“O yes, dear gentlemen, he’s my child, out without leave. My poor bad, bad boy! and he don’t know me, he don’t know me! O what shall I do,” cried the little creature, wildly beating her hands together, “when my own child don’t know me!”

The head of the party looked (as well he might) to the old man for explanation. He whispered, as the dolls’ dressmaker bent over the exhausted form and vainly tried to extract some sign of recognition from it: “It’s her drunken father.”

As the load was put down in the street, Riah drew the head of the party aside, and whispered that he thought the man was dying. “No, surely not?” returned the other. But he became less confident, on looking, and directed the bearers to “bring him to the nearest doctor’s shop.”