selfish! Tell me the fun, and let me help you."

Mr. Brownlee wiped his eyes.

"I supposed you knew, but I see she hasn't told."

Then the three days' history of the lunch box was repeated with
particulars which included the dog.

"Now laugh!" concluded Mr. Brownlee.

"Blest if I see anything funny!" replied Wesley Sinton. "And if you
had bought that box and furnished one of those lunches yourself, you
wouldn't either. I call such a work a shame! I'll have it stopped."

"Some one must see to that, all right. They are little leeches. Their
father earns enough to support them, but they have no mother, and they
run wild. I suppose they are crazy for cooked food. But it is funny, and
when you think it over you will see it, if you don't now."

"About where would a body find that father?" inquired Wesley Sinton
grimly. Mr. Brownlee told him and he started, locating the house with
little difficulty. House was the proper word, for of home there was no
sign. Just a small empty house with three unkept little children racing
through and around it. The girl and the elder boy hung back, but dirty
little Billy greeted Sinton with: "What you want here?"

"I want to see your father," said Sinton.

"Well, he's asleep," said Billy.