"So that's the dope!" he marvelled. "I can't take care of a girl? Going to take her away from me? I'd like to know _why?_ Men all the time take care of women. I see boys taking care of girls I know their mothers left with them, every day--I'd like to know _why_. Mother said I was to take care of _her_. She said that's what men were made _for_. 'Cause _he didn't_ take care of her, was why she was glad my father was _dead_. I guess I know what I'm doing! But I've learned something! Nix on the easy talk after this; and telling anybody you meet all you know. Shut mouth from now on. 'What's your name, little boy?' 'Andrew Carnegie.' 'Where d'you live?' 'Castle on the Hudson!' A mouth just tight shut about Lily, after this! And nix on the Swell Dames! Next one can bust her crust for all I care! I won't touch her!" On the instant, precisely that thing occurred, at Mickey's very feet. With his lips not yet closed, he knelt to shove his papers under a woman's head, then went racing up the stone steps she had rolled down, his quick eye catching and avoiding the bit of fruit on which she had slipped. He returned in a second with help. As the porter lifted the inert body, Mickey slid his hands under her head, and advised: "Keep her straight!" Into one of the big hospitals he helped carry a blue and white clad nurse, on and on, up elevators and into a white porcelain room where they laid her on a glass table. Mickey watched with frightened eyes. Doctors and nurses came running. He stood waiting for his papers. He was rather sick, yet he remembered he had five there he must sell. "Better clear out of here now!" suggested a surgeon. "My papers!" said Mickey. "She fell right cross my feet. I slid them under, to make her head more pillowlike on the stones. Maybe I can sell some of them." The surgeon motioned to a nurse at the door. "Take this youngster to the office and pay him for the papers he has spoiled," he ordered. "Will she--is she going to----?" wavered Mickey. "I'm not sure," said the surgeon. "From the bleeding probably concussion; but she will live. Do you know how she came to fall?" "There was a smear of something on the steps she didn't see," explained Mickey. "Thank you! Go with the nurse," said the surgeon. Then to an attendant: "Take Miss Alden's number, and see to her case. She was going after something." Mickey turned back. "Paper, maybe," he suggested, pointing to her closed hand. The surgeon opened it and found a nickel. He handed it to Mickey. "If you have a clean one left, let this nurse take it to Miss Alden's case, and say she has been assigned other duty. See to sending a substitute at once." Every paper proved to be marked. "I can bring you a fresh one in a second, lady," offered Mickey. "I got the money." "All right," she said. "Wait with it in the office and then I'll pay you."