“Is that your son?” asked the crafty Jim.  “I wish he had come to the institute, instead of Hector.  He is a boy that I couldn’t help liking.”

There are few who are altogether inaccessible to flattery.  At any rate, Guy was not one of this small number.

“I feel sure you are not guilty,” said Guy, regarding Jim graciously.  “It was a very mean thing in Hector to get you into trouble.”

“It was, indeed,” said Jim.  “I am cast out of my uncle’s house, and now I have no home, and hardly any money.”

“Hector is in the city.  Have you seen him?” asked Allan Roscoe.

“Yes; I met him a few minutes since.”

“Did you speak to him?”

“Yes; I reproached him for getting me into trouble, but he only laughed in my face.  He told me he hated you both,” added Jim, ingenuously.

“Just like Hector!” said Guy.  “What have I always told you, papa?”

“I am sorry you have suffered such injustice at the hands of anyone in any way connected with my family,” said Mr. Roscoe, who, like Guy, was not indisposed to believe anything to the discredit of Hector.  “I do not feel responsible for his unworthy acts, but I am willing to show my sympathy by a small gift.”

He produced a five-dollar note and put it into Jim’s ready hand.

“Thank you, sir,” he said.  “You are a gentleman.”

So the interview closed, and Jim left the spot, chuckling at the manner in which he had wheedled so respectable a sum out of Allan Roscoe.

Meanwhile Hector, after looking about him, turned, and, getting into a Broadway stage, rode uptown as far as Twenty-third Street, where the stage turned down toward Sixth Avenue.  He concluded to walk the remainder of the way.

As he was walking up Madison Avenue, his attention was drawn to a little girl in charge of a nursemaid.  The latter met an acquaintance and forgot her charge.  The little girl, left to herself, attempted to cross the street just as a private carriage was driven rapidly up the avenue.  The driver was looking away, and it seemed as if, through the double neglect of the driver and the nurse, the poor child would be crushed beneath the hoofs of the horses and the wheels of the carriage.

CHAPTER XXX.

A brave Deed.

Hector’s heart stood still as he realized the peril of the child.  He dashed forward on the impulse of the moment, and barely succeeded in catching up the little girl and drawing her back out of harm’s way.  The driver, who had done his best to rein up his horses, but without success, ejaculated with fervent gratitude, for he, too, had a child of his own about the age of the little girl, “God bless you, boy.”

The little girl seemed less concerned than anyone of the spectators.  She put her hand confidently in Hector’s, and said:  “Take me to Mary.”

“And who is Mary?” asked Hector, kindly.