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bank slip stapled to it, banged it down directly in front of Lulu. “After all that trouble, now they’re bouncing.”
    Lulu didn’t know what to say. Miss Fisher stared at him, while the manager continued to glare. People began to crane and peer at them. Lulu slipped down another notch in his seat.
    Suddenly Miss Shelly Fisher snatched up the check, “Just a minute, Mr. Grossman,” she said firmly, “I’m sure this can be straightened out. Mr. Llewellyn, didn’t you make a large deposit at the First National just a few weeks ago?”
    Lulu nodded.
    “Have you put any more money in the checking account since then?”
    He shook his head sheepishly. “I didn’t know I had to,” he mumbled.
    “Well, have you taken anything out of the savings account?”
    He shook his head. Miss Fisher said, “I’ll vouch for him, Mr. Grossman. He just isn’t used to a checking account yet. He has a good balance in savings. You can take my word for it.”
    “You work at the bank?”
    “You’ve seen me there.”
    He nodded slowly. “Well, all right then,” he growled. He picked up the check and waved it in front of Lulu’s nose. “You take care of it by this time tomorrow, you hear?”
    “Of course he will. Of course,” said Miss Fisher soothingly. She put her hand over Lulu’s as he slipped yet another inch down in his chair, which put the table about breast-high to him. Grossman went away.
    “It’s all right now,” she said. “It’s all right. Sit up, Mr. Llewellyn.”
    He did, shamefaced. “I didn’t know,” he said feebly.
    “You’d better let someone look over your checkbook. Do you want me to?”
    “It’s home,” he said, regretfully, feeling that the simple statement had disposed of the matter.
    “I don’t mind,” she said, surprisingly. “I have nothing else to do.”
    “You mean, you’d come to …”
    She nodded while he fought his unwilling tongue. After a moment she got up. “Come on,” she said.
    Unbelievingly he followed her out of the restaurant, and then led the way to his rooming house.
    The room was so small he had to sit on the bed if she was going to sit at the table. He kept it neat enough, but places that crummy are unconquerable. He found the checkbook and gave it to her. She riffled through the stubs, finding not a single entry.
    “Well,” she said, “No
wonder!
” Very carefully she explained to him how he must keep his record in the stubs and make an effort not to let checks bounce. He nodded humbly every three seconds while she talked. She did it kindly and did not laugh at him, or sneer.
    “Yes, Mr. Skerry told me. I guess it didn’t stick.”
    “
Lots
of people don’t understand it at first.”
    This is a very fine lady, he told himself, and wished he could say it out loud.
    “What are those?” She pointed to the top of the chest, where eleven cash envelopes lay in a neat row.
    “Oh, that’s my paydays,” he said.
    She picked one of the envelopes up, pressed it, shook it, and finally read the data typed on it. “Cash, my goodness. They pay you in cash. You shouldn’t leave cash around.”
    He could only manage to get out a faltering, “I’m sorry.”
    “My, you do need someone to look after you.” She counted the envelopes. “Don’t you see, if you put these in your checking account every week you’d always have money to write checks against?”
    He didn’t see. He just waved at the envelopes and said unhappily, “I just never knew
what
to do with ’em.”
    He intercepted her look of astonishment and said abjectly, “I never could understand all this. You want to help me with it?”
    So Miss Fisher began taking care of Lulu Llewellyn.
    He began to be happier. Yet his relationship with Miss Fisher wasso innocent, and she herself so different from any woman he’d ever met that some of his old torment began to return, and he found himself cringing again under the assault of other people’s sins. Now, however, as his philosophy of sin began a slow