"Is that papa in the box?" he whimpered. His mother put her lips to his ear. "Yes," she gasped. "But don't talk. It isn't allowed." The veiled man turned audibly uneasy. "Cuss it!" he fumed. "Oh, father!" the boy sobbed. With happy promptitude the veiled man acted. He put a hand over the boy's mouth. "For God's sake, Millie," he whispered to the woman, "let's get out of here! We'll be run in." "Hush, dear!" the woman commanded: for she was much afraid. After that, the child was quiet. From the room in the Box Street tenement, meantime, the body of Dick Slade had been taken in a Department wagon to a resting-place befitting in degree. "Millie," the veiled man protested, that night, "you didn't ought to fool the boy." "It don't matter, Poddle," said she. "And I don't want him to feel bad." "You didn't ought to do it," the man persisted. "It'll make trouble for him." "I can't see him hurt," said the woman, doggedly. "I love him so much. Poddle, I just can't! It hurts _me_." The boy was now in bed. "Mother," he asked, lifting himself from the pillow, "when will I die?" "Why, child!" she ejaculated. "I wish," said the boy, "it was to-morrow." "There!" said the woman, in triumph, to the man. "He ain't afraid of death no more." "I told you so, Millie!" the man exclaimed, at the same instant. "But he ain't afraid to die," she persisted. "And that's all I want." "You can't fool him always," the man warned. The boy was then four years old.... [Illustration: Tailpiece to _By Proxy_] [Illustration: Headpiece to _The River_] _THE RIVER_ Top floor rear of the Box Street tenement looked out upon the river. It was lifted high: the activities of the broad stream and of the motley world of the other shore went silently; the petty noises of life--the creak and puff and rumble of its labouring machinery,--straying upward from the fussy places below, were lost in the space between. Within: a bed, a stove, a table--the gaunt framework of home. But the window overlooked the river; and the boy was now seven years old, unknowing, unquestioning, serenely obedient to the circumstances of his life: feeling no desire that wandered beyond the familiar presence of his mother--her voice and touch and brooding love. It was a magic window--a window turned lengthwise, broad, low, small-paned, disclosing wonders without end: a scene of infinite changes. There was shipping below, restless craft upon the water; and beyond, dwarfed in the distance, was a confusion of streets, of flat, puffing roofs, stretching from the shining river to the far, misty hills, which lay beside the sea, invisible and mysterious. But top floor rear was remote from the river and the roofs. From the window--and from the love in the room--the boy looked out upon an alien world, heard the distant murmur, monotonously proceeding, night and day: uncomprehending, but unperturbed....