“The postmaster wrote me a letter,” he answered, as he fumbled in an old leather wallet. It was on the official paper of the Post-Office Department of the United States, and was signed by the postmaster of New York City. Coldly official, it informed the old tinker that unless he got rid of the dog he would have to get his mail at the general delivery window of the general post-office. “I tried to get ’em to leave my mail in the store next door, or with a friend in the next block.” He shook his head. “It was get rid of Buster or go to the general post-office.” He paused, but seeing that he had more to say I waited. “If it hadn’t been for Jack’s bein’ somewheres in France, I’d a gone to the general office. Jack’s all we’ve got, an’ it didn’t seem right we should risk not hearin’ from ’im, or”—he paused and swallowed hard—“or the government in case anything happened to ’im.” Killing so faithful and intelligent a dog without a more serious attempt to placate the “fresh guy” seemed a dreadful act. But knowing the helplessness of the ignorant poor in New York City, I realized the injustice of finding fault with the old tinker. Halting in the door of the shop on my way out I glanced back at its empty corners. “I suppose the persons who wrote me those complaints against Buster did all this,” I remarked. “It didn’t take them long to find out that Buster was gone.” “They sandbagged the woman on our top floor the night after Buster was killed.” Amazed I turned and stared at the old tinker. “You don’t mean the old Italian mother, who was working and saving to get money to return to Italy and die in her old home?” I finally questioned. The tinker nodded. He was scraping the bottom of a pot preparatory to applying solder. “They most worked theyselves to death, her and her daughter. Done piece-work nights and Sundays,” he told me, glancing up from his task of blowing on the charcoal in his little bucket with his little bellows. “The mother was goin’ back, had drawed their savin’ out the bank that day, an’ was goin’ down the next mornin’ to pay for her passage and get the balance of her money changed. She stopped in on her way up to say a few words to Julie—she always done that evenin’s comin’ in from work. ’Bout half an hour later her daughter found her in the hall outside their door. She’d been knocked senseless and her clothes ’most tore off looking for her money.” There was a short silence and the old man began to tinker with the pot. “Where is she now?” I asked. “On the Island.” The solder being melted he applied it to the hole in the bottom of the pot. “They kept her in Bellevue till they seen there wasn’t no chance of curin’ her. You see, it’s her brain,” he explained as he wiped his hands on his bedticking apron. “Some of it oozed out where the sand-bag broke her skull. It stands to reason she never can have right good sense again, and one side of her’s paralyzed worse than Julie’s.”