Instantly her anxiety vanished.  “Look at it!” she cried enthusiastically.  “Can you beat it?  There he comes.  God must ‘a’ sent him!” Then, as she ran to meet him:  “Oh, Father, but it’s better than a pair o’ sore eyes to see ye!  I’m all balled up wi’ trouble.  John’s huntin’ a lost trunk.  Bobby’s up-stairs with a slab o’ raw beef on his head.  Mike’s locked up for runnin’ over a boy.  And my big Jim and my wagon is tied up outside the station, till it’s all straightened out.  Will ye help me?”

“I am on my way now to the police station,” said the priest in his kindest voice.

“Oh, then, ye heard o’ Mike?”

“Not a word.  But I often drop in there of a morning.  Many of the night arrests need counsel outside the law, and sometimes I can be of service.  Is the boy badly hurt?”

“No, he hollered too loud when the wheel struck him, so they tell me.  He’s not half as bad as Bobby, I warrant, who hasn’t let a squeak out o’ him.  Will ye please put in a word for me, Father?  I can’t leave here or I’d go meself.  I don’t care if the captain holds on to Mike for a while, so he lets me have big Jim and the wagon.  John will be up to go bail as soon as he gets back, if the captain wants it, which he won’t, when he finds out who Mike is.  Oh, that’s a good soul!  I knew ye’d help me.  An’ how did ye find Mr. Felix?”—­ a new anxiety now filling her mind.

The priest’s face clouded.  “Oh, very well; he spent last evening with me.”

“Oh, that was it, was it?  An’ were ye trampin’ the streets with him, too?  It was pretty nigh daylight when he come in.  I always know, for he wakes me when he shuts his door.”

The priest, evidently absorbed in some strain of thought, parried her question with another:  “And so the boy was not badly hurt?  Well, that is something to be thankful for.  Perhaps I may know his people.  I will send Mike and the wagon back to you, if I can.  Good-by.”  And he touched his hat, passing up the street with his long, even stride, the skirt of his black cassock clinging to his knees.

The arrest, so far as could be seen from Mike’s general deportment, had not troubled that gentleman in the least.  He had nodded pleasantly to the captain, who, in return, had frowned severely at him while the father of the boy was making the complaint; had winked good-naturedly at him the moment the accuser had left the room; had asked after Kitty and John, motioned to him to stay around until somebody put in an appearance to go bail, and had then busied himself with more important matters.  A thick-set man, in a brown suit and derby hat, accompanied by an officer and another man, had brought in a frail woman, looking as if life were slowly ebbing out of her; and the four were in a row before his desk.  The usual questions were asked and answered by the detective and the clerk—­the nature of the charge, the name and address of the party robbed, the name and address of the accused—­and the entries properly made.