of conscience in the matter of having atoned artistically for this personal slight.