In the meantime Dago Mike and Kitty the Hawk had gone to a wretched flat, before which Billy stopped.  Kitty sat on the bed, putting dark circles under her eyes with a blackened cork.  She was very thin and emaciated, but it was dissipation that had done it.  Dago Mike was correspondingly poorly dressed.

He had paused beside the window to look out.  “She’s coming,” he announced finally.

Kitty hastily jumped into the rickety bed, while Mike took up a crutch that was standing idly in a corner.  She coughed resignedly and he limped about, forlorn.  They had assumed their parts which were almost to the burlesque of poverty, when the door was pushed open and Billy burst in followed by Elaine and the chauffeur.

“Oh, ma—­oh, pa,” he cried running forward and kissing his pseudo-parents, as Elaine, overcome with sympathy, directed the chauffeur to lay the things on a shaky table.

“God bless you, lady, for a benevolent angel!” muttered the pair, to which Elaine responded by moving over to the wretched bed and bending down to stroke the forehead of the sick woman.

Billy and Mike exchanged a sly wink.

Just then the door opened again.  All were genuinely surprised this time, for a prim, spick and span, middle-aged woman entered.

“I am Miss Statistix, of the organized charities,” she announced, looking around sharply.  “I saw your car standing outside, Miss, and the children below told me you were up here.  I came up to see whether you were aiding really deserving poor.”

She laid a marked emphasis on the word, pursing up her lips.  There was no mistaking the apprehension that these fine birds of prey had of her, either.

Miss Statistix took a step forward, looking in a very superior manner from Elaine to the packages of food and then at these prize members of the Brotherhood.  She snorted contemptuously.

“Why—­wh-what’s the matter?” asked Elaine, fidgeting uncomfortably, as if she were herself guilty, in the icy atmosphere that now seemed to envelope all things.

“This man is a gunman, that woman is a bad woman, the boy is Billy the Bread-Snatcher,” she answered precisely, drawing out a card on which to record something, “and you, Miss, are a fool!”

“Ya!” snarled the two precious falsers, “get out o’ here!”

There was no combating Miss Statistix.  She overwhelmed all arguments by the very exactness of her personality.

“You get out!” she countered.

Kitty and Mike, accompanied by Billy, sneaked out.  Elaine, now very much embarrassed, looked about, wondering at the rapid-fire change.  Miss Statistix smiled pityingly.

“Such innocence!” she murmured sadly shaking her head as she lead Elaine to the door.  “Don’t you know better than to try to help anybody without investigating?”

Elaine departed, speechless, properly squelched, followed by her chauffeur.