pupil.  Ah, but one should see how she studied over her books all the time.  Next year they were to try to get her into the high school.  Of course she was not ready for the high school yet, and it was against the rule to let children in that way, she was too young, but they had a pull, you understand.  Oh, yes, for sure they had a pull. They’d work her in all right.  The burnisher’s wife was not listening.  She wanted to draw the interest back to her own little boy.  She bent down and straightened out his little jacket, saying, “Does he like his bread ’n butter?  Well, he could have all he wanted!” But the little boy paid no attention to her.  He had made a bon-mot, ambition stirred in him, he had tasted the delights of an appreciative audience.  Bread and butter had fallen in his esteem.  He wished to repeat his former success, and cried out shriller than ever: 

“Hey, there!  Get up, you old lazee-bones!”

But his father corrected him—­his mother ought not to encourage him to be rude.  “That’s not right, Oscar,” he observed, shaking his head.  “You must be kind to the poor man.”

Vandover was sitting back on his heels to rest his back, waiting till the others should finish.

“Well, all through?” inquired the burnisher in his thin voice.  Vandover nodded.  But his wife was not satisfied until she had herself carefully peered into the cubby, while her husband held a lighted match for her.  “Ah, that’s something like,” she said finally.

It was nearly seven.  Vandover prepared to go home a second time.  The little boy stood in front of him, looking down at him as he made his brush and rags and broom into a bundle; the boy slowly eating his bread and butter the while.  In one corner of the room an excited whispered conference was going on between the burnisher, his wife, and his fat sister-in-law.  From time to time one heard such expressions as “Overtime, you know—­not afraid of work—­ah! think I’d better, looks as though he needed it.”  In a moment the two women went out, calling in vain for the little boy to follow, and the burnisher crossed the room toward Vandover.  Vandover was on his knees tying up his bundle with a bit of bale rope.

“I’m sorry,” began the burnisher awkwardly.  “We didn’t mean to keep you from your supper—­here,” he went on, holding out a quarter to Vandover, “here, you take this, that’s all right—­you worked overtime for us, that’s all right.  Come along, Oscar; come along, m’son.”

Vandover put the quarter in his vest pocket.

“Thank you, sir,” he said.

The burnisher hurried away, calling back, “Come along, m’son; don’t keep your mama waiting for supper.”  But the little boy remained very interested in watching Vandover, still on the floor, tying the last knots.  As he finished, he glanced up.  For an instant the two remained there motionless, looking into each other’s eyes, Vandover on the floor, one hand twisted into the bale rope about his bundle, the little boy standing before him eating the last mouthful of his bread and butter.