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ACCOUNTING
BASIC REPORTS
 PREFACE
Accounting: Basic Reports is a companion text to Accounting: To Trial Balance. It is designed
specifically for students studying Prepare Financial Reports as part of the Financial Services
Training Package. The text is also suitable for other accounting courses in basic undergradu-
ate accounting, in TAFE colleges and in the secondary school area.
In order to satisfy the requirements of the Financial Services Training Package, this text
follows closely the structure of the unit of competency. Its main emphasis is on building
skills associated with recording balance day adjustments and closing entries, and on prepara-
tion of financial reports for single-owner business entities that are not reporting entities. It
provides comprehensive material covering Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and
Accounting Standards, as well as accounting entries for balance day adjustments, reversals
and closing entries, and preparation of final reports for various sole trader businesses (ser-
vice and retail). To meet the requirements of the unit of competency, a chapter covering
accounting for depreciable assets has also been included in the book. All material has been
written in strict accordance with current accounting standards.
All units contain full topic introductions, illustrative examples, extensive graded ques-
tions in a learning sequence and solutions to some key questions. A solutions manual con-
taining those solutions not currently provided in the text is also available directly from
Cengage Learning Australia. Note further that some questions have been adapted to accom-
modate the application of MYOB Accountright software.

GST
The treatment of GST as it relates to balance day adjustments and final reports is in line
with current accounting practice and meets legislative requirements.

Accounting standards
This edition has been updated to reflect the recent introduction of Australian equivalents of
International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

viii
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dr Nicholas A Mroczkowski
PhD (Finance) Monash, MAcc (Finance) RMIT, BBus (Accounting) Swinburne, DipBus (Financial
Accounting) Ballarat, BEd Hawthorn Inst Ed, FCPA, Chartered Accountant.
Nick is a Senior Academic in the Faculty of Business at the Australian Catholic University,
Melbourne (ACU). He has more than 30 years of professional experience in Australia and
abroad, encompassing a variety of technical disciplines including auditing, financial account-
ing, finance and education. Prior to joining ACU, Nick was a Senior Lecturer in Finance and
Accounting at Swinburne University of Technology, Lecturer in Accounting and Finance at
Monash University, and a Senior Lecturer in Accounting at Deakin Business School. Nick has
also held senior positions in professional practice, including the position of Technical Director
(Audit and Accounting) for a major chartered accounting firm for a period of 15 years. His
client base includes banks, non-financial institutions, governments, educational bodies and a
range of medium-to-large companies in the private sector.

David Flanders
CPA, BCom, BEd
David Flanders has been an accounting teacher at Kangan Institute for more than 20 years.
His main teaching areas are computing accounting, financial accounting, budgeting and corpo-
rate governance. He has co-authored several textbooks across different accounting areas for
more than 10 years and has been extensively involved in writing materials for students via
distance learning.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The publisher and the authors would like to thank Daryl Fleay and Neville Poustie for their
contribution to the previous edition.
Their work has provided a tremendous platform for future editions to follow. They have
also assisted in reviewing and providing valuable feedback to the current edition.
We would also like to thank Silvana Disisto for completing a technical edit of the
textbook.

ix
x
Resources guide

xi
 COMPETENCY GRID
This text covers the following competencies from the FNS10 Financial Services Training Package:
• BSBFIA401: Prepare financial reports.
The following grid maps the elements of the above unit to the relevant chapters of this text.
BSBFIA401: Prepare financial reports
Element Chapter
1. Maintain asset register 2, 5
2. Record General Journal entries for balance day adjustments 2, 3, 4, 5
3. Prepare final ledger accounts 2, 3, 4
4. Prepare end of period financial reports 2, 4

Visit http://www.cengagebrain.com and search for this book to access the

bonus study tools on the companion website for Accounting Basic Reports 10e.

xii
1
INTRODUCTION TO
ACCOUNTING: REGULATIONS,
REPORTS AND SYSTEMS

Learning objectives
Upon completion of this chapter you should be able to:
• briefly describe the accounting Conceptual Framework
• briefly explain the term ‘GAAP’
• briefly explain the role of the Statements of Accounting Concepts
• briefly explain the role of Australian accounting standards
• define and explain the purpose and role of the following statements:
– statement of financial position for a sole trader business for both external accounting and
internal management purposes
– statement of comprehensive income for a sole trader business for both external accounting
and internal management purposes
• explain the basic factors that influence the design of an accounting system and the role of a
chart of accounts as part of the management information system for a sole trader business.

1
 Accounting Basic Reports

The need for financial reporting

The preparation of financial reports is often considered to be the most important part of the accounting pro-
cess, since the information gleaned from them can be used by several different parties for making informed
decisions regarding the business entity. These parties include management, shareholders, suppliers, custo-
mers, finance providers, regulatory authorities, employees and the general public. A financial report can be
any report that highlights financial data, such as a statement that shows total money received and paid by
the entity (receipts and payments report), or that shows the total sales for a particular period by the entity
(a sales report for example). Typically, however, the term ‘financial report’ relates to specific types of finan-
cial statements required to be prepared by the entity, and usually for the benefit of parties external to the
entity; for example, investors, suppliers of credit, lending institutions and other interested parties such as
those described above.
An authoritative definition of the term ‘financial report’ is provided in the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth)
(discussed below), which states that a financial report must consist of the financial statements for the year
and the notes accompanying the financial statements. Financial statements are defined as those required by
accounting standards, and include the statement of financial position, the statement of comprehensive
income, the statement of changes in equity and the statement of cash flows. Notes accompanying the
financial statements include specific disclosures required by various regulations (such as the Corporations
Act) and accounting standards; they may include any additional information and notes required to further
explain particular items disclosed in the financial statements. In more conventional terms, this means that
entities that are required to prepare a financial report must, as a minimum, actually prepare four reports
and provide additional information explaining the various items disclosed in those reports. Furthermore,
to avoid duplication of terminology, the four individual reports that make up the financial report are more
commonly referred to as statements rather than reports and include the following:
• a statement that shows the assets, liabilities and equity of the business, commonly known as the balance
sheet, but now more formally known as the statement of financial position
• a statement that shows the income and expenses of the business and the resulting profit or loss for the
period, commonly known as the profit and loss statement, but now more formally known as the statement
of comprehensive income
• a statement that shows all movements in equity (put simply, the amounts owing to the owners of the
business), formally known as a statement of changes in equity, and
• a statement that shows the flows of cash (by category) in and out of the business, formally known as
the statement of cash flows.
From a user’s perspective, all four statements can provide useful information regarding various aspects of
the business entity’s activities. For instance, the statement of comprehensive income can reveal whether
the firm is profitable and this information could prove invaluable to various parties that may wish to assess
whether the level of profit (and return on their investment) is sufficient in relation to comparable firms
and investments. The statement of financial position will provide useful information relating to the

