While on my ignoble wanderings I kept myself in touch with one whom I might trust, and who, dwelling near my mother, saw her day by day. He was ever in possession of my whereabouts. Her health was a bit perilous from heart troubles, and I, as much as I might, maintained arrangements to warn me should she turn seriously ill. At first I looked hourly for such notice; but as month after month went by and no bad tidings--nothing save word at intervals that she was passing her quiet, uneventful days in comfort, and as each occasional visit made to Westchester confirmed such news, my apprehension became dulled and dormant. It was a surprise then, and pierced me hideously, when I opened the message that told how her days were down to hours and she lay dying. The telegram reached me in Hartford. When I took it from the messenger’s hand I was so poor I could not give him a dime for finding me; and as he had been to some detective pains in the business, he left with an ugly face as one cheated of appreciation. I could not help it; there dwelt not so much as one cheap copper in my pocket. Also, my clothes were none of the best; for I’d been in ill fortune, and months of bankruptcy had dealt unkindly with my wardrobe. But there should be no such word as fail; I must find the money to go to her--find it even though it arrive on the tides of robbery. Luck came to me. Within the minute to follow the summons, and while the yellow message still fluttered between my fingers, I was hailed from across the street. The hail came from a certain coarse gentleman who seemed born to horse-races as to an heritage and was, withal, one of the few who reaped a harvest from them. This fortunate one was known to the guild as Sure-thing Pete. It was fairly early of the morning, eight o’clock, and Surething Pete in the wake of his several morning drinks--he was a celebrated sot--was having his boots cleaned. It is a curious thing that half-drunken folk are prone to this improvement. That is why a boot-black’s chair is found so frequently just outside the portals of a rum shop. The prospect of a seat allures your drunkard fresh from his latest drink; he may sit at secure ease and please his rum-contented fancy with a review of the passing crowds; also, the Italian digging and brushing about his soles gives an impression that he is subject of concern to some one and this nurses a sense of importance and comes as vague tickle to his vanity. Surething Pete, as related, was under the hands of a boot-black when I approached. He was much older than I and regarded me as a boy. “Broke, eh?” said Surething Pete. His eye, though bleary, was keen. Then he tendered a quarter. “Take this and go and eat. I’ll wait for you here. Come back in fifteen minutes and I’ll put you in line to make some money. I’d give you more, but I’m afraid you wouldn’t return.”