they make me a proposition they would give me a couple hundred rubles
and a ticket to America--and I took 'em up. For stealing that wine I
could get five years yet; so what should I do? They give me the money
and I run away; and the dead moujik they are telling everybody is me,
which I am blew up to pieces by the package."

"And you let the old man bury the moujik and think it was you?" Morris
asked.

Harkavy nodded.

"Over and over again he is telling me I am no good and he wishes I was
dead," he said. "I wish I was, Mr. Perlmutter--I wish I was!"

He commenced to cry weakly and Morris handed him the water.

"But when I hear last week the old man, my father, is here," he
continued, "I couldn't help myself--I am hanging around Madison Street
trying I should get one look at him only. I didn't see him till just
now."

He struggled to raise himself from the lounge.

"Let me go to him," he wailed; "let me go!"

Abe looked inquiringly at the doctor, who nodded in reply.

"Let him go," he said. "Happiness never harmed anybody yet."

* * * * *