2
 Chapter 1 Introduction to accounting: Regulations, reports and systems

financial stability of the business entity – in particular, whether or not the entity has the potential to sur-
vive in the short term and in the long term. The statement of changes in equity will show the changes that
have affected the owner’s claims on the business entity during the year. Finally, the statement of cash flows
will provide valuable information allowing users to assess the quality of the earnings generated during the
period and also to determine what financing and investing decisions have been made by management dur-
ing the period. The focus of this text will be the preparation of two of the primary statements described
above: the statement of financial position and the statement of comprehensive income.
While it may appear to be a simple process, the preparation of financial reports, particularly reports
prepared for the benefit of external parties, can often be a very complex task even for the most qualified
and experienced accounting practitioner. This stems mainly from the many rules and regulations relating
to financial reporting and the size and nature of the business entity itself. Indeed, many countries have
extensive and complex financial reporting regulations and Australia is no exception in this regard. Often
the arguments for greater regulation in financial reporting arise from the need for greater transparency
and disclosure of vital information, particularly for entities in which the general public may have consid-
erable exposure. For example, large public companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange will
have a considerable number of shareholders (hundreds and sometimes thousands) whose interests need
to be monitored and protected by financial reporting regulations and by other means. While many of
these rules and regulations are outside the scope of this text, it is important for students of accounting
to have a general understanding of the financial reporting framework within a specific country, albeit at
a basic level. In this regard, the following paragraphs briefly examine the general financial reporting envi-
ronment in Australia.

GAAP
‘GAAP’ is the acronym for Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and traditionally it was taken to mean all
of the basic principles and conventions of accounting. For instance the principle of historical cost, the
concept of the accounting period, the doctrine of conservatism, the entity convention, the principle of
accrual accounting and all of the other elementary principles underlying the fundamentals of accounting
were collectively known as GAAP. More recently, however, the term has been given a wider meaning, both
internationally and within Australia. What GAAP now stands for is the entire financial reporting framework
specific to a particular country including, in the case of Australia, relevant Acts of Parliament, accounting
standards and pronouncements, securities exchange listing rules, internal rules of the accounting professional
bodies (for instance, CPA Australia, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia, and the Institute of
Public Accountants), statements and guidance releases issued by regulators, and various concepts statements
and interpretations issued by those bodies that set accounting standards, such as the Australian Accounting
Standards Board. Some of the components of Australian GAAP, also commonly abbreviated as A-GAAP, are
considered overleaf.

3
 Accounting Basic Reports

Corporations legislation
Generally, in Australia the Corporations Act 2001 is at the top of the financial reporting hierarchy for com-
panies and other specific entities required to comply with the reporting provisions of the Act (such as listed
trusts). Therefore, when determining what the financial reporting requirements are for an individual busi-
ness entity, the first step is usually to identify the structure and/or legal form of the entity itself. If, for
instance, the entity is a company, then the Corporations Act will apply, since the legislation is intended to
regulate the affairs of all companies and provide detailed rules and regulations ranging from basic registra-
tion procedures and day-to-day management to complex periodic financial reporting requirements. The
Corporations Act is a Federal Act of Parliament that applies to companies and other entities required to
report under the Act; for example, all entities listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (whether they
are companies or not). Entities that are not companies typically include listed trusts and other investment
schemes that raise funds from the general public by issuing a prospectus. Companies often also issue a
prospectus (an offer document) to raise funds from public investors. In simple terms, a prospectus is a
legal document inviting the public to invest in shares, units or interests in profit-making schemes.
The financial reporting requirements for companies (other than small private companies that are specifi-
cally defined in the Corporations Act 2001) are extensive and will usually require the application of all of the
GAAP rules, including compliance with the full reporting provisions of the Corporations Act. For this rea-
son, the comprehensive financial statements of large companies are often referred to as statutory accounts
(that is, the external financial statements that are required by the law). In contrast, detailed financial state-
ments required for internal and specific purposes are often referred to as management accounts. These inter-
nal financial statements are rarely (if ever) made available to the general public. Companies and other
entities required to prepare financial reports must also have their financial statements audited. Stated
simply, an audit is an examination of the financial affairs of the entity by an independent auditor who will
provide an opinion on whether the financial statements are presented fairly (that is, whether they present a
true and fair view of the financial affairs of the entity).
It is noted that, while the financial reporting requirements of companies and other similar entities are impor-
tant for an understanding of GAAP, the focus of this text is on the preparation of financial reports for sole
traders. The general financial reporting requirements for sole traders are explained at the end of this chapter.

Accounting standards,
pronouncements and concepts
The Corporations Act 2001 also requires companies and other entities that are required to prepare a financial
report to comply with relevant accounting standards and other pronouncements issued by the Australian
Accounting Standards Board (AASB). The AASB, which was first established by the Commonwealth govern-
ment in 1989, has the responsibility for developing accounting standards and making other important

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 Chapter 1 Introduction to accounting: Regulations, reports and systems

pronouncements relating to financial reporting for companies and other entities in the private sector.
Accounting standards can be described simply as authoritative rules of accounting, which can include spe-
cific methods of accounting practice such as the manner in which particular types of transactions and
other events should be reflected in the financial statements. For example, there are specific accounting stan-
dards that prescribe accounting methods and procedures for such items as inventory (stock), depreciation,
property, plant and equipment and the like, and some of these standards also require certain information
to be disclosed in the financial statements. In the case of property, plant and equipment for instance, the
method of valuation of such assets is required to be disclosed in the notes accompanying the financial
statements. Note that the application of AASB standards is a legal requirement for all companies and
other entities that are required by the Corporations Act to prepare financial reports. Non-compliance with
AASB standards in preparing and presenting financial statements may result in serious consequences for
the entities concerned.

