Rattleton knocked at the door indicated as "Chimmie's," and opened it in response to a voice within. The small room was pretty well lighted by a lamp, the first thing that Jack's eye fell on. It was Varnum's student-lamp; Jack knew it at once from a caricature he had himself drawn on the shade. A hard-faced, slovenly old woman was sitting near a stove, and looked at him in surprise as he entered. "Is this Mrs. Haggerty?" he asked. "I am," she answered; "what do you want?" "Mr. Varnum sent these things," replied Rattleton. "He couldn't come himself because he has been hurt, and is in the hospital." "Is that so? Sure, I'm sorry to hear that," said the woman with real regret in her tone. "Mr. Varnum has been kind to us, I tell you. He's helped me with my boy Jimmy here ever since he's been sick." "Dat's too bad," complained a thin voice from the corner. On the other side of the lamp was a bed, from under the dirty quilt of which protruded a little pale face. "Ain't he coming to read to me? What's de matter wid him?" Jack explained, with an accompaniment of sympathetic "tut-tuts" from the woman and more forcible expressions from the sick boy. "I'm obliged to him for the things," said the former, as Rattleton handed her his burden. She looked at the bottle with a puzzled and half-frightened air. "That's the first time ever Mr. Varnum give us anythin' like that. The poor young feller must be dizzed, by the hurt of him. I'll hide that." And to Rattleton's horror she shoved the bottle of Irroy under the stove. "Would you do me a bit of a favor, sir," she asked, "like Mr. Varnum would do?" "With pleasure,--that is if I can," answered Jack, cautiously, wondering what she wanted, and with a dread that it might be in the nature of religious services. "I got to go out to see the doctor, and I'd take it friendly would you sit wid th' boy, till I get back. I'll not be long." "Why, yes, of course," said Rattleton, feeling how much worse it might have been. The woman took down her shawl, and throwing it over her head, drew out the bottle she had just hidden, and tucked it under her arm out of sight. "I'll ask the doctor whether this is good for the kid," she muttered. "If Jamsey don't need it, I can sell it. I know some one else it ain't good for." Opening the door she first looked out cautiously, then hurried down-stairs. "Wonder what I ought to do now?" thought Rattleton. Blathers was over at the bed making friends with the patient. "Dis your dog? nice one, ain't he. Is you one o' de student fellers?" Jack admitted that he was, knowing that the word "student" was used in its generic, not its strict sense. "You're a friend o' Mr. Varnum's, eh? He's nice, ain't he?" Rattleton agreed emphatically that Varnum _was_ "nice." "Yare," continued the boy, "he's a daisy. He comes in and reads to me all de time. Mr. Talcot, he comes too sometimes; but he ain't as nice as Mr. Varnum. Hullo, you been to de game?"