smoke come out of red chimneys, there is no time to look up.

His first distraction came when a penny was tossed over his head. He was just beginning a new picture, and his first thought was now he would have something round to draw the moon by! His second thought was for Mr. Whurtle. He had almost forgotten the really important part of the work before him, the part that Mr. Whurtle always did first, and was most particular should n't get rubbed out. He set about to remedy his mistake at once.

He remembered the words exactly, and just how they looked on the middle square. He even remembered the exact curve of the big flourish beneath them; it was the spelling that bothered him. After several attempts which he rubbed out with his coat-sleeve, he wrote the following:

If wurthy of your notice Please bestow a trifel.

The first person to read the inscription was a little girl, who carried a pail in her hand. She and Leonard eyed each other for some time in suspicious silence, then Leonard asked: "Do you know how many pennies it takes to make a shilling?"

She was so surprised to have this strange little boy ask her a question right out of the arithmetic that she began to move away, but at a safe distance she turned and called back, "Twelve," then scampered up the street with the pail bumping against her legs. Leonard sighed. Mr. Whurtle had told him once that unless he made a shilling a day, things went very badly with him, and here

tle did his peg-sticks, he went resolutely to work. Now and then, when a shadow fell across the pavement, he knew that some one had stopped to watch him, but when one is absorbed in the engrossing business of making wreaths of blue

afternoon, and only

one penny collected! He sat patiently, with his back to the wall and waited, anxiously scanning each approaching figure, but nobody seemed to notice him. Of course he knew that his pictures were not so splendid as Mr. Whurtle's, but surely

anybody could tell that one was a ship, and one was a house, even if he might not be certain whether the round thing in the middle was the sun or the moon!

Sitting still so long made Leonard sleepy, and by and by his head drooped, and the chalk fell out of his limp hand. The next thing he knew, somebody was shaking him gently by the shoulder, and, looking up, he saw a woman in a gray cape and with a gray veil hanging from her bonnet, leaning over him:

"Are you waiting for somebody?" she asked. kindly.

For a moment, Leonard could not remember what he was doing there, then he rubbed his eyes and looked at the crudely drawn pictures on the pavement.

"No," he said, with dignity, "I'm 'tending to Mr. Whurtle's business while he 's gone." "Where 's he gone?"

"In the ambulance."

"Oh! Do you mean the old fellow with the wooden legs who sits here every afternoon?" Leonard's face lit up. "Yes 'm, that 's Mr. Whurtle. Do you know him?”

"Well, I 've seen him. But who are you?” "I'm Leonard Vincent. My mother 's at the fever hospital, and we are going home just as soon as she gets well." .

"Where is home?"

"In America. Don't you see my flag?" He proudly pulled out the little silk square from his breast pocket.

The woman smiled. "So you are drawing the old man's pictures for him while he 's gone?"

"Yes 'm, but I've only made one penny so far, and if I don't get twelve, things will go very badly with Mr. Whurtle."

The woman thought for a moment, then she stooped down suddenly, and, to Leonard's dismay, rubbed out the inscription he had so carefully lettered.

"Give me a piece of chalk," she said, and proceeded to write the following:

dropping a shiny silver coin into his cap, she hurried on her busy way.

Leonard fell to work with enthusiasm. Now that his mind was relieved about the chalk, he let his imagination have full play. He drew houses, and boats, and bunches of grapes, and flowers, and even made so bold as to try a portrait of a gentleman with prominent teeth and eye-glasses.

As he worked, people began to stop to watch him, and to read what was written on the pavement. Some of them looked doubtful, some of them laughed, others asked questions, but sooner or later most of them tossed a penny into his

cap.

When Big Ben chimed out five o'clock, Leonard glanced up anxiously. Miss Meeks allowed him to go about the neighborhood as he liked in the afternoon, provided he was at home by five. This was the first time he had disobeyed, but there was nobody to give the money to, and nobody to explain to about the chalk, and it would be a full hour before Mr. Minny came by in his

cart.

Leonard had to think very hard before he decided upon a plan. He rolled the remainder of the chalk up in the square of carpet and placed it beside the cap full of pennies. Then he wrote on the pavement, below what Nurse Wilson had written:

I can't watch Mr. Whurtle's things any longer,
But plese don't anyboddy take them because
he has an axident and no legs.

LEONARD VINCENT.

When Mr. Minny drove up an hour later in the cart in which he usually took Mr. Whurtle home, he was surprised to find the familiar figure of his old friend missing. It was strange enough to think of Mr. Whurtle getting away when he could not walk, but the most amazing thing was that the pavement was covered with strange, wild drawings that suggested he had been there, and yet did not in the least resemble the pictures he usually made.

Mr. Minny got out of the cart and read the inscriptions. Then he looked in bewilderment at the small cap overflowing with coins that had remained untouched on the pavement beside the pictures..

"Well, I'll be blowed!" he said, and, snatching up the cap and the money, he jumped back into his cart, and went dashing off to find out what had happened to Mr. Whurtle.

At the door of the dark basement where they both lived, he paused. There were voices within, and he was almost afraid to enter.

"Whurtle?" he called anxiously.

"Still in the ring!" called out Mr. Whurtle, with a feeble attempt at cheerfulness. Then, as Mr. Minny entered, he added: "This here young gentleman, he's a newspaper reporter."

The young man sitting beside the low couch looked up from his note-book.

"I was sent down to write up the accident," he said, "and my friend here has been telling me the story of his life."

"Being as it were n't whut you might term a

to wish for. In the first place he had his blessed mother, propped up with pillows to be sure, but bright and smiling; then he had gifts from all the old maid and old bachelor boarders at Miss Meeks's boarding-house; but most exciting of all, he had his name in the biggest newspaper in London!

One whole page of the supplement was taken up with Mr. Whurtle. It told of his early days in the fire-department, and the heroic act that had cost him his legs. It spoke of the plucky