The Conceptual Framework

The AASB is also responsible for developing the Conceptual Framework, which is simply a set of basic con-
cepts and principles that provide the foundations for financial reporting. These include concepts that:
• identify the types of business entities that need to prepare financial reports
• explain the objectives of financial reporting and identify relevant parties interested in financial reports
• outline the basic qualities of financial information
• define the fundamental elements of financial reporting (that is, assets, liabilities, equity, income and
expenses).
On a basic level, concepts can be regarded as the building blocks of financial reporting, which have been pro-
gressively developed over time into an overall framework for the preparation and presentation of financial
reports. The existing conceptual framework in Australia has taken more than 30 years to advance to its cur-
rent state and continues to evolve in line with ongoing changes to economic, commercial, technological and
legal environments both in Australia and abroad. Among these developments, standards and pronounce-
ments issued by international accounting standards setting bodies such as the International Accounting
Standards Board (IASB) have played a significant role in shaping the conceptual framework and accounting
standards in Australia.
One of the first concept statements in the Conceptual Framework is primarily concerned with identify-
ing reporting entities. These are business entities with particular characteristics, which are required to prepare
comprehensive financial reports: for example, large public companies listed on the Australian Securities
Exchange. Comprehensive financial reports, which are also (and more accurately) referred to as General
Purpose Financial Reports (GPFRs), are detailed financial reports that comply with all of the requirements of
GAAP. The reporting entity concept has been developed and issued in the form of a statement titled State-
ment of Accounting Concepts SAC 1 Definition of the Reporting Entity. Similarly SAC 2, (although now
repealed and thus withdrawn) dealt with the objectives of financial reporting, and was issued as an

5
 Accounting Basic Reports

authoritative statement; its full title was Statement of Accounting Concepts SAC 2 Objective of General
Purpose Financial Reporting.
It is worth noting the genesis of the Conceptual Framework in Australia. Prior to 1 January 2005, the
AASB’s Conceptual Framework consisted of four statements of accounting concepts: not only SAC 1 Definition
of the Reporting Entity and SAC 2 Objective of General Purpose Financial Reporting as mentioned above, but
also Statement of Accounting Concepts SAC 3 Characteristics of Financial Information and Statement of
Accounting Concepts SAC 4 Definition and Recognition of the Elements of Financial Statements. However, follow-
ing Australia’s decision to adopt the Australian equivalents of International Financial Reporting Standards
(AIFRS) from 1 January 2005, both SAC 3 and SAC 4 were withdrawn. The former SAC 3 identified the
‘qualitative characteristics’ of financial information that should be contained in GPFRs. Qualitative character-
istics are the ‘ideal’ qualities that a financial report should possess in order to be useful in making commercial
decisions, whereas the objectives of the former SAC 4 were ‘to establish definitions of the major elements of
financial statements and to specify criteria for their recognition’. It should be noted however that, while both
SAC 3 and SAC 4 have been withdrawn, the substance of the statements has been included in the AASB’s
current Framework for the Preparation and Presentation of Financial Statements (usually abbreviated simply as
‘the Framework’ or ‘the AASB Framework’). The Framework is an extensive individual document which (prior
to December 2013) was the third component of the Australian Conceptual Framework and was, and still is,
largely based on the International Accounting Standards Board’s (IASB’s) Conceptual Framework for the Prepa-
ration and Presentation of Financial Statements (the framework which Australia adopted when AIFRS first
became applicable from 1 January 2005). The major financial reporting elements addressed in the Framework
are assets, liabilities, equity, income and expenses, and these have been given brief coverage in the companion
text, Accounting: To Trial Balance. However, the detailed definitions and criteria for recognition of the various
elements in the Framework are lengthy and complex, and beyond the scope of this text.
In summary, the Conceptual Framework in the Australian financial reporting context prior to December
2013 consisted of three components:
1 Statement of Accounting Concepts SAC 1 Definition of the Reporting Entity
2 Statement of Accounting Concepts SAC 2 Objective of General Purpose Financial Reporting, and
3 AASB Framework for the Preparation and Presentation of Financial Statements.
Furthermore, the status of the Conceptual Framework within the GAAP hierarchy is that concepts statements
in their own right do not have mandatory status. This means that there are generally no legal or other
requirements that compel preparers of financial statements to comply with any of the concepts statements.
Despite this, SACs have developed as an important source of guidance for practitioners; for example, SAC 1
is currently used to help identify reporting entities. Also, SACs do have some status indirectly because defini-
tions and other aspects of concepts statements are now very much a part of GAAP and, as discussed above,
many of the components of GAAP are compulsory for many types of business entities. For instance, most of
the definitions relating to financial reporting in concepts statements (assets, liabilities, equity and so forth)
are now included in accounting standards that are mandatory for companies and other entities required to
prepare financial reports under the Corporations Act 2001.
Given the discussion above, it is important for students of accounting to be aware of the various con-
cepts statements and perhaps, for more advanced students, to have a detailed knowledge of the various

6
 Chapter 1 Introduction to accounting: Regulations, reports and systems

sections within the specific concepts statements. For the purposes of this text, a brief description of both
SAC 1 and SAC 2 and the AASB Framework is provided below, although it should be noted that SAC 2
has recently been absorbed into the AASB Framework for the Preparation and Presentation of Financial
Statements following an amendment issued by the AASB in December 2013 (see further details below).

Statement of Accounting Concepts SAC 1

SAC 1 defines reporting entities as those entities in which it is reasonable to expect that there will be users
who depend on GPFRs for information that will aid them in making and evaluating commercial decisions.
What this means is that a reporting entity exists where there are users dependent on financial information;
that is, they are only able to obtain information for their specific needs through comprehensive financial
reports prepared by the business entity. Entities that fall into this category are usually large companies
and listed trusts in which the general public has considerable exposure. General GPFRs are further
explained below, but as a general rule, it can be assumed that most entities are reporting entities except
the following types:
• sole traders
• partnerships
• family trusts
• small proprietary companies.

Statement of Accounting Concepts SAC 2

(withdrawn December 2013)
When operative, SAC 2 defined a General Purpose Financial Report as ‘a financial report intended to meet
the information needs common to users who are unable to command the preparation of reports tailored so
as to satisfy, specifically, all of their information needs’.
Put simply, this means that a GPFR is essentially a comprehensive set of financial statements prepared
in accordance with GAAP; that is, all the legislative requirements and all accounting standards and pro-
nouncements issued by the regulators and by the AASB. It should further be noted that financial reports
other than GPFRs are referred to as Special Purpose Financial Reports (SPFRs) and may take many shapes or
forms depending on the needs of the users who are able to command specific information. For instance, an
SPFR may simply consist of a cash budget requested by a lending institution, or a set of basic financial
statements prepared on a cash basis. Management or internal reports would also be included within the
definition of SPFRs.
SAC 1 requires all reporting entities to prepare GPFRs. Non-reporting entities, however, are not required
to prepared GPFRs and accordingly would normally prepare SPFRs. Thus the financial reports for sole
traders, partnerships, family trusts and small proprietary companies are most likely to be SPFRs.

