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on getting the money just the same, and some one else can come in on it.”
    Professor Harkness went away from the office with a smile on his face and in his pocket three letters of introduction to wealthy benevolent business men of New York. Mikky was to go South with him the middle of the next week.
    Endicott went home that afternoon with relief of mind, but he found in his heart a most surprising reluctance to part with the beautiful boy.
    When the banker told Mikky that he was going to send him to “college,” and explained to him that an education would enable him to become a good man and perhaps a great one, the boy's face was very grave. Mikky had never felt the need of an education, and the thought of going away from New York gave him a sensation as if the earth were tottering under his feet. He shook his head doubtfully.
    “Kin I take Buck an' de kids?” he asked after a thoughtful pause, and with a lifting of the cloud in his eyes.
    “No,” said Endicott. “It costs a good deal to go away to school, and there wouldn't be anyone to send them.”
    Mikky's eyes grew wide with something like indignation, and he shook his head.
    “Nen I couldn't go,” he said decidedly. “I couldn't take nothin' great like that and not give de kids any. We'll stick together. I'll stay wid de kids. They needs me.”
    “But Mikky—” the man looked into the large determined eyes and settled down for combat—“you don't understand, boy. It would be impossible for them to go. I couldn't send them all, but I can send you, and I'm going to, because you risked your life to save little Starr.”
    “That wasn't nothin' t'all!” declared Mikky with fine scorn.
    “It was everything to me,” said the man, “and I want to do this for you. And boy, it's your duty to take this. It's everybody's duty to take the opportunities for advancement that come to them.”
    Mikky looked at him thoughtfully. He did not understand the large words, and duty meant to him a fine sense of loyalty to those who had been loyal to him.
    “I got to stay wid de kids,” he said. “Dey needs me.”
    With an exasperated feeling that it was useless to argue against this calmly stated fact, Endicott began again gently:
    “But Mikky, you can help them a lot more by going to college than by staying at home.”
    The boy's eyes looked unconvinced but he waited for reasons.
    “If you get to be an educated man you will be able to earn money and help them. You can lift them up to better things; build good houses for them to live in; give them work to do that will pay good wages, and help them to be good men.”
    “Are you educated?”
    Thinking he was making progress Endicott nodded eagerly.
    “Is that wot you does fer folks?” The bright eyes searched his face eagerly, keenly, doubtfully.
    The color flooded the bank-president's cheeks and forehead uncomfortably.
    “Well,—I might—” he answered. “Yes, I might do a great deal for people, I suppose. I don't know as I do much, but I could if I had been interested in them.”
    He paused. He realized that the argument was weakened. Mikky studied his face.
    “But dey needs me now, de kids does,” he said gravely, “Jimmie, he don't have no supper most nights less'n I share; and Bobs is so little he can't fight dem alley kids; n' sometimes I gets a flower off'n the florist's back door fer little sick Jane. Her's got a crutch, and can't walk much anyhow; and cold nights me an' Buck we sleeps close. We got a box hid away where we sleeps close an' keeps warm.”
    The moisture gathered in the eyes of the banker as he listened to the innocent story. It touched his heart as nothing ever had before. He resolved that after this his education and wealth should at least help these little slum friends of Mikky to an occasional meal, or a flower, or a warm bed.
    “Suppose you get Buck to take your place with the kids while you go to school and get an education and learn how to help them better.”
    Mikky's golden