THE  CHILDREN OF  THE POOR
 

97
 

They thought he Avas killed, but he was only crippled for life.
When, after many months, he came out of the hospital, Avhere the
company had paid his board and posed as doing a generous thing,
his bright smile was gone ; his shining was at an end, and with it
his career as it had been marked out for him. He must needs take
up something new, and he Avas bending all his energies, when I met
 

2 a.nn.   m the Delivery Roonn  in the   " Sun " Office.
 

him, toward learning to make the ''Englis' letter " Avith a degree of
proficiency that would justify the hope of his doing something
somewhere at some time to make up for what he had lost. It was
a far-off possibility yet. With the same end in vIcaa^ probably, he
Avas taking nightly Avriting lessons in his mother-tongue from one
of the perambulating schoolmasters AAdio circulate in the Italian
colony peddling education cheap in lots to suit. In his sober, sub¬
missive way he was content with the prospect.    It had its compen-