7
 Accounting Basic Reports

As a result of the AASB issuing AASB CF 2013–1 Amendments to the Australian Conceptual Framework in
December 2013, SAC 2 was withdrawn and no longer applies in Australia. The consequential effects of
these amendments, however, have been to include updated contents of the former SAC 2 into the AASB
Framework for the Preparation and Presentation of Financial Statements.
When the amendments were issued, they had the effect of bringing the Australian Framework in line
with the IASB amendments to the international framework issued in September 2010. (This has now been
renamed the IASB Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting.) It should be noted that the AASB has not
accepted the IASB’s new title for their amended framework, and thus continues to use the IASB’s former
title Framework for the Preparation and Presentation of Financial Statements. Moreover, the AASB did not
accept the contents of the amended IASB The Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting issued in 2010,
but rather opted to effect the changes progressively by issuing separate amendment documents, the first
of which is AASB CF 2013–1 Amendments to the Australian Conceptual Framework issued in December 2013.
Thus, as from December 2013, Australia’s conceptual framework consists of the following documents:
• Statement of Accounting Concepts SAC 1 Definition of the Reporting Entity (discussed above)
• the AASB’s existing Framework for the Preparation and Presentation of Financial Statements (i.e. not includ-
ing the IASB’s 2010 amendments), and
• AASB CF 2013–1 Amendments to the Australian Conceptual Framework, which is to be read in conjunction
with the existing conceptual framework document above.

The Framework for the Preparation and

Presentation of Financial Statements
As explained in the introduction to the AASB Framework, the purpose of the Framework is to set out the
concepts that underlie the preparation and presentation of financial reports for external users. The Frame-
work must always be read in consultation with any amendments issues by the AASB, including amendment
‘AASB CF 2013-1 Amendments to the Australian Conceptual Framework’ issued in December 2013. In this
regard, the Framework is primarily concerned with the following:
• objectives of financial statements
• assumptions underlying the preparation of financial statements and reports
• qualitative characteristics of financial reports
• elements of financial reports
• recognition criteria for the elements of financial statements.
While an in-depth discussion of the Framework is not covered in this chapter, brief comments in the fol-
lowing paragraphs should help to provide a basic understanding of the major features of the Framework.

Status of the Framework

Consistent with the non-mandatory application of concepts discussed above, the Framework states that
concepts are not set out as requirements for the preparation of GPFRs and also that the Framework is not

8
 Chapter 1 Introduction to accounting: Regulations, reports and systems

an accounting standard. Rather, the intent of the Framework is to provide guidance and assistance to a
range of parties, including preparers of financial reports, auditors and users of financial reports.

Objectives of financial reports

Objective 1
The objective of general purpose financial reporting forms the foundation of the
Framework. Other aspects of the Framework – a reporting entity concept, the
qualitative characteristics of, and the constraint on, useful financial information,
elements of financial statements, recognition, measurement, presentation and
disclosure – flow logically from the objective.
AASB Framework p. 11

Interestingly, the Framework is specifically concerned with general purpose financial reporting, although it
also states that the Framework may be applied in the preparation of SPFRs where requirements permit.

Objective 2
The objective of general purpose financial reporting is to provide financial infor-
mation about the reporting entity that is useful to existing and potential inves-
tors, lenders and other creditors in making decisions about providing resources
to the entity. Those decisions involve buying, selling or holding equity and debt
instruments, and providing or settling loans and other forms of credit.
AASB Framework p. 11

Assumptions underlying the preparation of reports

Two important bases for the preparation of financial reports are identified by the Framework:
1 the going concern basis, which assumes that the entity is a going concern (i.e. not ceasing to operate)
and will continue operations into the foreseeable future
2 the accrual basis, which requires the effects of transactions to be recognised when they occur (that is,
not necessarily when cash is received or disbursed) and recorded in the periods to which they relate.
Note that the 2013 amendments remove the accrual accounting concepts as a basis for the preparation of
financial statements, but include the following commentary.
Accrual accounting depicts the effects of transactions and other events and circum-
stances on a reporting entity’s economic resources and claims in the periods in which
those effects occur, even if the resulting cash receipts and payments occur in a differ-
ent period. This is important because information about a reporting entity’s economic
resources and claims and changes in its economic resources and claims during a
period provides a better basis for assessing the entity’s past and future performance
than information solely about cash receipts and payments during that period.
AASB Framework p. 15

9
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
must smile; she must be one woman to all men. She must receive the blows
with laughter, the ribaldry, the insults and the curses as wit. She must pass
from this to that—and she must not care.

And yet Mary, who was Violet now, could do nothing but take as final
the conclusion that Rose had drawn for her. To return home, even if she had
the money, would be impossible, because to do so would be to court her
father's anger and her mother's shame, with no hope of either pardon or
justification. To go out into the cheerless street that sent its growling echoes
up to her curtained window would be, she was assured, to deliver herself to
arrest or starvation. She was ignorant and young. With no knowledge of the
laws and the charities of the monster town, she saw only that the former, in
uniform, was a back-door friend of her keepers, and she was told that the
latter never helped before they first publicly burned upon their victims'
brows the thenceforth ineradicable brand of infamy. Without there was, at
the least, hunger, drudgery and disgrace; at the most, starvation, jail, death.
Within, where fresh wounds meant but little, there obtained, under only a
velvet-pawed tyranny, a tolerable democracy of disrepute, an equality of
degradation, where food, at any rate, and shelter and raiment were certain,
and where old scars and fresh bruises were hidden from the world: the price
was no more than supine acquiescence.

Anything like financial independence was, of course, impossible: the

slaves of Rose Légère were as much slaves as any mutilated black man of
the Congo, or any toil-cramped white man in a factory. Their wages were
paid to the supervisor, their few belongings secretly searched for gratuities,
and though one-half of each payment was, theoretically, the portion of the
employé, rent and board and lingerie demanded, and must needs secure,
prices that left each woman hopelessly in debt to the mistress of the house.

With her senses in revolt, the mind and body of the newly-christened
Violet came, by insidious degrees, nevertheless to approach some likeness
to adaptability. Her material wants never went unsupplied, and such
intelligence as she possessed began to swing toward that point of view to
differ from which could bring nothing save serious discomfort. To the hope
of Max's return she still, in her own heart, clung with that tenacity which
only a woman can exert upon an acknowledged impossibility, but she felt
even this hope shrink between her clutching fingers, and, doing her best to
reason, she knew that, even should the miracle happen, Max had brought
her and left her here with the intent that she should fulfill her economic
destiny.

Too dull to see deeply into causes, she could only accept the slowly
numbing hail of effects. Until a few days since, she had been a child, and,
like most children, the individual at fault in every personal catastrophe. It
was thus that she began by blaming herself for all that had now befallen
her; it was only at moments of growth that she turned her anger first against
her own parents, then against the active agent and finally against his
principal, and it would be but after deeper vision and harder usage that she
could see both herself and them, and the whole company that made them
possible, as mere grist in the mill of a merciless machine.

