From babyhood he had been Rosie's special charge, so now, when the time came, she took him upstairs and saw him safely to bed. Then she herself slipped down to the front porch and there on the steps, in the dark electric shadow, she waited for her friend, George Riley. CHAPTER V GEORGE RILEY ON MUCKERS Rosie had not long to wait, as George's run ended at nine o'clock. "Sst! Jarge!" she called softly as he bounded up the steps and would have passed her in the dark. "Is that you, Rosie?" "Sit down a minute, Jarge. I want to ask you something." George mopped his head with his handkerchief and drew a long breath. "Whew, but I'm tired, Rosie! I rang up over seventy-five fares three times tonight." Rosie opened with no preliminary remarks. "Say, Jarge, can you lend me twenty-five cents until tomorrow night? You know I get paid tomorrow." "Sure, Rosie. What for?" "I want to go to the Dog Show matinee." George paused a moment. "But, Rosie, you don't need twenty-five cents for that. You told me it was ten cents." "I know, Jarge, but I want to take Jackie and Janet." "Why, Rosie!" "Well, if I don't, poor Janet'll never get there. She never gets anywhere. You know her father boozes every cent. And I just got to take Jackie if I go myself. Besides, he'll only cost me five cents and that will let me use the nickel Terry gave me for peanuts." "But, Rosie,"--George cleared his throat--"I thought you were saving every penny. You know you can't save and spend at the same time." "I'm not saving any more." Rosie spoke quietly, evenly. "Not saving any more! What do you mean, Rosie? What's happened?" She could feel his kind jolly eyes looking at her through the dark but she knew that he could not see the tears which suddenly filled her own. "N-nothing," she quavered. "Rosie! Tell me!" He put his arm about her shoulder and drew her to him. At the tenderness in his voice and touch, all the sense of outrage and loss in Rosie's heart welled up afresh and broke in sobs which she could not control. "I wasn't going to tell you, Jarge, honest I wasn't, because you're dead gone on her and, besides, she's my own sister." For a few seconds Rosie could say no more and George, with a sudden tightening of the arm that encircled her, waited in silence. "I--I was going up to count my money, Jarge, and what do you think? Some one had smashed open the bank and taken every cent! I tell you there wasn't even one cent left! And, Jarge, I've been saving so hard--you know I have!" She lay on his shoulder, her body shaking with sobs. George spoke with an effort: "Why do you think it was Ellen?" "Terry and me got it out o' ma. When we cornered her she told us.... And she's gone and spent it on a bunch of curls! Think of that, Jarge--curls for her hair! Just because Hattie Graydon's got false curls, Ellen's got to have them, too! Now do you call that fair? I saved awful hard for that money, you know I did, and it was my own!"