Alpha Book

Why,
whor is my pooss?"
The policeman solemnly handed it to him. He took it, turned it over,
looked at the policeman half frightened, and pointed with his fat thumb at
Mackaye.
"Well, he said as you was a conjuror--and sure he was right."
He paid me the money. I had no mind to keep it in such company; so I got
the poor fellows' pawn-tickets, and Crossthwaite and I took the things
out for them. When we returned, we found them in a group in the passage,
holding the door open, in their fear lest we should be locked up, or
entrapped in some way. Their spirits seemed utterly broken. Some three or
four went off to lodge where they could; the majority went upstairs again
to work. That, even that dungeon, was their only home--their only hope--as
it is of thousands of "free" Englishmen at this moment.
We returned, and found the old man with his new-found prodigal sitting on
his knee, as if he had been a baby. Sandy told me afterwards, that he had
scarcely kept him from carrying the young man all the way home; he was
convinced that the poor fellow was dying of starvation.


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