And yet for a long time her one passion was the passion of release.
Without clothes and money and protection she could understand no escape;
but for these means she at last found courage to appeal to the one source
from which she could conceive of their coming.

VI

AN ANGEL UNAWARES

The man to whom she first spoke, in a stolen instant, descending the
darkened stair, was a small shopkeeper, fat and pliable, beyond the age of
violence, and, as he had just told her, a husband and the father of a girl of
her own age.

"Listen," she said, with one trembling hand upon his shoulder, "I want
you to do me a favor."
 "Anything you say, Violet," he chuckled.

"Don't talk so loud, then. I—I want you to take me out of here."

The man looked at her, through the rosy twilight, in a flattered

bewilderment.

"Like me as much as that, do you?" he sparred.

"You don't understand. Of course, I like you; but what I meant was
——"

He interrupted her, his fat fingers complacently patting her cheek.

"It's not me that don't tumble to the facts," he said; "it's you. I told you I
was a family man. I couldn't put you anywhere."

"I don't mean that. I mean——"

But again he cut in upon her labored explanation, his commercial mind
traveling along lines in which it had been forced all his life to travel, and his
pride entrenching itself behind the trivial rampart of his income.

"You girls!" he laughed, in palpable deception. "You all think I've got a
lot of money. Why, there ain't no use thinkin' you can bleed me. I'm a
business man, an' I do everything on a straight business basis, but I wouldn't
rent a flat for the finest of you that ever walked Fourteenth Street."

Violet's answer was brief. That she should have given her confidence to
such a beast, that such a beast should continue to thrive in the world that
was closed to her, and that, her pitiable confidence once given, she should
be so grossly misinterpreted—these things sent a red rage rushing to her
now always incarnadined cheeks. She gave the shopkeeper a push that
nearly sent him rolling to the foot of the stairs.

"Get away from me!" she whispered hoarsely. "Get away! I wouldn't
have you for a gift!"
 The man stumbled and gripped the rose-colored lamp upon the newel-
post, which swayed, under his rocking weight, like a palm-tree in a storm.
He gasped for breath, got it, and, shaking his fist upward through the
shadows, began to bellow forth a storm of oaths that, for foulness, utterly
outdid the ejaculations to which, from both sexes, Violet was already
becoming accustomed.

"You come down here," he courageously shouted, "and I'll give you the
worst beating you ever had in your life! Nice place, this is! I'll have it
pinched—you see if I don't! You can't make an easy thing out o' me! You've
robbed me, anyhow. You'll get what's comin' to you!"—And he ended with
the single epithet to which those four walls were unaccustomed.

Rose ran out from the parlor.

"Shut up, you!" she commanded of the disturber, in a low tone that
nevertheless compelled obedience. "What's the trouble, Violet?"

Violet leaned against the stair-wall, half-way up, her burning hands
pressed to her burning face. She was mad with anger and shame, but she
was also afraid.

"You heard him," she gasped.

"Yes," snapped the visitor, his voice uncontrollably resuming its former
timbre, "and you heard me, too!"

The mistress is, of necessity, always, in a crisis, against the slave.

"Well," said Rose, "tell me what she done."

Violet, however, saw at once the necessity of changing the issue.

"He says he's been robbed!" she called down the stairs. And then she
ran after her words, and stood under the lamp, facing them both, her arms
extended, the flowing sleeves trembling with the emotion that they covered
but could not conceal. "Search me!" she commanded. "If you think I took a
cent of yours, search me!"
 She was a vision that brought conviction with it.

Before the sputtering visitor could correct the situation, Rose had,
perhaps against her will, been converted. She took the man's hat from the
hall-rack at her side, put it on his head, opened the street-door, and gently
propelled him through it.

"You're drunk," she said, "an' you'd better get out before I call the cop.
There ain't no badger business in this house, an' don't you forget it!"

She shut the door, and turned calmly to Violet.

"How much did you get?" she asked.

"Why, Miss Rose, you know——"

"I mean what did you touch him for? You mustn't play that sort of game
here: it gives the house a bad name. But just this once we'll divide up an'
not say anything more about it."

Violet's eyes opened wide.

"I didn't steal a penny," she declared.

Rose regarded her with a softening countenance.

"Word of honor?" she asked.

"Word of honor," vowed Violet.

"All right, but even if you do touch them, you mustn't ever let them
think you do. A man'll forgive you for hurtin' him anywhere but in his
pocket-book.—You're all worked up, dearie. Come on out to the kitchen an'
have a bottle of beer."

As they were pouring the drinks, a heavy foot sounded in the outside
passageway and a careful four knocks followed upon the rear door.

"That's Larry," said Rose, and drew the bolt.

 A policeman's hat was poked through the doorway, followed by a
flushed, genial Irish face, and a tall, hulking body in regulation uniform.

"I'm terrible dry," grinned Larry.

"Then you've come to the right shop," was Rose's greeting. "We're just
havin' a little drop ourselves. Larry, this is my new friend, Violet."

The policeman grinned again, and sat carefully upon the edge of a
kitchen-chair, in evident fear that his bulk might prove too great for it.

"Glad to know you," he said.

"Larry's on this beat nights," Rose explained to Violet, "an' him an' the
lieutenant look after us—don't you, Riley?"

"Well, what use is a frind if he don't take care of yez, Miss Rose? We do
the bist we can."

"I know that.—What'll it be, Larry? We're takin' beer, but there's wine
on the ice if you want it."

"I'll just have a small drap of liquor, ma'am, please," said Riley.

Rose poured and handed to him a glass of whiskey.

"When you came by," she inquired, "did you see a fat man throwin' fits
in our gutter?"

"Why, I did not. Have ye been afther havin' a rumpus the night?"

"Oh, no—only that fat little fellow that keeps the jewelry-store around
the corner. He was drunk, an' I threw him out. If he tries to get gay, let me
know, will you?"

"Of course I'll let ye know—an' here's to your very good health, ma'am
an' miss.—But you may rist aisy; that there won't be no throuble."

"I know that: he's too scared of his wife.—Have another, won't you?"
 The officer rose.

"No, thank ye kindly," he said. "I wanted but the drap, ma'am."

"And how are Mrs. Riley and the children?"

Larry's face became a web of smiling wrinkles.

"Grand," he said; "the auld woman's grand—you ought to see her in the
new silk dress I bought 'er the day—all grane wid fancy trimmin's from Six'
Avenoo. An' the kiddies is thrivin'. Cecilia'll soon be havin' to go to work
an' help the family funds, she's that sthrong and hearty, an' young Van Wyck
is such a divil that the teacher throwed him out of school. He's licked all the
b'ys in his class, an' I think he'll end as a champeen pug."

