If any doubts assailed him concerning the mother who took little heed of his existence, he never expressed them. Her name rarely passed his lips, but he watched for her coming as a shipwrecked mariner watches for a sail. When a boy ponders and worries over something for which he dares not ask an explanation, he is apt to become sullen and preoccupied. On the day that the long-suffering landlord served notice, Dan told no one of his mother's absence. Behind closed doors he packed what things he could, clumsily tying the rest of the household goods in the bedclothes. At noon the new tenant arrived and, in order to get his own things in, obligingly assisted in moving Dan's out. It was then and then only that the news had gone abroad. For three hours now the worldly possessions of the dubious Mrs. Lewis had lain exposed on the pavement, and for three hours Dan had sat beside them keeping guard. From every tenement window inquisitive eyes watched each stage of the proceeding, and voluble tongues discussed every phase of the situation. Every one who passed, from Mr. Lavinski, with a pile of pants on his head, to little Rosy Snawdor, stopped to take a look at him and to ask questions. Dan had reached a point of sullen silence. Sitting on a pile of bedclothes, with a gilt-framed mirror under one arm and a flowered water pitcher under the other, he scowled defiance at each newcomer. Against the jeers of the boys he could register vows of future vengeance and console himself with the promise of bloody retribution; but against the endless queries and insinuations of his adult neighbors, he was utterly defenseless. "Looks like she had ever'thing fer the parlor, an' nothin' fer the kitchen," observed Mrs. Snawdor from her third-story window to Mrs. Smelts at her window two floors below. "I counted five pairs of curlin' irons with my own eyes," said Mrs. Smelts, "an' as fer bottles! If they took out one, they took out a hunderd." "You don't reckon that there little alcohol stove was all she had to cook on, do you?" called up Mrs. Gorman from the pavement below. "Maybe that's what she het her curlin' irons on!" was Mrs. Snawdor's suggestion, a remark which provoked more mirth than it deserved. Dan gazed straight ahead with no sign that he heard. However strong the temptation was to dart away into some friendly hiding place, he was evidently not going to yield to it. The family possessions were in jeopardy, and he was not one to shirk responsibilities. Advice was as current as criticism. Mrs. Gorman, being a chronic recipient of civic favors, advocated an appeal to the charity organization; Mrs. Snawdor, ever at war with foreign interference, strongly opposed the suggestion, while Mrs. Smelts with a covetous eye on the gilt mirror under Dan's arm, urged a sidewalk sale. As for the boy himself, not a woman in the alley but was ready to take him in and share whatever the family larder provided.