"Is that so?" said the footman, whose name was Cassidy--Maurice J. Cassidy. He fixed a strong hand grippingly in the back of Papa Finkelstein's collar. "Well, you listen to me, young fella! Wan way or another you're goin'--wit' me, nice and peaceable or in an ambylance. You can make your own choice." The words possibly were confusing to the alien understanding, but the large knobby fist, which swayed to and fro an inch or so below the tip of the captive's nose, spoke in a language that is understood of all men. Papa Finkelstein saw his way clear to accompanying Footman Cassidy. Aboard the street car, on the way uptown, several of his fellow passengers decided he must be a thief who had been caught red-handed, and said it served him right. Arriving, he was ushered--perhaps I should say propelled--into the presence of Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass. She greeted his appearance coosomely. Or is cooingly the right word? At any rate, she cooed her approval; she cooed beautifully, anyhow. With open pride she directed the attention of certain of her associate patronesses to the little huddled shape of Cassidy's prisoner. "Ah, there he is!" she said. "My Pet Charity! So improvident, so shiftless; but isn't he just too picturesque!" Levelling their lorgnettes on him, her friends agreed in chorus that he was very picturesque. They wondered, though, why he wriggled so. "The dearest, gentlest little man!" continued Mrs. F. Fodderwood Bass in clear, sweet tones. "So diffident, but so grateful for everything--the poor, tattered dear! He never says a word to me when I talk to him; but by the look in his eyes I can tell he is fairly worshipping the ground I walk on." As if to prove the truth of what she said Papa Finkelstein's gaze even now was directed upon the floor at her feet. "Now, Cassidy," went on his mistress, "you take him into one of the dressing rooms yonder and have him undress. It's too bad nearly everything has been picked over; but we shall find something for him, I'm sure." Within a curtained recess Cassidy explained his meaning with threatening mien. "Take off thim rags!" he commanded. Rags they may have been, but Papa Finkelstein cherished them. Reluctantly he parted with them, filled with the melancholy conviction that he should see them never more. It was a true foreboding. But that was not the worst of it. Papa Finkelstein was in figure slight and of a contour difficult to drape garments upon. Moreover, it was as his benefactor had said--everything had been picked over so. Nevertheless, a selection agreeable to the lady's ideals was finally made.