“Come father! won’t you come home?” I hear that low, pleading voice even now, and my heart gives a quicker throb.  Poor child!  Darkly shadowed was the sky that bent gloomily over thy young life.

Morgan arose, and suffered the child to lead him from the room.  He seemed passive in her hands.  I noticed that he thrust his fingers nervously into his pocket, and that a troubled look went over his face as they were withdrawn.  His last sixpence was in the till of Simon Slade!

The first man who spoke was Harvey Green, and this not for a minute after the father and his child had vanished through the door.

“If I was in your place, landlord”—­his voice was cold and unfeeling—­“I’d pitch that fellow out of the bar-room the next time he stepped through the door.  He’s no business here, in the first place; and, in the second, he doesn’t know how to behave himself.  There’s no telling how much a vagabond like him injures a respectable house.”

“I wish he would stay away,” said Simon, with a perplexed air.

“I’d make him stay away,” answered Green.

“That may be easier said than done,” remarked Judge Lyman.  “Our friend keeps a public-house, and can’t just say who shall or shall not come into it.”

“But such a fellow has no business here.  He’s a good-for-nothing sot.  If I kept a tavern, I’d refuse to sell him liquor.”

“That you might do,” said Judge Lyman; “and I presume your hint will not be lost on our friend Slade.”

“He will have liquor, so long as he can get a cent to buy it with,” remarked one of the company; “and I don’t see why our landlord here, who has gone to so much expense to fit up a tavern, shouldn’t have the sale of it as well as anybody else.  Joe talks a little freely sometimes; but no one can say that he is quarrelsome.  You’ve got to take him as he is, that’s all.”

“I am one,” retorted Harvey Green, with a slightly ruffled manner, “who is never disposed to take people as they are when they choose to render themselves disagreeable.  If I was Mr. Slade, as I remarked in the beginning, I’d pitch that fellow into the road the next time he put his foot over my door step.”

“Not if I were present,” remarked the other, coolly.

Green was on his feet in a moment, and I saw, from the flash of his eyes, that he was a man of evil passions.  Moving a pace or two in the direction of the other, he said sharply.

“What is that, sir?”

The individual against whom his anger was so suddenly aroused was dressed plainly, and had the appearance of a working man.  He was stout and muscular.

“I presume you heard my words.  They were spoken distinctly,” he replied, not moving from where he sat, nor seeming to be in the least disturbed.  But there was a cool defiance in the tones of his voice and in the steady look of his eyes.

“You’re an impertinent fellow, and I’m half tempted to chastise you.”