Ned's face was more pitiful with the sickly smile upon it than in anxious gravity. The good-natured man's finger and thumb were inserted in the pocket of his waistcoat. "Methinks," he said with mock seriousness, "methinks the goodly goober is the fruit of the earth in which thy soul most delighteth." He twirled a silver quarter of a dollar across the desk, and the devil caught it. "With best wishes for your digestion," said the "funny man" politely. And the devil laughed again. Little did either foresee the damage that coin was to do--even though diverted from the purchase of peanuts. For the devil felt the need of a change of air. A proofreader and his copyholder, engaged in their trying exercises hard by, had shown some impatience of this puerile dialogue carried on at full voice. Being silently motioned out by the "funny man" with a facetious air of mock mystery, Ned had nothing to do for a time after rendering up his copy in the composing-room, but to lean on the sill of the high window in the hall of the fifth story and await orders. As he looked out he saw that the sun was tending toward the west, the mansard roofs and domes and steeples defined sharply against the dazzling cumulus clouds. The city stretched out so far beneath it that one might fancy it must come to the ground within the corporate limits. Ned loved to imagine that its fiery cresset, falling and falling, was caught at last on the distant tower of the water-works, for always as it disappeared behind those huge timbers the white effulgence of the electric light burst suddenly forth and blazed there, the Sun of Science, through all the dark midnights. It was, however, too early as yet for this illusion. The golden lustre of the afternoon still dominated the lengthening shadows; the church spires glinted; the points of the myriads of lightning-rods burned as if tipped with living fire; that fat, prosperous exile, the English sparrow, was yet up and about, busy in the accomplishment of his equivocal mission here; the cloud of smoke, rollicking out of the chimneys of a furniture factory over the way, was white and gold and fawn-colored, and gleamed iridescent against the azure sky; the shadow of this ethereal thing, that itself had no substance, chased it hilariously down the street, leaving, truant-like, the fires and the toiling men and the clanking machinery below. Perhaps the motion roused a sort of emulation in the jaded boy; perhaps only the wind suggested the idea as it dipped over the tall chimneys and softly touched his cheek with a cinder, and tossed his slightly curling red hair. "I ought ter go to the Pawk an' git some fresh air," he said. "That's jes' what's the matter with me." He fingered the coin in his pocket. It seemed singularly opportune that it should have been given to him, for in conscience he could not spend his small wages on car-fare, and the park was out of walking distance unless he had plenty of time at his disposal.