“That's our roof there.” He pointed to a shabby structure overtopping the squat Varick domicile by some ten feet, and separated from it by a well, four or five feet broad. “I could lean over and speak to her, couldn't I?” “I hardly think her family would approve.” “Her family are _mean_,” declared Carlo heatedly, “to shut her up in a cage.” “Come back from the realms of romance,” I bade him sternly, “and attend to the lesson.” Before it was over the black-and-white-banded nurse had retrieved her charge and taken her below. Three days later I beheld two small figures on the Varick roof. One was inside the cage; one outside. They appeared to be engaged in amicable discourse. The caged figure was little Paula. As to the free one, I could scarcely believe my eyes which tried to assure me that it was Carlo Trentano. It had come about in this way: For two days rain had kept the little prisoner from the roof. She was swaying to and fro on a rocking-horse, crooning to herself, and this was the burden of her improvised chant:-- “I wi-ish I had some one to play-ay-ay wif! Oh, I wi-ish I had some one to play-ay-ay wif! Oh, I wi-ish I had somebuddy to play-ay wif! I don't like to play all alone!” Perhaps she had sung it over ten or twelve times when her wish materialized from behind the broad chimney at the rear. She heard his footfall first and then her sweet, wondering eyes beheld the visitor, a shabby, clean, and marvelous boy, some years her elder and about twice her size. Nevertheless, with the superiority of sex she immediately addressed him as “Little Boy.” “Little Boy, where did you come from?” “Up there,” replied her caller, pointing. The caged one turned her solemn regard “up there” and saw a great, white, softly rolling mass floating in a sky of azure. “From that?” she inquired. Carlo considered the cloud and was pleased with it as a source. “Yes,” he said. “It looks soft and sleepy,” she observed, after a more critical consideration. They contemplated each other in a silence which threatened to become a deadlock, when he broke it. “Do you like gum?” he asked. “What's gum?” “Chewing-gum, of course.” “I don't know what that is.” He stared at her in utter incredulity. “You honestly never chewed gum?” A shake of the tawny head answered him. “Nor ate an all-day sucker?” Another shake. “Nor played marbles?” Still another mute denial. “Nor flew kites, nor pegged the cat, nor rollered on the asphalt, nor spun tops?” The questions came too fast for detailed answer, but the child's face grew more and more dismal as she was thus led, step by step, to confront a wasted life. Her inquisitor drew a long breath. “What did they put you in for?” he asked. “In where?” “In that cage.” “To play.” Her inventiveness rose in arms to offset the recondite and mysterious joys which he had enumerated, and with it her spirits. “I play I'm a wild animal. Gr-rr-rr-rr! If I could get out I'd eat you up, Little Boy.”