"Well, what?" "Say, was yer _honest_ goin' to blow seventy cents for that feed I spoke of up on Grand Street?" "Certainly. And I----" "And a dime to the waiter?" "Of course." "That's eighty cents," ran on Sadie, glibly enough now. "And twenty would make a dollar. I'll dig up the twenty cents to put with your eighty, and what d'ye say we run after old Lurcher an' give him a dollar--say we found it, you know--and then go upstairs to my house for dinner? Mommer's got a nice dinner, and she'd like to see you again fine!" "I'll do it!" cried Helen, pulling out her purse at once. "Here! Here's a dollar bill. You run after him and give it to him. You can give me the twenty cents later." "Sure!" cried the Russian girl, and she was off around the corner in the wake of the Lurcher, with flying feet. Helen waited for her friend to return, just inside the tenement house door. When Sadie reappeared, Helen hugged her tight and kissed her. "You are a _dear_!" the Western girl cried. "I do love you, Sadie!" "Aw, chee! That ain't nothin'," objected the East Side girl. "We poor folks has gotter help each other." So Helen would not spoil the little sacrifice by acknowledging to more money, and they climbed the stairs again to the Goronsky tenement. The girl from Sunset Ranch was glad--oh, so glad!--of this incident. Chilled as she had been by the selfishness in her uncle's Madison Avenue mansion, she was glad to have her heart warmed down here among the poor of Madison Street. CHAPTER XX OUT OF STEP WITH THE TIMES "No," Sadie told Helen, afterward, "I am very sure that poor Lurcher man doesn't drink. Some says he does; but you never notice it on him. It's just his eyes." "His eyes?" queried Helen, wonderingly. "Yes. He's sort of blind. His eyelids keep fluttering all the time. He can't control them. And, if you notice, he usually lifts up the lid of one eye with his finger before he makes one of his base-runs for the next post. Chee! I'd hate to be like that." "The poor old man! And can nothing be done for it?" "Plenty, I reckon. But who's goin' to pay for it? Not him--he ain't got it to pay. We all has our troubles down here, Helen." The girls had come down from the home of Sadie again, and Helen was preparing to leave her friend. "Aren't there places to go in the city to have one's eyes examined? Free hospitals, I mean?" "Sure! And they got Lurcher to one, once. But all they give him was a prescription for glasses, and it would cost a lot to get 'em. So it didn't do him no good." Helen looked at Sadie suddenly. "How much would it take for the glasses?" she asked. "I dunno. Ten dollars, mebbe." "And do you s'pose he could have that prescription now?" asked Helen, eagerly. "Mebbe. But why for?" "Perhaps I could--could get somebody uptown interested in his case who is able to pay for the spectacles." "Chee, that would be bully!" cried Sadie. "Will you find out about the prescription?"