“Dot’s Father Cruse comin’ in.  You ask him now vonce about dis goin’ avay bizness.  He tell you same as me.”

The priest was now abreast of Felix, who had stepped forward to greet him, Otto watching their movements.  The two stood talking in a low voice, Felix’s eyes downcast as if in deep thought, the priest apparently urging some plan, which O’Day, by his manner, seemed to favor.  They were too far off, and spoke too low, for Otto to catch the drift of the talk, and it was only when Felix, who had followed the priest outside the door, had returned that he called, from his high seat under the gas-jet:  “Vell, vat did Father Cruse say?”

Felix drew his brows together.  “Say about what?” he asked, as if the question had surprised him.

“About Beesving.  Didn’t you ask him?”

“No, we talked of other things,” replied Felix and, turning on his heel, occupied himself about the shop.

Across the street meanwhile Kitty’s own plans had also gone astray this winter’s morning—­so many of them, in fact, that she was at her wits’ end which way to turn.  A trunk had been left at the wrong address, and John had been two hours looking for it.  Bobby had come home from school with a lump on his head as big as a hen’s egg, where some “gas-house kid,” as Bobby expressed it, “had fetched him a crack.”  Mike, on his way down from the Grand Central, knowing that John was away with the other horse and Kitty worrying, had urged big Jim to gallop, and, in his haste, had bowled over a ten-year-old boy astride of a bicycle, and, worse yet, the entire outfit —­big Jim, wagon, Mike, boy, bicycle, and the boy’s father—­were at that precise moment lined up in front of the captain’s desk at the 35th Street police station.

The arrest did not trouble Kitty.  She knew the captain and the captain knew her.  If bail were needed, there were half a dozen men within fifty yards of where she stood who would gladly furnish it.  Mike was careless, anyhow, and a little overhauling would do him good.

What did trouble her was the tying up of big Jim and her wagon at a time when she needed them most.  Nobody knew when John would be back, and there was the stuff piling up, and not a soul to handle it.  She stood, leaning over her short counter, trying to decide what to do first.  She could not ask Felix to help her.  He was tired out with the holiday sales.  Nor was there anybody else on whom she could put her hands.  It was Porterfield’s busy time, and Codman had all he could jump to.  No, she could not ask them.  Here she stepped out on the sidewalk to get a broader view of the situation, her mind intent on solving the problem.

At that same instant she saw Kling’s door swing wide and Father Cruse step out, Felix beside him.  The two shook each other’s hands in parting, Felix going back into the shop, and Father Cruse taking the short-cut across the street to where Kitty stood—­an invariable custom of his whenever he found himself in her neighborhood.