Carroll asked no more questions, but walked up the street with the boy clinging to his hand.  He thought of Eddy, but the touch of this child was very different; the hand was softer, not so nervous.  Carroll, walking up the street, became forgetful of the child, who remained silent, only glancing up at him now and then, timidly and delightedly and admiringly.  It was, in fact, to the boy, almost as if he were walking hand in hand with a god.  But to the man had returned in full force the abnormal passion which had sent him thither.  He looked for a drug-store where he could buy chloroform.  His mind was as set upon that one end as a hunting-dog’s upon his quarry.  He could not seem to grasp anything very intelligently but that one idea, which crowded out every other for the time.  The two passed store after store, markets, beer-saloons, fruit-stalls, and dry-goods.  There were several blocks before the first drug-store was reached.  Carroll saw the red, green, and blue bottles in the windows, and turned towards the door.

“Mr. Willard keeps this store; he’s a nice man,” volunteered the boy, in his sweet treble.

Carroll looked down and smiled mechanically.  “Is he?” he said.

“Yes.  My mamma makes Mis’ Willard’s dresses.  She’s real good pay.”

Carroll entered the store, the boy still keeping close hold of his hand.

There was no one behind the counter, on which stood an ornate soda-fountain with the usual appliances for hot and cold beverages.  A thought struck Carroll.  He put his hand in his pocket and looked down at the boy.

“Do you like chocolate?” he asked.

The boy blushed and hung his head.

“Do you?” persisted Carroll.

“I didn’t ask for any,” the boy said, in an exceedingly shamefaced voice.

Carroll laughed as a man came from the rear of the store and paused inquiringly behind the counter.  “Give this little boy a cup of hot chocolate, and make it pretty sweet,” he said.

When the boy was seated, blissfully sipping his chocolate, Carroll asked calmly for his chloroform.  The druggist himself gave it to him without any demur.  There was that about Carroll’s whole appearance which completely allayed suspicion.  It seemed inconceivable that a man of such appearance, benevolently and genially treating a pretty little boy to a cup of chocolate, should be essaying to purchase poison for any nefarious purpose.  The druggist put up the chloroform in a bottle marked poison in red letters, changed the bill which Carroll gave him in payment, and remarked that it was a cold day and looked like snow.  The boy was hurrying to finish his chocolate, that he might follow again this object of his admiration, but Carroll caught sight of the Banbridge car coming up the street, after having made an unusually long wait at the terminus of the line.

“Take your time, my boy.  I have to go,” he said, and hurried out to the car, leaving the boy staring wistfully after him with the chocolate sweet upon his tongue.