The black brows drew down forbodingly, the dark eyes reminded Mm of a caged lion ready to spring if an opportunity offered. The child had become a man with a criminal’s face. There was something frightful about the defiant look with which the boy drew himself up. “What if I does?” “Only that there’s a boy in here,” motioning toward the door, “would like very much to see him for a few minutes. If you know where he is, I wish you’d tell him.” Then there came a change more marvelous than before. It was as if the divine in the soul had suddenly been revealed through a rift in the sinful humanity. The whole defiant face became eager, the black eyes danced with question, the brows settled into straight pleasant lines, and the mouth sweetened as with pleasant thoughts. “Is’t Mikky?” He asked in earnest voice. “Kin we get in? I’ll call de kids. He’ll want ’em. He allus wants der kids.” He placed his fingers in his mouth, stretching it into a curious shape, and there issued forth a shriek that might have come from the mouth of an exulting fiend, so long and shrill and sharp it was. The man on the steps, his nerves already wrought to the snapping point, started angrily. Then suddenly around the corner at a swift trot emerged three ragged youngsters who came at their leader’s command swiftly and eagerly. “Mikky wants us!” explained Buck. “Now youse foller me, ’n don’t you say nothin’ less I tell you.” They fell in line, behind the bank president, and followed awed within the portal that unlocked a palace more wonderful than Aladdin’s to their astonished gaze. Up the stairs they slunk, single file, the bare feet and the illy-shod alike going silently and sleuth-like over the polished stairs. They skulked past open doors with frightened defiant glances, the defiance of the very poor for the very rich, the defiance that is born and bred in the soul from a face to face existence with hunger and cold and need of every kind. They were defiant but they took it all in, and for many a day gave details highly embellished of the palace where Mikky lay. It seemed to them that heaven itself could show no grander sights. In a stricken row against the wall, with sudden consciousness of their own delinquencies of attire, ragged caps in hands, grimy hands behind them, they stood and gazed upon their fallen hero-comrade.