The husband and father had hastily arranged the food on the cellar floor, and the famished wife and children had gathered around. He had put a cup of coffee in the hands of his wife, and was now giving hot milk to the two children.
It was a Rembrandt picture, seen in the glare of the street gas lamp.
“Have you no light?” inquired Harcourt.
“Light! Should we have light when we have not fire, and hadn’t food until you brought it?” exclaimed the man.
“Then I will hurry out and try to get some candles and some coal before the stores are closed,” said Harcourt. And away he went.
He succeeded in buying a bucket of coal, a bundle of kindlings, a box of matches, a pound of candles, and a pair of tin candlesticks.
With these he returned to his new friends, kindled a fire in the stove, lighted two candles, and placed them in the candlesticks, on the floor, and then looked around.
There was no furniture of any description in the cellar, unless a pile of ragged bedclothes, in the dryest corner, next the chimney, could be called such.
“I see what you are looking for, sir! But they are all at the pawnbroker’s, every stick! And the rags would have been along with the rest if any broker would have advanced ten cents on them, to buy the children bread to-day.”
“It is dreadful, my friend, dreadful! I wish I could do more for you now, but the stores are all closed. Make yourself as comfortable as you can, under the circumstances, to-night, and to-morrow I will see you again. What is your name, by the way?”