"What street did you stay in at Rochester?"
"1421 Maple Avenue," shot back McCartney. "I wish you could see my little Catherine--she's such a tiny ball of sunshine. Every morning she used to come and wake me, and say, 'Come, daddy, come to breaf-crust!' She couldn't pronounce the word right--I hope she never will. She called the little dog I gave her a fox 'terrial' dog. Some people say children are all alike. If they could only see _her_--if she's still alive. Why _I_ wouldn't give ten cents to live if I could only make sure Edith would have enough to get along on and give Catherine a decent education. I want that girl to grow up into a fine noble woman like her mother. And to think the last time I saw her she was lying in a stuffy hall bedroom in a third-class lodging house, her little forehead burning with fever, with my poor sick wife stretched beside her, fearing to move lest she should wake the child. She may be dead by this time, for I've had no work for three days, and I've been able to send them nothing--nothing! They may have been turned out into the streets, for the board bill was a week overdue when I left them. Don't you see it drives me nearly mad? I'm worse off a thousand times than if I stayed there with them. Sometimes I think there can't be any God, for if there was He'd never let me suffer so. And all for a little money--just because I can't pay the fare back to my sick wife and dying baby--my poor, sweet, little baby!"
McCartney's voice broke and he buried his haggard face on his arms. For a moment or two neither spoke, then the deacon sighed deeply.
"You do seem to have had hard luck," he remarked awkwardly. McCartney was still too overcome with emotion to reply.
"I reckon I'll have to break my rule and help you without references. I don't believe in giving, as a rule, unless you know who you are giving to."
"But I'll do it this time." He placed two quarters upon the table.
"There, half a dollar'll keep you nicely for a while. Of course, there's no use sendin' money to Rochester. Your landlady can't turn sick folks into the street, and if she does they can go to the hospital----"
He paused, startled by the look on McCartney's face, for the latter had risen like an avenging angel, white and trembling. Pointing at the two harmless coins, he cried: