old ghettos of crowded towns in Poland and in Russia.  And some of these songs were sung in school, and some of these tales were dramatized here.  Children and parents all took part.  And speakers emerged from the neighborhood.  It was at times appalling, the number of young Italians and Jews who had ideas to give forth to their friends on socialism, poverty, marriage and religion, and all the other questions that rose among these immigrants jammed into this tenement hive.  But when there were too many of these self-appointed guides, the neighborhood shut down on them.

“We don’t want,” declared one indignant old woman, “that every young loafer should shout in our face!”

Roger was slowly attracted into this enormous family life, and yielding to an impulse he took charge of a boys’ club which met on Thursday evenings there.  He knew well this job of fathering a small jovial group of lads; he had done it before, many years ago, in the mission school, to please his wife; he felt himself back on familiar ground.  And from this point of vantage, with something definite he could do, he watched with an interest more clear the school form steadily closer ties with the tenements that hedged it ’round, gathering its big family.  And this family by slow degrees began to make itself a part of the daily life of Roger’s house.  Committees held their meetings here, teachers dropped in frequently, and Roger invited the boys in his club to come up and see him whenever they liked.

His most frequent visitor was Johnny Geer, the cripple.  He was working in Roger’s office now and the two had soon become close friends.  John kept himself so neat and clean, he displayed such a keen interest in all the details of office work, and he showed such a beaming appreciation of anything that was done for him.

“That boy is getting a hold on me lately almost like a boy of my own,” Roger said one evening when Allan Baird was at the house.  “He’s the pluckiest young un I ever met.  I’ve put him to work in my private office, where he can use the sofa to rest, and I’ve made him my own stenographer—­partly because he’s so quick at dictation and partly to try to make him slow down.  He has the mind of a race horse.  He runs at night to libraries until I should think he’d go insane.  And his body can’t stand it, he’s breaking down—­though whenever I ask him how he feels, he always says, ‘Fine, thank you.’” Here Roger turned to Allan.  “I wish you’d take the boy,” he said, “to the finest specialist in town, and see what can be done for his spine.  I’ll pay any price.”

“There won’t be any price,” said Allan, “but I’ll see to it at once.”

He had John examined the same week.

“Well?” asked Roger when next they met.

“Well,” said Baird, “it isn’t good news.”

“You mean he’s hopeless?” Allan nodded: 

“It’s Pott’s disease, and it’s gone too far.  John is eighteen.  He may live to be thirty.”