“I sold newspapers as soon as I was able to take in the pennies. I wore a grey sweater and a pair of bloomers, and talked to everybody who bought a paper of me, whether they slung a line back or not.” She gave a long, quivering sigh. “I don’t intend to go into details about my life from the ground floor up——But get this clear, Joy: _I never knew what it was to be innocent_, not since I can remember. And I’m not throwing out any cross lines when I say that it wasn’t my fault or my own choosing. I—never had any other slant on it offered to me. My life, as I have said, was like that of an alley cat, and it couldn’t be translated to you any other way.” “I don’t understand,” said Joy faintly. “You wouldn’t. You were having milk fed to you when I was picking up beer-leavings. That’s the best way I can put it to you.” There was a pause while Jerry studied her pink mules and searched for words in which to clothe what she wanted to say. Finally, with a swift frown, she plunged into narrative again, obviously leaving a hiatus. “When I was thirteen, I got a job as messenger girl for Charlette et Cie. Happened to have drifted up the Avenue to see if I could get some man to buy my whole load of papers—saw the sign, Girl Wanted, and tacked inside. There were a bunch of others waiting that dressed the part a little better—I had on the grey sweater and bloomers—but I told the dame that was doing the interviewing that I’d carry their old bundles for less than any other applicant. This underbidding tickled the old girl somehow, and before I knew it, I was one of Charlette’s regular messenger-girls at five dollars per. “My getting rich quick was the cause of a split between me and the family. I shut my mitt on my income—and the result was the throwing of a few flat-irons and other little parties, which ended in the fact that one night I didn’t come back and I’ve never been back since. I hadn’t ever bet much on the family—and there was a new boarder I didn’t like.” “What do you mean, Jerry,” Joy interposed; “you couldn’t live—not _live_ on five dollars a week?” “I could and did. I took a room at a dollar a week. It was a hall bedroom, the kind you don’t even read about. No light, and squirming all over. I used to——Never mind—I got along all right—and the family never came after me; I guess one more or less didn’t make such a hell of a difference. “Excuse me, Joy! You look paralyzed or something. I was inhaling the dollar-a-week air again——Cheer up—I’m whirling off the slum stuff as swift as it can go—but you’ve really got to hear some of this, so you can understand every little thing.” “Go—on,” Joy articulated with difficulty.