He caught the boy in his arms and hugged him to his breast, sobbing the meanwhile like a little child. He spoke of his wife and her death, of his lost money, and a hundred other things, and then, in the midst of it all, threw up his arms and sank to the floor in a dead faint.
A less courageous boy than Matt would have been badly scared. But he knew of these fainting spells, for his father had had them years before and had always come out of them feeling weaker in body, it was true, but always clearer in mind.
In one corner of the room lay an old mattress, and upon this he placed his father's form. Then he opened the tightly-closed window and began to bathe his father's forehead with some water that stood in a cracked pitcher near by.
Two of the girls that had told him about Crazy Will had followed him up the tenement stairs and were now standing outside of the garret-room door, staring at all that was going on. Matt called them in.
"Do either of you want to earn twenty-five cents?" he asked.
"What doin'?" asked the older of the two girls promptly:
"I want you to deliver a message for me."
"Where to?"
