BOBBIT’S HOTEL. AT

side, all about, and the wind still the wrong way. If the
front door should go down, the jacket would not be any too
much for his little lodgers.

“J won’t ask fur ’t,”’ said Bobbit, with a little grim smile.
“ T brung ’em in here. I won’t ax fur the jacket.”

So he did not ask for the jacket, and by and by the door
went down.

“ Seems to me I never knew such a night; not so much
like notched knives,” said poor Bobbit; for the boiler gaped
cruelly and drew in long breaths of the storm upon him.
The snow swept in, and the wind; the sleet crusted over his
bleeding fingers and in his hair. It was very dark; often,
when the wind was the wrong way, and that front door went
down, he could see stars through the rusty gums of the crea-
ture, — the boiler seemed more like a creature than like a
hotel after all, sometimes, — but now it opened into blank
blackness and noise.

It was very, very cold. Bobbit had been very cold before,
but never so cold as this. He looked over at the “ best soot”
where his little lodgers lay, and thought how warm it must
be in there. He kept the edge of the storm from the little
boys, you see; it struck and broke upon his own poor little
freezing flesh. If he could change places with Harum and
Scarum! If he could only change places for a little while!

But Bobbit shook his head hard at himself.

“That ’s one way to keep a hotel! Put folks into yer

front entries and freeze ’em afore mornin’ !”’