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“Stick to the instance,” said Dan. “I haven’t noticed any insurance companies on my charity list.”

“Draw your next check for $100,000,” went on Kenwitz. “Boyne’s son fell into bad way after the bakery closed, and was accused of murder. he was acquitted last week after a three years’ legal battle, and the state draws upon taxpayers for that much expense.”

“Back to the bakery!” exclaimed Dan, impatiently. “The Government doesn’t need to stand in the bread line.”

“The last item of the instance is–come and I will show you,” said Kenwitz, rising.

The Socialistic watchmaker was happy. He was a millionaire- baiter by nature and a pessimist by trade. Kenwitz would assure you in one breath that money was but evil and corruption, and that your brand-new watch needed cleaning and a new ratchet-wheel.

He conducted Kinsolving southward out of the square and into ragged, poverty-haunted Varick Street. Up the narrow stairway of a squalid brick tenement he led the penitent offspring of the Octupus. He knocked on a door, and a clear voice called to them to enter.

In that almost bare room a young woman sat sewing at a machine. She nodded to Kenwitz as to a familiar acquaintance. One little stream of sunlight through the dingy window burnished her heavy hair to the color of an ancient Tuscan’s shield. She flashed a rippling smile at Kenwitz and a look of somewhat flustered inquiry.

Kinsolving stood regarding her clear and pathetic beauty in heart- throbbing silence. Thus they came into the presence of the last item of the Instance.

“How many this week, Miss Mary?” asked the watchmaker. A mountain of coarse gray shirts lay upon the floor.

“Nearly thirty dozen,” said the young woman cheerfully. “I’ve made almost $4. I’m improving, Mr. Kenwitz. I hardly know what to do with so much money.” Her eyes turned, brightly soft, in the direction of Dan. A little pink spot came out on her round, pale cheek.

Kenwitz chuckled like a diabolic raven.

“Miss Boyne,” he said, “let me present Mr. Kinsolving, the son of the man who put bread up five years ago. He thinks he would like to do something to aid those who where inconvenienced by that act.”

The smile left the young woman’s face. She rose and pointed her forefinger toward the door. This time she looked Kinsolving straight in the eye, but it was not a look that gave delight.

The two men went down Varick Street. Kenwitz, letting all his pessimism and rancor and hatred of the Octopus come to the surface, gibed at the moneyed side of his friend in an acrid torrent of words. Dan appeared to be listening, and then turned to Kenwitz and shook hands with him warmly.

“I’m obliged to you, Ken, old man,” he said, vaguely–“a thousand times obliged.”

“Mein Gott! you are crazy!” cried the watchmaker, dropping his spectacles for the first time in years.

Two months afterward Kenwitz went into a large bakery on lower Broadway with a pair of gold-rimmed eyeglasses that he had mended for the proprietor.

A lady was giving an order to a clerk as Kenwitz passed her.

“These loaves are ten cents,” said the clerk.

“I always get them at eight cents uptown,” said the lady. “You need not fill the order. I will drive by there on my way home.”

The voice was familiar. The watchmaker paused.

“Mr. Kenwitz!” cried the lady, heartily. “How do you do?”

Kenwitz was trying to train his socialistic and economic comprehension on her wonderful fur boa and the carriage waiting outside.

“Why, Miss Boyne!” he began.

“Mrs. Kinsolving,” she corrected. “Dan and I were married a month ago.”