He went out, still smiling, and, as he did so, Violet saw Rose, after
stooping hurriedly, place in his hands a yellow bill. As the door closed,
there came into the younger woman's eyes the question that she would not
have dared to ask.

"Yep," nodded Rose, "that's my week's pay for what they call
protection."

"Isn't he afraid to take it?" Violet, thus encouraged, inquired.

"The man above him isn't afraid to take two-thirds of it," said Rose, "an'
the best of it goes past him to the district boss—it's the regular system with
the regular prices. Oh, no, he ain't afraid; an' if you ever tried to live on a
copper's pay, you'd soon be afraid not to take it."

Violet, returning to the parlor, bit her lip: there was indeed small help to
be had from the law.

Small help, either there or elsewhere. She turned, naturally, only to the
seemingly more prosperous customers, but, even by them, she was met with
smiling incredulity: her story was so hackneyed that it could not be true.

"It's all right enough to want to get out of here," said her sagest adviser,
who at least paid her the rare compliment of credence; "but how are you
going to live after you get out? You can't go home; you haven't got any
trade; you can't cook; without a recommendation you can't get even a job at
general housework or in a factory."

He was a quiet, middle-aged widower that said this, an infrequent

visitor, a chief clerk in one of the departments of a large insurance
company, with a reputation for liberal kindliness at Rose's and, in his own
little world, a position of some influence.

"You get me out," said Violet, "an' I'll do the rest."

But here again the gate was barred against her. The clerk was burdened
with a good name and a place of trust. He could risk neither the one nor the
other. He was sorry, genuinely sorry—she saw that; but what could he do?

It was an evening or two later that she found her first pale ray of
encouragement, and she found it in the person of Philip Beekman, that same
young Beekman to whom Fritzie had casually referred.

Beekman described himself, with some accuracy, as a person of good

family and bad morals. "We are getting so confounded poor," he used to
say, "that I sometimes doubt the former; but I have constant visible
evidence of the latter, and so I cling to that as the one sure thing in this
uncertain life." Had he but seen the facts, he might well have considered his
derelictions as the result of his parentage. At her divorce, his mother had
been awarded the custody of her only child, and, now that she had
remarried, Philip was forced to play that neither uncommon nor congenial
rôle—the part of the young man with too little training to earn a living and
too much ancestry to marry one.

"After all," he said, as he sat with Violet in the many-colored back

parlor, a half-empty bottle between them, his usually pale face aglow, his
gray eyes filmy, and his black hair tumbled by the constant passage through
it of his long, nervous fingers—"after all, you see, you and I are in the same
boat. You can't get out because, if you do, the sharks will eat you, and I
daren't get out because I can't swim."
 Always haunted by the fear that, in some manner, her true story might
reach her own town and her own people, Violet had told him only as much
as she dared, and what she had said had moved his impulsive generosity.

"But anyway," he insisted, "you can do one thing that I can't."

She clutched at the straw.

"What's that?" she asked.

"You can get help from shore."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean that if you'll write a letter home, I'll mail it."

She shook her head: the straw crumpled in her fingers.

"There's no use of that," she said.

"Of course there is. After all, your father's your father, you see, and I
don't know a father that wouldn't help his daughter out of the sort of mess
you've got into."

"I know one," said Violet, grimly.

"Not till you try him, you don't."

"Yes, I do. If you was in my place would your father——"

"Which father?" laughed Beekman. "My one won't have anything to do

with me because I live with the other, and the other won't have anything to
do with me because I'm the son of his predecessor.—You take my advice
and write home."

"I'd never get an answer."

She spoke in an even tone, but there was no mistaking the tragedy that
underlay it.
 Beekman looked at her and blinked queerly. He brought his fist down
smartly among the jangling glasses.

"It's a rotten shame!" he said. "A dirty, rotten shame! Why, don't you
know that that yid who got you into this makes a business of such things?
Don't you know there's a whole army of them that do? I wish to the Lord I
could do something, but there isn't a policeman or a magistrate in the city
who'd listen to me—they know too well where they get the jam for their
bread and butter—and I can't get a job for even myself, let alone you!"

She had not, however, heard his last sentence. Her blue eyes wide, she
was hanging on his reference to Max.

"A business?" she repeated. "Do you mean that men make money—that
way?"

"Of course I do." The film passed suddenly from Beekman's eyes,
leaving them alert with purpose. "Look here," he said, "there is one thing I
can do, and I don't know anything that I'd enjoy more: you give me that
little kyke's name, and I'll push his face out of the back of his head!"

Then there happened a strange thing. She had long guessed and now she
knew, but guessing or knowing, she would not believe. As much for her
own sanity as for Max's safety, she lied.

"The name he gave me," she said, "wasn't his right one. It wasn't even
one he mostly used. And I never knew no other."

Beekman raised his hands in more than mock despair, and got up to go.

"Well," he declared, "I don't know what I can do for you. If I got into
any scandal, it would punch the last hole in my meal-ticket."

Violet, who was becoming accustomed to such replies, smiled kindly.

"I don't want you to get into no trouble for me," she said.

"I know you don't, and I couldn't be any use if I did. But I'll promise
you this: I'll keep my eyes open, and if anything does turn up, I'll be
Johnny-on-the-spot, all right."

"Thank you," said Violet.

"And look here," pursued Beekman, "I know that it's all rot to expect
you to walk out of here without friends or a job; I know that, unless you've
got one or the other, you're just simply in jail here; but if I can't get you
anything, there must be those who can. Why don't you talk to the coal-men,
or the gas-inspectors, or—I tell you, I've seen that tow-headed Dutchman
who leaves the beer here. He looks straight, and he stops at the door. Why
don't you talk to him? He's the sort that would know of a job for—for——"

Beekman hesitated, blushing like a schoolboy.

"For my sort?" asked Violet. "Maybe he is. Thank you. Anyhow I'll
see."

And she did see. When Beekman left her, pressing into her hand the last
piece of money that he would have for a week, he gave her at the same time
so much of hope. Those who seemed rich could not help her; she would
appeal to those who were poor.

She was up early and in the kitchen the next morning at the hour when
she knew the brewery-wagon would stop outside, and she sent the ebon
Cassie on an errand to the corner pharmacy. The maid had scarcely closed
the door before Violet was summoned to open it to the German of whom
Beekman had spoken.

Philip had observed well. The brewery's driver, who stood whistling in
the areaway, was a short, stocky man with the neck and arms of a gladiator
and the round, smiling face of a child. His blue overalls and dark cloth cap
accentuated the fairness of his hair, and his round inquiring eyes were alive
with continual good-humor. He had just piled a half-dozen cases of beer
beside the doorway.

