“Sure,” said he; “there’s half a dozen in the city.”  And he named them.  “Burbage:  he’s the real thing, got his legs took off by a cannon-ball in the wars.  Prior:  he ain’t no ’count.  Drunk and fell under a elevated train.  He ain’t saved nothing neither.  He drinks his.  Echmeyer:  he’s some Jew; worth every cent of fifty thousand dollars.  They calls him congen_eye_tul, ’cause he was born with his legs lef off him.  Fun Barnheim:  he’s German, went asleep in the shade of a steam-roller, and never woke up till his legs was rolled out flat as a pair of pants that’s just bin ironed.  Then o’ course there’s Blizzard.”

Barbara was smiling.  “What became of his legs, Bubbles?”

“God knows,” returned the boy.  “Blizzard don’t boast about it like the others.  But he ain’t no common beggar.  He’s a man.”

“A good man?”

“Good?  He ain’t got a kinder thought in his block than settin’ fire to houses and killin’ people.  But when he says ‘step,’ it steps.”

“It?”

“The East Side, Miss Barbara.  He’s the whole show.”

“What does he look like?”

The boy at first thought in vain for a simile, and then, having found one to his liking, emitted with great earnestness that the beggar, Blizzard, looked exactly like “the wrath of God.”  Whatever the boy’s simile may convey to the reader, to Barbara, fresh from seeing the man himself, it had a wonderful aptness.

“That’s my man,” she exclaimed.  “Blizzard!  He’s got a wonderful face, Bubbles, and you said just what it looks like.  I’m going to make a bust of him.”

“He’s coming here?”

“Yes.  Why not?”

The boy was troubled.  “Miss Barbara,” he said earnestly, “I wouldn’t go for to touch that man with a ten-foot pole.”

“I shan’t touch him, except with compasses to take measurements.  He’s civil-spoken enough.”

“He’s bad,” said Bubbles, “bad.  And when I say bad, I mean millions of things that you never heard tell of, and never will.  If he comes in here—­and, and raises hell, don’t blame me.”

Barbara laughed.  “He will come here, and sit perfectly still,” she said, “until he wishes he was dead.  And then he will receive money, and an invitation to come to-morrow.  And then he will go away.”

Bubbles looked unnaturally solemn and dejected.

“Besides,” said Barbara, “I have you to protect me.”

Though Bubbles made no boast, a world of resolution swept into his great eyes, and you knew by the simultaneous rising toward his chin of all the buttons upon the front of his jacket that he had drawn the long breath of courage, and stiffened the articulations of his spine.