“The food we eat,” said his father. “Our clothes, the roof that protects us, the coals for the fire in the winter months.” “Are all these things obtained with pieces of silver, my father?” “Yes, beloved. We are called upon to pay in substance for all that we enjoy.” The boy grew profoundly silent for a while. “Does that mean, my father,” he said at last, in a choking voice, “that because we enjoy this little room of ours, we purchase the priceless hours we spend in it by pieces of silver--you and me?” “Truly,” said his father. “And yet, my father,” said the boy, “I have no pieces of silver of my own except those you used to give me when I went forth into the streets of the great city to the school. Neither have I books of my own to yield in exchange for pieces of silver. Can you tell me in what manner I must gain these things? You know, my father,” he added very anxiously, “it may befall that this little room might one day be taken away from me, as it once was before, if I do not obtain some pieces of silver of my own.” “There is but one means of obtaining pieces of silver, beloved one,” said his father mournfully, “and that is by going forth to seek them in the streets of the great city.” The boy was smitten with stupefaction by these words. They were charged with an import that he did not know how to sustain. But at least they caused a cloud to dissolve which had long pervaded his mind. “I see, I see,” he said weakly; “now it is that I understand, my father, what all these street-persons are doing when they walk so furiously up and down the streets of the great city. They are seeking for pieces of silver.” “Yes, beloved,” said his father. “And it is for that reason that they look so fierce and so cruel, my father. They know that if they don’t find some pieces of silver their little rooms will be taken away from them.” “Yes, beloved one,” said his father. “How unhappy they must be, my father, those persons in the streets of the great city,” said the boy. “We ought to give them our pity instead of our fear and our hatred. But”--his voice seemed to perish--“does it not mean, my father, that I also must go forth once more into the great city and become a person in the streets?” As he framed this sinister question he peered into his father’s eyes with a look of entreaty, as though he besought him not to answer in the manner that he feared to be inevitable. “You have spoken truly, Achilles,” said his father gently. The words of his father seemed to embody a sentence of death. His father perceived in what manner he was stricken.