Violet, in her crimson kimona, took from the table the money that had
been left for him.
 "Good-morning," she said as she handed him the bills.

He accepted the money with his left hand and, with his right, raised his
cap from his clustering curls. His lips ceased whistling, half regretfully.

"Goot-mornin'," he replied, smiling.

"Won't you come in and have a drink?" asked Violet, adopting Rose's
form of salutation.

"No, t'ank you," the German shook his head. "I neffer trinks nussing bud
beer."

"Well," said Violet, "we have lots of that now."

"Und I neffer trink dot till tinner."

There was an awkward pause. The German, not knowing how to leave
without seeming rudeness, was shifting his weight from one heavily shod
foot to the other. The woman, uncertain how to say the words she wanted to
say, remained with her hand upon the knob.

"You don't?" she awkwardly repeated.

"No, und so I t'ink—I t'ink I besser be goin'," he hurriedly concluded,

and began to turn on his heel.

The necessity for quick action roused her.

"Wait," she said. And then, as he faced her again in mute wonder, she
pressed another bill into his hand. "I want you to help me," she continued.
"I want to get a job somewhere, and I don't want Miss Rose to know
nothing about it."

He looked from the bill to her, still wondering.

"So-o?" he responded.
 "Yes, I want work—some other kind of work—and I thought perhaps
you might"—her voice faltered—"might know of some kind."

The German's mobile face underwent a quick change. First

astonishment and then something not far removed from tears came into his
childlike eyes. He crushed the bill in his big red fist.

"So-o?" he repeated.

"Yes, I—you understand that I must have friends or a job if I am to get

away from here, and I thought you might know of something."

The German bobbed his curls.

"I know dot right vell," he said; "bud I don' know no tshob chust now."

Violet's face darkened.

"All right," she answered, "I only hoped maybe——"

"Look here, miss," the driver cut in with a note of ready feeling in his
voice. "You mean all dot?"

"All what?"

"About geddin' ozzer—aboud a real tshob."

"If I had the clothes and a place I'd go this minute."

"Vell, den, listen. I've chust god a new blace; I'm goin' to be bar-tender
ofer on Segond Avenue, bud I gan send back here if I hear anysing.—Your
name?"

"Violet—just Miss Violet."

"All righd, Miss Violet, I know some more aboud dese blaces like dis
dan you maybe t'ink, und I guess maybe I gan do somesing. Nex' Sunday I
dake my girl to Coney, und den ve'll dalk sings ofer und ve'll see vhat Katie
says."
 In spite of the promised delay and the growing habit of doubt, Violet's
face kindled.

"You're good," she said simply, "and I'll trust you."

"Oh, I make nussing," replied the German, smiling once more, "bud
chust you vait: Katie gan fix it; she gan fix anysing."

Before Violet could reply, he had resumed his whistling and run down
the alleyway; and she saw that he had tossed back her money on the
topmost beercase.

VII

HOLIDAY

That Sunday morning in his single, dark, narrow room, Hermann

Hoffmann, the erstwhile driver of a brewery-wagon and the coming Second
Avenue barkeeper, arose with the dawn, just as if it had been a workday
morning, and set about his elaborate toilet, whistling.

To the casual eye there would have seemed little in his surroundings to
inspire any lyric joy. The cell-like apartment, which was the only spot on
earth that Hermann might call his home, was a back room on the top floor
of a damp and gloomy tenement in a filthy court running off Houston Street
near Avenue A. Only at noon did the pale sunlight strain into that court,
crowded all morning with malarious dogs and dirty, toddling babies
solemnly, but vainly, trying to learn how to play, and echoing all through
the black night now to the curses of scarred, slinking tiger-cats, now to the
staggering footsteps or the brawling oaths of drunkards reeling homeward
through the evil-smelling darkness, and again to the piercing cry of a
woman in mortal agony or mortal fear.
 Robbins's Row was no place for a policeman after nightfall, and
scarcely a safer place for a stranger by day. From its sagging file of dirty,
paper-patched windows, more or less feminine shapes leaned out, calling
gossip to their neighbors, and hauling at the pullied ropes that, crossing the
street, spread above the pedestrians a tossing, parti-colored canopy of
"wash." You entered it by climbing three rotting wooden steps, by
stumbling through a wet hall, where a blue-burning gas-jet accentuated the
sense of perpetual midnight, and you could reach the room of Hermann
Hoffmann only by a perilous climb of six flights of stairs.

That room was as bare as any in the building. It looked out, by a single
slit in the wall, upon a light-shaft, strangely misnamed. Its only furniture
was a cot, a wooden-seated chair, a washstand, and, bearing comb and
brushes and shaving-utensils, one of those pine bureaus the drawers of
which may be opened in ten minutes, and closed, if you are lucky, in
fifteen. Yet the note of the place was the note of order and of neatness; the
bare floor was clean, and, against the fresh and brightly papered wall, there
hung here a calico curtain that hid the tenant's wardrobe and there a single
shelf bearing only, as if it were an altar consecrated to one holy object, a
thumbed and dog's-eared copy of "Das Kapital."

Hermann plunged his ruddy face, whistling, into a bowl of water and
drew it out, more ruddy and whistling still. Even the author of that
portentous volume on the book-shelf used to sing "Strausbourg," and
Hermann's single anthem was "Die Wacht Am Rhein."

Still pursuing that inspiring music, he turned to the bureau and began to
shave the yellow down from his cheeks and chin. Thrust between the
exaggerating mirror and its frame were two photographs—the one, a trifle
faded, of a matronly, kindly woman of his own race, perhaps fifty years old,
stiffly arrayed in a silk dress rigorously American, and the other, a new one,
that of a young girl in a great hat and unmistakably Manhattan dress, a
young girl with a pretty, piquant face of that distinctively American type—
the Irish. Perhaps these photographs distracted the German's attention;
perhaps it was only that no man living can successfully whistle and shave at
one and the same time. At any rate, his hand shook, and the razor cut a light
gash in his upper lip.
 He flung the offending blade from him, and it struck the mirror,
cracking the glass across one corner.

"Ach, Gott," he smiled, as he staunched the blood with a heavy pressure

through a rough towel; and then, in the English that he used even in his
soliloquies: "Dey say now dot means bad luck fer seven year. Lucky is't dot
I am not suberstitious!"

And then, undisturbed, he quietly resumed his whistling, finished

shaving, sleeked down his rebellious tow-colored curls, got into a newly
pressed brown suit and yellow shirt, donned a high collar and salmon tie,
and, setting a carefully brushed derby upon his head, descended to the
narrow street, the strains of "Die Wacht Am Rhein" lingering behind him
through the darkened hallway.

