Part 39 (2/2)

_SAMUEL J. SLOANE SAYS,_

_If I am elected Mayor, the government of New York will be conducted upon the highest plane of_

_EFFICIENCY! JUSTICE! AND RIGHT!_

The wind caught the bunting and it swelled out as if inflated by the pledges it bore.

Ardly laughed cynically.

”I wish he'd drop a few hints to Providence,” he remarked. ”It is certainly a plane upon which the universe has never been conducted.”

Father Algarcife walked on in silence, making his way along the crowded street with a slow yet determined step. The people who knew him turned to look after him, and those who did not stepped from before his way, moved by the virile dignity in his carriage, which suggested a man possessed by an absorbing motive.

Ardly looked a little abashed, and laughed half apologetically.

”I have been in harness all my life,” he said, ”and now I'm doing a little kicking against the traces.”

A boyish humor rushed to the other's lips.

”In that case, I can make but one recommendation,” he replied: ”if you kick against the traces--kick hard.”

He drew out his watch and paused a moment as if in doubt.

”Yes, I'll go to the hospital,” he said; ”there is a half-hour before luncheon,” and he turned into East Twentieth Street on his way to Second Avenue. When he reached the hospital, he entered the elevator upon the first floor and ascended to the babies' ward. As he stepped upon the landing, a calm-faced nurse in a fresh uniform pa.s.sed him, holding a gla.s.s of milk in her white, capable hand.

His eyes brightened as he saw her, and under the serene system of the place he felt a sense of restfulness steal over him like warmth.

”How is my charge?” he asked.

A ripple of tenderness crossed the nurse's lips as she answered:

”He has been looking for you, and he is always better on the days that you come.”

She pa.s.sed along the hall and entered a large room into which the daylight fell like a bath of suns.h.i.+ne. In the centre of the room there was a tiny table around which a dozen children were sitting in small white chairs. Despite the bandaged heads and the weak limbs, there was no sign of suffering. It was all cheerfulness and suns.h.i.+ne, as if the transition from a tenement-house room to s.p.a.ce and air had unfolded the shrunken little bodies into bloom.

In a cot near a window, where the sunlight flashed across the cover, a boy of three or four years lay with a strap beneath his small pink wrapper, fastening him to a board of wood. At the head of the bed was printed the name, and below:

”Pott's disease of the spine.

Received, October, 1896; discharged ...”

As he saw the priest he stretched out his pallid little hands with a gurgle of welcome, merriment overflowing his eyes.

Father Algarcife took the hands in his and sat down beside the cot.

Since entering the room he seemed to have caught something of the infant stoicism surrounding him, for his face had lost its strained pallor and the lines about his mouth had softened.

”So it is a good day,” he said. ”The little man is better. He has been on the roof-garden.”

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