The boy looked down and out beyond his coat-sleeves, where once there had been black, were now white, astonishingly white, hands. They gleamed against his dark trousers. Slowly a smile spread over his face as though he were welcoming back summer friends. "Tom could never get a result like that," Hertha thought as they walked into the kitchen together. She placed the lad at Kathleen's left where he watched voraciously the carving of the deliciously browned turkey. He grabbed at the first plate, which, nevertheless, went on its way to Hertha. But when the second turned not to the left but to the right and landed in front of Applebaum, his anger rose. "Damn you," he said, grabbing Kathleen by the arm, "gimme something to eat!" In a flash she had boxed his ear. "Keep your mouth shut," she commanded, "if you want to get anything in it. No wonder your poor mother's in the hospital!" The boy sniffled a little, but remained silent. When he received his portion he fell upon it voraciously, swallowing potato in gulps, tearing at bones, and cleaning the plate of its last drop of gravy. This accomplished (it occupied not more than five minutes) he seized his cap, ran from the room, leaving the doors wide open in his flight so that they heard the front door slam, and rushed into the street. Hertha looked at the empty plate. "I've seen hungry boys before, but never one so hungry as that," she said. "Poor little kid," said Kathleen, "and he missed his pudding!" "You weren't pitying him a while ago." There was reproach in Hertha's voice. Kathleen made haste to explain. "That was the only language he knew. I done that or he would have had us in hell in a minute. Perhaps you could have managed better," she added, almost humbly, "you got him to wash his hands." Applebaum had risen from his place while they were talking and had taken away the boy's plate. The exit of his unsightly, bad mannered guest was a great relief, and he now sat down and attacked his food with interest. "We have fed the hungry," he said solemnly from the depths of his plate. Kathleen flew at him. "And so that's why you done it! I was wondering you were so thick with the kids all of a sudden. You wanted to ease your conscience on Christmas day! Well, you're in it now with the Bowery Mission and the Salvation Army and Tim Sullivan and you can enjoy yourself. Charity to-day is on the job." "Why not say the Christmas spirit?" he made answer. "I meant it kindly." A lovely look came over the Irish woman's face. All her irritability vanished, and, smiling at them like some strong saint, she lifted her coffee cup. "To the Christmas spirit, then, and may it stay with us all the year round." "Hertha, here, is the Christian," she said later, when they were all comfortably seated in the front room, "she goes to church more times than I can count." "It's a good habit for a woman," Billy retorted. "What did they preach about this morning?"