She was but a wisp of a girl and her eyes shone like a cat’s from under a gray shawl gathered over a pair of narrow, pinched shoulders.

“They’ve taken grandfather away to prison,” she replied with a catch in her throat.  “He didn’t come in to lunch nor to supper, and when I went to the stable Mr. Mulqueen said a detective had arrested grandfather for doctoring horses without a license and he had pleaded guilty and they’d locked him up.  I went to the police station, but they said he wasn’t there any more, but that he was in the Tombs.”

“Who is your grandfather?” demanded Mr. Tutt as he unlocked the door.

“Danny Lowry,” she replied.  “Oh, sir, won’t you try to do something for him, sir?  He thinks so much of you!  He often has told me what a grand man you were and so kind, besides being such a clever lawyer and all the judges afraid of you!”

“Danny Lowry in the Tombs!” cried Mr. Tutt.  “What an outrage!  Of course I’ll do what I can for him.  But first come inside and warm yourself.  Miranda!” he shouted to the colored maid of all work.  “Make us some hot toast and tea and bring it up to the library.  Now, my dear, take off your shawl and sit down and tell me all about it.”

So with her frayed kid shoes upturned on the fender, little Katie Lowry, confident that she had found an all-powerful friend in this queer long man who smoked such queer long cigars, sipping her tea only when she had to pause for breath, poured out the story of her grandfather’s fight with poverty and misfortune, while her auditor’s wrinkled face grew soft and hard by turns as he watched her through the gray clouds from his stogy.  An hour later he left her at the door of her flat, happy and encouraged, with a twenty-dollar bill crumpled in her hand.

* * * * *

“But what do you expect me to do about it?” retorted District Attorney Peckham in his office next morning when Mr. Tutt had explained to him the perversion of justice to accomplish which the law had been invoked.  “I’m sorry!  No doubt he’s a good feller.  But he’s guilty, isn’t he?  Admitted it in the police court, didn’t he?”

“I expect you to temper justice with mercy,” replied Mr. Tutt earnestly.  “This old man’s whole life has been devoted to relieving the sufferings of animals.  He’s a genuine Samaritan.”

“That’s like saying that a thief has done good with his plunder, isn’t it?” commented Peckham.  “Look here, Tutt, of course I hope you get your man off and all that, but if I personally threw the case out I’d have all the vets in the city on my neck.  You see the motors have pretty nearly put ’em all out of business.  There aren’t enough sick horses to go round, so they’ve been conducting a sort of crusade.  Tough luck—­but the law is the law.  And I have to enforce it—­ostensibly, anyway.”

“Very well,” answered the old lawyer amiably but defiantly.  “Then if you’ve got to enforce the law against a fine old chap like that I’ve got to do my darnedest to smash that law higher than a kite.  And I’ll tell you something, Peckham—­which is that the human heart is a damn sight bigger than the human conscience.”