“‘’Tisn’ them as ’as munny as breäks into ’ouses an’ steäls, Them as ’as coäts to their backs and taäks their regular meäls. Noä, but it’s them as niver knaws wheer a meäl’s to be ’ad.’” “That puts me in mind of the fellow that broke into our house.” “This is the first I have heard of it.” “Why, you see, one night last winter I thought I heard somebody in the dining-room. So down I went. There ’e was at the sideboard. He’d got it open, and was taking the silver out. Well, I pitched at ’im—you know I’m some on the muscle—and got hold of his revolver, and there I had ’im. But my! he looked so starved, and kind of forlorn, and hollow-eyed, I opened the front door for ’im and let ’im go. Expect I ought to ’ave handed ’im over to the police. Guess I never told of it before. It might scare the women-folks, you know. But wouldn’t it give Aunt Sophi the fidgets? After that I used to sleep with one ear open. She didn’t know she was sending away her watch-dog when she hustled me off to school in such a hurry.” The Lieutenant reflects. Here is a boy who does not hesitate to cope with a burglar, who has been known to risk his own life to rescue a drowning companion, and yet is loth to enter his home from dread of an Aunt Sophia’s tongue. “Then turning the mill-wheels,” Harry resumes, “that means helping the poor?” “Partly, yes. Though, as one thinks about it, it seems to imply much more.” “But where’s a body to begin? There’s poverty enough, I suppose; but some are so proud you can’t get at ’em, and some, but they’ve got the cheek! dogging you and sticking their paws out for a penny every turn you take. I always think they’re sham.” “It might be a good way to exercise one’s ingenuity finding out. As for the pride, you’ve read in the story-books of the needfuls that found their way mysteriously to empty cupboards. It sounds rather fanciful; yet there are people who take great delight in putting romance into real life, and a generous deed is none the worse for being delicately done.” “But that _would_ be jolly, now! Jinks! I’d go at it to-morrow if I only knew where to begin.” “Sister could give you more information on that subject than I can. You two will have to put your heads together and talk it over. Ah, yes! and I have in mind a little newsboy to whom you can be of service. I really believe our rollicking Harry would be better satisfied with himself for using some of his extra energy and pocket-money in these ways. Come, let him give the Tabbies, and Old Williamses, as he calls them, a rest. There’s something better for him to do than worrying them. As I heard said once: ‘There is so much to be done in this world! There are so few to do it.’ You are going to be one of those few, surely. A rich man’s son has it in his power to set a great many wheels in motion. You see the Lieutenant is quite a sermonizer when he gets fairly started. But I have taken this opportunity to be earnest, for once, and before it is too late.”