I fancied that I had gained my point, for he told me to follow him, as he led the way into the kitchen. There we found the cook bending over a range, in which the fire refused to burn. "Mrs. Murphy," said the boss, "here's a man I've hired to help Sam," and then he turned sharply upon me with a "Damn you now, work! if you know how to work!" My opportunity lay in the smouldering fire, so I hastened to the wood-pile, and presently returned with an armful of fine wood which insured a fire for dinner. Mrs. Murphy was a little, old, emaciated Irish woman, with her thin white hair parted in the middle, smoothed back, and twisted into a careless knot on her crown. Her face was wrinkled almost to grotesqueness, and she had the passive air of one to whom can come no surprises of joy or sorrow, as though the capacity for sensation were gone, and life had reduced itself to mere existence. I watched for opportunities of helping her, and she accepted the services as though she had been accustomed to them always. She began to interest me deeply. I learned from her that Sam, whom I was hired to help, was a scullion and stable boy. When she had nothing further for me to do in the kitchen, I returned to the wood-pile, and chopped industriously, hoping to give evidence of my fitness for the place. In an hour or more the proprietor called me, intending, I supposed, to give me a change of work; but, instead, he gave me a quarter, and told me, not unkindly, but firmly, that he did not want me. The situation was discouraging. I had tramped some twenty miles through dust and heat over a hilly country, and since the early morning I had had nothing but a few apples to eat. Besides, it was fast growing dark, and so too late to look for work on the farms back in the country. The immediate neighborhood is largely taken up with country-seats, and I made repeated efforts to get work at the hands of a gardener. I soon discovered that I was in a community where special provision is made against my class. At the carriage gates I not infrequently found a notice which warned me of the presence of dogs, and although the dogs gave me no trouble, a lodge-keeper, or footman, or gardener, upon learning my errand, was invariably seized with fervent anxiety for getting me unnoticed out of the grounds. At nightfall I walked back to the tavern, and asked the proprietor if I might sleep in his stables. To my surprise, he was exceedingly friendly. He readily agreed to that, and, of his own accord, he invited me to remain at the tavern over Sunday, and to take my meals in the kitchen; and he added that, on Monday morning, he would give me some work to do as compensation.