To accomplish the purpose of his early rising, he took the Third Avenue
elevated to the Forty-second Street station. There he bought two bouquets
of carnations—one pink and the other white—and boarded a suburban train,
which bore him, at last, to one of those little stations that New York, which
has so small time for remembrance, has selected for the hiding of its dead.

In the warm sunlight of the spring morning, Hermann picked his certain
way among the green grass and the white-roofed habitations of the sleepers,
until he came upon a little plot, by no means the cheapest or more obscure
in the burying-ground, and there, his lips still pursed, but silent now, took
off his shining derby and paused before the solitary white stone. With much
that was unaffectedly reverent, he knelt, according to his weekly custom,
and placed the white carnations on the grave, and with a great deal that was
just as unaffectedly proud, he read, also according to that custom, the
inscription cut upon the white stone that he had purchased with what, when
he paid the bill, happened to be his last dollar:

Here In Peace
Lies The Body Of
WlLHELMINA HOFFMANN,
Widow Of Ludwig Hoffmann,
Of Andernach, Rhenish Prussia,
Who Dep't'd This Life, Jan. 10, 1907.
 ———
"Wait thou, wait thou; soon thou shall rest also."

The inscription was in English, but when he had finished reading it, the
dead woman's son said, under his breath, the Lord's Prayer in the language
of Luther, as she had taught it him.

"She liked me to pray," he shamefacedly explained to the

circumambient atmosphere, as if prayer in any tongue were a compromise
with his principles. "Und vhile I'm aboud it, I mighd as vell use de old
langwage. If the Herr Gott listens at all, He'd hear it some besser in de vay
She said it."

And then he resumed his hat and his anthem, and returned to town.

Katie Flanagan was waiting for him as he came hurrying up the steps
from the subway at Park Place—the piquant, pretty girl of the photograph,
in black, because her parents had died not long since, but in black just as
elaborate as her slender purse would permit, because she knew the full
value of her raven hair and blossoming cheeks and tender eyes of Irish blue.

"Ach," gasped Hermann, "hof I kep' you a long time vaitin'?"

"Only about as long as you mostly do," she answered. Her voice was
like her eyes, and she spoke with but the charming hint of a Galway brogue.

The German's cheeks burned with humiliation.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I god up early to be on dime, bud de train

vas lade from the cem't'ry in."

She understood and smiled.

"It's only five minutes I've been here," she confessed.

"Und I brought you a few bosies, Katie. I d'ought maybe——"

 "Oh!" she seized the carnations with a laugh of delight, and buried her
nose in them. "It's good y'are to think of such things, Hermann—and a bad
lad that y'are to spend the money so!"

They were making their way toward the Bridge, the sturdy Hoffmann
shouldering a passage through the momentarily swelling Sunday morning
crowd.

"Dot liddle makes nussing," he proudly protested. "To-morrow I begin

ad my new tshob."

"But that," said Katie, "won't pay you hardly wan dollar a week more'n
the brewery did. I dunno, but I think——"

There, however, her protest, for the moment, ended. They were caught,
clinging together, in the whirlpool of the entrance; carried nearly off their
feet, rushed by the ticket-window with a quick exchange of small coin, and,
a few minutes later, were battling their way among the press into a waiting
Coney Island train.

In the last charge, Hermann, his lips puckered in the battle-hymn, did
heroic service. While Katie hung tightly to one arm, he used manfully the
elbow of the other; pushed a guard to the right; shoved two cigarette-
smoking youths to the left; wriggled through the already crowded platform
and shot into one of the coveted "cross-seats." Much of the park would not
be open for a month or more to come, but New York was already clamoring
for its playground.

Katie, flushed and triumphant, sank beside him, and busied herself with
the task of straightening her big black hat. Hermann watched her in frank
admiration as she sat there, her arms raised to her head, in that pose which,
of all others, is the most becoming to her sex.

"What are you lookin' at?" she archly wondered, casting a smiling,
sidelong, blue glance at him.

But before her the strong man was a timid child.

 "Ad de brettiest bicture in a whole vorld," he stammered.

Katie laughed again.

"Och," she said in gratified disapproval, "there sure must be a Castle

Blarney somewhere on the Rhine. What favor are you wantin' to ask me
now, I wonder."

Once he had started, Hermann was too dogged thus to be retarded.

"It's chust de same old fafor," he pleaded, as, with a great creaking of
brakes, the train began to swing upon the Bridge. "Now I god my new
tshob, Katie, there gan't for nod hafin' our veddin' be no good reason, gan
dere?"

"There's one," she said, still delighting in her coquetry; "there's one
reason."

"Vat is 't?"

"Its name is Father Kelly."

"Katie, you von't led dot gount!"

"I will so."

"Und I haf to gome into your church, und—und all dem d'ings?"

"You do that."

Hermann squirmed; but he knew of old that from this point she was
neither to be persuaded nor driven. It was a discussion that they had held
many a time before, and every time she would give him no answer to his
suit until he should surrender in this particular. Now, however, he
considered himself about to set foot upon the highroad to prosperity, and the
prosperous can ill afford to skimp magnanimity.

"All righd," he at last somewhat ruefully conceded, though with certain

mental reservations into which it seemed then unnecessary to enter: "I'm a
strong von, und hof stood a lot a'ready, so I t'ink I gan stand dot too. I'll do
it."

He took her by surprise.

"Promise?" she asked.

"Sure I bromise."

"No backin' out whatever happens?"

"No packin' oud."

"Well, God bless you then."

There was a catch in her voice as she said it. Into her lonely,
hardworking life, this strong, soft-hearted, poor and cheerful German had
brought about all the sunshine that she had latterly known, and she could
think of nothing better than to give him the answer that he was so honestly
anxious to hear. But, though he had become more and more to her from the
first evening when he had seized her as she was falling from the platform of
a surface-car that had started too quickly on its way, she had seen enough of
the warfare with poverty in her own family to resolve that she would not
marry until she could contribute her share to the wages of the resulting
household, and now she had neither a position nor the immediate likelihood
of obtaining one. It was hard, but she was used to hardship, and so, because
she must not cry, she smiled.

Hermann tried to grasp her hand, but she easily eluded him.

"Den, vhen do ve say?" he eagerly demanded.

Much as it hurt her to hurt him, she laughed her answer:

"As soon as I get me fingers on a job that'll pay me six dollars a week,
we'll have Father Kelly say the words for us."

"But Katie"—he used to say "Gatie" until she had teased him out of it
—"you don' mean dot! You said—you dold me—you bromise——"