“Frinds, is it, ye’ll be afther a findin’? Thin ye’d bist look ilsewhar, fer thur’s no one in this alley fit to be frinds with the loikes uv you. Ef that’s wot they does with b’ys at co-lidge a pity ’tis more uv um can’t git shot an’ go there. But ef all yous tell is thrue, moi advice to yez is, juist bate it as hoird as ivver yez kin out’n yere, an’ don’t yez nivver set oies on this alley agin. Ye’d better stay to co-lidge all the days uv yer loife than set fut here agin, fer juist let ’em got holt uv yez an’ they’ll spile the pretty face uv ye. Look thar!” she pointed tragically toward a wreck of humanity that reeled into the alley just then. “Would yez loike to be loike that? My mon come home loike that ivvery day of his loife, rist his bones, an’ he nivver knowed whin he died.” Maudlin tears rolled down the poor creature’s cheeks, for they could be no tears of affection. Her man’s departure from this life could have been but a relief. Michael recoiled from the sight with a sickening sadness. Nevertheless he meant to find out if this woman knew aught of his old friends, or of his origin. He rallied his forces to answer her. “I don’t have to be like that,” he said, “I’ve come down to look up my friends I tell you, and I want you to tell me if you know anything about my parents. Did you ever hear anything about me? Did anybody know who I was or how I came to be here?” The old woman looked at him only half comprehending, and tried to gather her scattered faculties, but she shook her grizzled head hopelessly. “I ain’t niver laid oies on yea before, an’ how cud I know whar yez cum from, ner how yez cam to be here?” she answered. He perceived that it would require patience to extract information from this source. “Try to think,” he said more gently. “Can you remember if anyone ever belonged to the little boy they called Mikky? Was there ever any mother or father, or—anybody that belonged to him at all.” Again, she shook her head. “Niver as Oi knows on. They said he just comed a wee babby to the coourt a wanderin’ with the other childer, with scarce a rag to his back, an’ a smile on him like the arch-angel, and some said as how he niver had no father ner mother, but dthrapped sthraight frum the place where de angels live.” “But did no one take care of him, or ever try to find out about him?” questioned Michael wistfully. “Foind out, is it? Whist! An’ who would tak toime to foind out whin ther’s so miny uv their own. Mikky was allus welcome to a bite an’ a sup ef any uv us had it by. There wuz old Granny Bane with the rheumatiks. She gave him a bed an’ a bite now an’ agin, till she died, an afther that he made out to shift fer hisse’f. He was a moighty indepindint babby.” “But had he no other name? Mikky what? What was his whole name?” pursued Michael with an eagerness that could not give up the sought-for information. The old woman only stared stupidly. “Didn’t he have any other name?” There was almost despair in his tone.