“Pete and John’s both gone West,” the man said, his eyes kindling eagerly. “’S fine boys as ever turned out of Indiana.  Good eddications I give ’em both.  I’ve felt the want of that all my life.  Good eddications.  Says I, ’Now, boys, you’ve got your fortunes, nothing to hinder your bein’ President.  Let’s see what stuff’s in ye,’ says I. So they’re doin’ well.  Wrote fur me to come out in the fall.  But I’d rather scratch on, and gather up a little for Sophy here, before I stop work.”

He patted Sophy’s tanned little hand on the table, as if beating some soft tune.  Holmes folded up the bills.  Even this man could spare time out of his hard, stingy life to love, and be loved, and to be generous!  But then he had no higher aim, knew nothing better.

“Well,” said Pike, rising, “in case you take th’ mill, Mr. Holmes, I hope we’ll be agreeable.  I’ll strive to do my best,”—­in the old fawning manner, to which Holmes nodded a curt reply.

The man stopped for Sophy to gather up her bits of broken China with which she was making a tea-party on the table, and went down-stairs.

Towards evening Holmes went out,—­not going through the narrow passage that led to the offices, but avoiding it by a circuitous route.  If it cost him any pain to think why he did it, he showed none in his calm, observant face.  Buttoning up his coat as he went:  the October sunset looked as if it ought to be warm, but he was deathly cold.  On the street the young doctor beset him again, with bows and news:  Cox was his name, I believe; the one, you remember, who had such a Talleyrand nose for ferreting out successful men.  He had to bear with him but for a few moments, however.  They met a crowd of workmen at the corner, one of whom, an old man freshly washed, with honest eyes looking out of horn spectacles, waited for them by a fire-plug.  It was Polston, the coal-digger,—­an acquaintance, a far-off kinsman of Holmes, in fact.

“Curious person making signs to you, yonder,” said Cox; “hand, I presume.”

“My cousin Polston.  If you do not know him, you’ll excuse me?”

Cox sniffed the air down the street, and twirled his rattan, as he went.  The coal-digger was abrupt and distant in his greeting, going straight to business.

“I will keep yoh only a minute, Mr. Holmes”——­

“Stephen,” corrected Holmes.

The old man’s face warmed.

“Stephen, then,” holding out his hand, “sence old times dawn’t shame yoh, Stephen.  That’s hearty, now.  It’s only a wured I want, but it’s immediate.  Concernin’ Joe Yare,—­Lois’s father, yoh know?  He’s back.”

“Back?  I saw him to-day, following me in the mill.  His hair is gray?  I think it was he.”

“No doubt.  Yes, he’s aged fast, down in the lock-up; goin’ fast to the end.  Feeble, pore-like.  It’s a bad life, Joe Yare’s; I wish ‘n’ ’t would be better to the end”——­

He stopped with a wistful look at Holmes, who stood outwardly attentive, but with little thought to waste on Joe Yare.  The old coal-digger drummed on the fire-plug uneasily.