"Then uprose a handsome lawyer, But would not give his name; He defended this old lady And well he done the same. The verdict was "Not guilty!" _Tears_ stood in the jury's eyes; When the unknown lawyer heard it, Then says he to their surprise:" With secret consternation Ewing waited, trying to laugh with the others, who had exploded at "_tears_," wrenched out in a high minor wail. The air now took a graceful swinging waltz movement, and the puzzled youth suffered an illumining flash: "She was my mother once In days of long ago; I'll not forsake her now, Her lots has fell so low. I have other mothers now To take me by the hand, But I'll not desert this one Just because I'm rich and grand." Enlightened at last, Ewing joined in the applause, amid which Chalmers resumed his seat. Instantly perceiving why they had laughed at his own song, he burned at recalling how chance alone had saved him from betraying a simple-hearted faith in the virtues of that gem. Now it was funny, even to him. Other songs of Ben's rang in his ears; they were _all_ funny--though he must never let Ben know that. He had unwittingly betrayed Ben to a ribald crew, but he had learned a thing it was well to know. He had learned of the world; he had aged in a leap. They sat late at table, drinking beer from stone mugs, smoking long-stemmed pipes and trifling with song. They blended their voices in melting harmony at the climax of "Nelly's" woe and in the acuter parts of "Nothing but Mother." As they drifted out at midnight Chalmers made an appointment with Ewing to inspect the vacant studio and make himself, if he liked, one of the colony of not too serious workers housed by the Rookery. Half a dozen men strolled with him to the Stuyvesant, and in the shadow of its sober doors, as a parting testimonial to his worth, they sang once more in blended pathos: "She was my moth-e-r-r once In days so long a-g-o-o-o!" He watched them up the street a block, pouring out their hearts in song to a watchful and cynical policeman. CHAPTER XII THE NEW MEMBER When Ewing, a few days later, moved into the vacant studio on the top floor of the Rookery, the men there made an affair of it, flocking from their studios to receive him. They showed him the view from his windows, a far stretch of dull-red roofs, with murky water butts stuck aloft like giant cockades against the gray sky. They showed him where he would sleep, in a little closet-like alcove screened from the big room by a gay curtain. They exhibited the alcohol lamp left by Glynn, over which water would be boiled for the morning coffee. And they superintended, from their wider experience, the arrangement of his belongings.