Before I went away I learned that two children had not been in the house for the last four or five days.
"And where do you think they are?" I asked.
"One, I know, went on a freight, and the other must be somewhere." At the door she again stopped me.
"Here's my picture, if you want it!" she said pleadingly, as she tended it to me. I felt it would have been a great insult to have refused her gift, to destroy the hope she had that the picture might awaken desires and that these desires might bring her rent and food. There was a glimmer of hope when I promised to do all in my power to restore her pension.
Instead of going to my next address I loitered in the neighbourhood of 63rd Street, near the river. I knew that Mr. S. was in his district and I hoped to find him. I was rehearsing mentally the words in which I should clothe my opinion of his behaviour, when all at once I saw him coming from a house. I approached him, called him into a saloon, and without a word I showed him the picture.
"What about that?" I asked.
"She was all right once—that's how she looked, the cat," he explained jokingly. "Did you get at her? You—you! She was all right once, how is she now?" He took the picture and looked at it with interest, probably remembering his debauches. I immediately saw that I could learn more about the matter by handling the case dexterously, and I learned, oh! I did learn how the money of the poor is spent—how payment is taken for the bread and coal and rent, and how, when he has "another one," a fresh case, the "cat" is simply discontinued.
Mr. S. was a man of about forty and had been fifteen years in the business. He knew all the ropes and finished up with a promise to take me to a young French widow who was a "peach," a new case, as he explained, twinkling his eye knowingly. He still looked at the picture of the Irish woman.
"You would never think her to be an applicant. She has such a distinguished appearance. Oh! she's a peach—if she only could keep mum," he said, referring to the French widow.