Mollie is as bright and wise as Mike is dull. Seven years her senior, still Mike has grown to believe in and rely altogether on Mollie as a guide. He takes her commands without question, and does her will like a slave. To Mollie goes every one of Mike’s dollars; it is Mollie who disposes of them, while Mike never gives them a thought. They have been devoted to the one purpose of Mike’s labors; they have gone to Mollie and little Davy of the crutch; why, then, should Mike pursue them further? Following housewife Mollie’s regrets over a sad Christmas that was not because of their poverty to be a Christmas, Mike sits solemnly by the window looking out on the gathering gloom and hurrying holiday crowds of Pitt Street. The folk are all poor; yet each seems able to do a bit for Christmas. As they hurry by, with small bundles and parcels, and now and then a basket from which protrude mayhap a turkey’s legs or other symptom of the victory of Christmas, Mike, in the midst of his sluggish amiabilities, discovers a sense of pain--a darkish thought of trouble. And as if grief were to sharpen his wits, Mike has for almost a first and last time an original idea. It is the thought natural enough, when one reflects on Mike’s engagements, evening in and evening out, with Professor O’Punch. [Illustration: 0115] That day Mike, in passing through the Bowery, read the two hundred dollars offer of the selfconfident Terror. At that time Mike felt nothing save wonder that so great a fortune might be the reward of so small an effort. But it did not occur to him that he should try a tilt with the Terror. In his present stress, however, and with the woe upon him of a bad Christmas to dawn for little Davy, the notion marches slowly into Mike’s intelligence. And it seems simple enough, too, now Mike has thought of it; and with nothing further of pro or con, he prepares himself for the enterprise. For causes not clear to himself he says nothing to housewife Mollie of his plans. But he alarms that little lady of the establishment’s few sparse pots and kettles by declining to eat his supper. Mollie fears Mike is ill. The latter, knowing by experience just as any animal might, that with twelve minutes of violent exercise before him, he is better without, while denying the imputation of illness, sticks to his supperless resolve.