"Jimmie? Jimmie? Who's there?" Tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock! Sobs trembled through her and set the bed-springs vibrating, and she buried her head under her flat pillow and fell to counting the immemorial procession of phantom sheep that graze the black grasses of the Land of Wakeful Hours and lead their sleepless shepherds through the long, long, long pastures of the night. "Three hundred 'n' five; three hundred 'n' six; three hundred 'n' seven; three hundred 'n'--Jimmie?" A key scratched at the outer lock, and she sprang two-thirds from the bed, dragging the coverlet from its moorings. "Jimmie, that you?" "Sure, ma! 'Smatter?" She relaxed as though her muscles had suddenly snapped, her tense toes and fingers uncurled, and the blood flowed back. "I--Nothin', Jimmie; I was just wondering if that was you." "No, ma; it ain't me--it's my valet coming home from a dance at his Pressing Club. You ain't sick, are you, ma?" "No. What time is it, Jimmie? It's so dark." "You been havin' one of your spells again, ma?" "No, no, Jimmie." "Didn't you promise to keep a light going?" "I'm all right." "Ouch! Geewhillikins, ma, if you'd burn half a dime's worth of gas till me and Essie get home from work nights we'd save it in wear and tear on our shins. I ain't got no more hips left than a snake." "It's a waste, Jimmie boy; gas comes so high." "You should worry, ma! Watch me light 'er up!" "Be careful in there, Jimmie! Stand on a chair. I got a little supper spread out on the table for Essie and her friend. You take a sandwich yourself--" "Forty cents in tips to-day, ma." "Forty cents!" "Yeh; and a dame in Seventieth Street gimme a quarter and hugged the daylights out of me till my brass buttons made holes in me and cried brineys all over the telegram, and made me read it out loud twice, once for each ear: 'Unhurt, Sweetheart, and homeward bound--Bill.' Can you beat it? Five cents a word!" "Jimmie, wasn't you glad to carry her a message like that?" "It's a paying business, ma, if you're lucky enough to deal only in good news." A chair squealed on its castors, a patch of light sprang through the transom, and the chocolate-ocher bedroom and its chocolate-ocher furniture emerged into a chocolate-ocher half-light. "Jimmie?" "Huh?" "I'm--I wish--Oh, nothin'!" "Ain't you feelin' right, in there, ma?" "Yes, Jimmie; but--but come in and talk to your old mother awhile, my boy." "Surest thing you know! Say, these are some sandwiches! You must 'a' struck pay-dirt in your sardine-mine, ma." "They're for her gen'l'man friend, Jimmie." The door flung open and threw an island of light pat on the bed. In the gauzy stream the face on the pillow, with the skin drawn over the cheeks tight as a vellum on a snare-drum, was vague as a head by Carriere after he had begun to paint through the sad film of his growing blindness. "Jimmie, my boy!" "Hello, ma!"