Her arms wound tightly around his neck. Her hot little face pressed against it. "Put one arm 'cross my shoulders, an' the other round my legs," she said. "But I got to go down a lot of stairs; it's miles and miles," said Mickey, "and I ain't got but five cents. I spent it all for grub. Peaches, are you hungry?" "No!" she said stoutly. "Mickey, hurry!" "But honest, I can't carry you all that way. I would if I could, Peaches, honest I would." "Oh Mickey, dear Mickey, hurry!" she begged. "Get down and cover up 'til I think," he ordered. "Say you look here! If I tackle this job do you want a change bad enough to be mean for me?" "Just a little bit, maybe," said Peaches. "But I won't hit you," explained Mickey. "You can if you want to," she said. "I won't cry. Give me a good crack now, an' see if I do." "You make me sick at my stummick," said Mickey. "Lord, kid! Snuggle down 'til I see. I'm going to get you there some way." Mickey went back to the room where he helped deliver the clothes basket. "How much can you earn the rest of the night?" he asked the woman. "Mebby ten cents," she said. "Well, if you will loan me that basket and ten cents, and come with me an hour, there's that back and just a dollar in it for you, lady," he offered. She turned from him with a sneering laugh. "Honest, lady!" said Mickey. "This is how it is: that crying got me so I went Anthony Comstockin'. There's a kid with a lame back all alone up there, half starved and scared fighting wild. We could put her in that basket, she's just a handful, and take her to a place she wants to go. We could ride most of the way on the cars and then a little walk, and get her to a cleaner, better room, where she'd be taken care of, and in an hour you'd be back with enough nickels in your pocket to make a great, big, round, shining, full-moon cartwheel. Dearest lady, doesn't the prospect please you?" "It would," she said, "if I had the cartwheel now." "In which case you wouldn't go," said Mickey. "Dearest lady, it isn't business to pay for undone work." "And it isn't business to pay your employer's fare to get to your job either," she retorted. "No, that beats business a mile," said Mickey. "That's an _investment_. You invest ten cents and an hour's time on a gamble. Now look what you get, lady. A nice restful ride on the cars. Your ten cents back, a whole, big, shining, round, lady-liberty bird, if you trust in God, as the coin says the bird does, and more'n that, dearest lady, you go to bed feeling your pinfeathers sprouting, 'cause you've done a kind deed to a poor crippled orphing." "If I thought you really had the money--" she said.