Old man Denny read on about the arbitration agreement, with one finger on the lines.

In the second floor front Mr. and Mrs. McCaskey came to the window to recover their second wind. Mr. McCaskey was scooping turnips out of his vest with a crooked forefinger, and his lady was wiping an eye that the salt of the roast pork had not benefited. They heard the outcry below, and thrust their heads out of the window.

“’Tis little Mike is lost,” said Mrs. McCaskey in a hushed voice, “the beautiful, little, trouble-making angel of a gossoon!”

“The bit of a boy mislaid?” said Mr. McCaskey, leaning out of the window. “Why, now, that’s bad enough, entirely. The childer, they be different. If ’twas a woman I’d be willin’, for they leave peace behind ’em when they go.”

Disregarding the thrust, Mrs. McCaskey caught her husband’s arm.

“Jawn,” she said sentimentally, “Missis Murphy’s little bye is lost. ’Tis a great city for losing little boys. Six years old he was. Jawn, ’tis the same age our little bye would have been if we had had one six years ago.”

“We never did,” said Mr. McCaskey, lingering with the fact.

“But if we had, Jawn, think what sorrow would be in our hearts this night, with our little Phelan run away and stolen in the city nowheres at all.”

“Ye talk foolishness,” said Mr. McCaskey. ‘’Tis Pat he would be named, after me old father in Cantrim.”

“Ye lie!” said Mrs. McCaskey, without anger. “Me brother was worth tin dozen bog-trotting McCaskeys. After him would the bye be named.” She leaned over the window-sill and looked down at the hurrying and bustle below.

“Jawn,” said Mrs. McCaskey softly, “I’m sorry I was hasty wid ye.”

“’Twas hasty puddin’, as ye say,” said her husband, “and hurry-up turnips and get-a-move-on-ye coffee. ’Twas what ye could call a quick lunch, all right, and tell no lie.”

Mrs. McCaskey slipped her arm inside her husband’s and took his rough hand in hers.

“Listen at the cryin’ of poor Mrs. Murphy,” she said. “’Tis an awful thing for a bit of a bye to be lost in this great big city. If ’twas our little Phelan, Jawn, I’d be breakin’ me heart.”

Awkwardly Mr. McCaskey withdrew his hand. But he laid it around the nearing shoulders of his wife.

“’Tis foolishness, of course,” said he, roughly, “but I’d be cut up some meself, if our little—Pat was kidnapped or anything. But there never was any childer for us. Sometimes I’ve been ugly and hard with ye, Judy. Forget it.”

They leaned together, and looked down at the heart-drama being acted below.

Long they sat thus. People surged along the sidewalk, crowding, questioning, filling the air with rumours and inconsequent surmises. Mrs. Murphy ploughed back and forth in their midst, like a soft mountain down which plunged an audible cataract of tears. Couriers came and went.

Loud voices and a renewed uproar were raised in front of the boarding-house.

“What’s up now, Judy?” asked Mr. McCaskey.