"It is always hard times on the Bowery," my diminutive informant told me. He was a new comer to our Colony. He, in company with another young man, had made his appearance an hour or two before, but I had not been able to talk with him, except to assure him that he and his friend might remain with us one night, at least. "Yes, sir," he continued, "without money a man is a dead one; even in this strange haunt of stranger men money is a daily need. Of course, some men who know the hidden ways can get along on as little as twenty cents a day, or less, but for myself I could not exist on less than thirty-five cents." The figures he mentioned seemed modest enough to me. "Couldn't you earn that much?" I asked him. "I am so small no one would hire me," he replied. "I could get errands to do now and then. Of course, while my mother lived she kept a home for me, but after she died I did not know what to do. I only sat in the house day after day and looked out of the window. I could not make any plans for myself. You see when I was a baby I fell and injured my back. I didn't grow much more after that accident. The doctors called it a curvature." He laughed easily as he asked me, "You know the poem of James Whitcomb Riley, 'I'm th'ust a little cripple boy An' never going to grow, An' git a great big man at all, 'Cause auntie told me so.' "I rather think I'm that boy. One time I chanced to find that poem and read it to my mother. She took the book from me in the gentle way she had, and then putting her arms around me, told me to be a good boy and everything would come out all right. But they never did come all right. Maybe I was not good enough; but this can't interest you. You hear enough hard luck stories without mine." "If you wish to tell me," I said, "I shall be quite glad to listen." "Well, it's only this," he continued. "Left to myself, I wasn't smart enough to make a living. I can't get my room rent and my lunch money all at the same time. If I have my lunches I have no room, and if I have a room I have nothing to eat." He grew very serious. He could laugh at his misshapen back, make a jest at his deformity, but hunger--even at the thought of hunger--the smile left his face, the color fled from his lips. "Are you faint?" I asked him quickly. "No, I am a coward," he said, "just a plain coward. You see, I am beaten and I know it." "You will be all right in a few days," I said, "and be able to criticise the food as cheerfully as any other member of my Family." I laughed gayly enough, but he did not laugh with me. "Have you and this boy been friends a long time? Where did you meet him?" I inquired. "In the park, some weeks ago. He has no home either. He was sleeping out and so was I. He gave me part of a newspaper to put under me, as the ground was damp. So I tried to talk to him.... He is good looking, isn't he?" I admitted it. "Well, he's a Russian dummy," said the boy. "He is what?" I asked.