“He isn’t here this morning,” remarked Constance, for some reason looking fixedly at the glove she was removing as she spoke.

The urchin raised his head and peered about.  “Dat’s funny!” he exclaimed.  “It’s de first time he oin’t bin here w’en youse wuz at de bat.”

“Has he seen you this morning?”

“Why, cert!”

The girl opened the dime novel and found the page at which the interruption had occurred, hesitated an instant, and remarked, “The next time he comes you might say that I would like to see him for a moment—­to ask if I had better give you a pistol.”  This said, she hastily began on the book.  Thrillingly as the pursuits and pursuit of the criminal classes were pictured, however, there came several breaks in the reading; and had any keenly observant person been watching Miss Durant, he would have noticed that these pauses invariably happened whenever some one entered the ward.

It was made evident to her that she and Swot gave value to entirely different parts of her message to the doctor; for, no sooner did she reach the waif’s bedside the next morning than the invalid announced,—­

“Say, Ise done my best to jolly de doc, but he stuck to it dat youse oughtn’t to guv me no pistol.”

“Didn’t you tell him what I asked you to say?” demanded Constance, anxiously.

“Soytenly.  Ise says to ‘im dat youse wanted to know wot he tought, an’ he went back on me.  Ise didn’t tink he’d trun me down like dat!”

“I might better have written him,” murmured Miss Durant, thoughtfully.  She sat for some time silently pondering, till the waif asked,—­

“Say, youse goin’ to guv me dat present just de same, oin’t youse?”

“Yes, I’ll give you a present,” acceded the girl, opening the book.  “I think, Swot,” she continued, “that we’ll have to trouble Dr. Armstrong for another Old Sleuth, as we shall probably finish this to-day.  And tell him this time it is my turn to pay for it,” From her purse she produced a dime, started to give it to the boy, hastily drew back her hand, and replacing the coin, substituted for it a dollar bill.  Then she began reading rapidly—­so rapidly that the end of the story was attained some twenty minutes before the visitors’ time had expired.

“Say,” was her greeting on the following day, as Swot held up another lurid-looking tale and the dollar bill, “Ise told de doc youse wuzn’t willin’ dat he, bein’ poor, should bleed de cash dis time, an’ dat youse guv me dis to—­”

“You didn’t put it that way, Swot?” demanded Miss Durant.

“Wot way?”

“That I said he was poor.”

“Soytenly.”

“Oh, Swot, how could you?”

“Wot’s de matter?”

“I never said that!  Was he—­was he—­What did he say?”

“Nuttin’ much, ’cept dat I wuz to guv youse back de dough, for de books wuz on ’im.”

“I’m afraid you have pained him, Swot, and you certainly have pained me.  Did he seem hurt or offended?”