been afflicted with a surplus amount of
laughter -- laughter which had difficulty in
attaching itself to anything, owing to the
lack of the really comic in the surroundings
of the poor. But with a red-headed and
freckled baby boy and two trick dogs in the
house, she found a good and sufficient excuse
for her hilarity, and would have torn the
cave where echo lies with her mirth, had that
cave not been at such an immeasurable dis-
tance from the crowded neighborhood where
she lived.

At the age of four Tig went to free kinder-
garten; at the age of six he was in school,
and made three grades the first year and two
the next. At fifteen he was graduated from
the high school and went to work as errand
boy in a newspaper office, with the fixed de-
termination to make a journalist of himself.

Nora was a trifle worried about his morals
when she discovered his intellect, but as time
went on, and Tig showed no devotion for any
woman save herself, and no consciousness
that there were such things as bad boys or
saloons in the world, she began to have con-
fidence. All of his earnings were brought to
her. Every holiday was spent with her. He
told her his secrets and his aspirations. He