The story was new to him, though it was as old as King Lear. Cooney had deeded a house to his elder daughter when she married Lieutenant Buntz of the fire department; and they had all lived together, renting the parlor floor, the younger daughter helping to do the house-work. When this younger daughter married a machinist, Cooney could no less than give her the other house, where she too followed the custom of the street by letting her vacant floors. He had remained with the older girl, who kept him in clothes and tobacco—and pocket money for an occasional nip. She had begrudged him nothing, though she had hinted, after Kathleen’s marriage, that the sister might be doing something for him, too.
“It was Buntz’s notion, that,” old Cooney said. “He ’s nothin’ but a poor furriner, y’ understand, m’am. He ’s got no right feelin’s whativer.”
Then the hard times struck the quarter, and so many of Mrs. Buntz’s rooms were empty for
