“It was only three days ago.  I was coming back on the ferry from Jersey City.  Old Mr. Schrum, an art dealer, told me of a rich man in Newark who wanted a miniature of his daughter painted.  I went to see him and showed him some of my work.  When I told him the price would be fifty dollars he laughed at me like a hyena.  He said an enlarged crayon twenty times the size would cost him only eight dollars.

“I had just enough money to buy my ferry ticket back to New York.  I felt as if I didn’t want to live another day.  I must have looked as I felt, for I saw him on the row of seats opposite me, looking at me as if he understood.  He was nice-looking, but oh, above everything else, he looked kind.  When one is tired or unhappy or hopeless, kindness counts more than anything else.

“When I got so miserable that I couldn’t fight against it any longer, I got up and walked slowly out the rear door of the ferry-boat cabin.  No one was there, and I slipped quickly over the rail and dropped into the water.  Oh, friend Hetty, it was cold, cold!

“For just one moment I wished I was back in the old Vallambrosa, starving and hoping.  And then I got numb, and didn’t care.  And then I felt that somebody else was in the water close by me, holding me up. He had followed me, and jumped in to save me.

“Somebody threw a thing like a big, white doughnut at us, and he made me put my arms through the hole.  Then the ferry-boat backed, and they pulled us on board.  Oh, Hetty, I was so ashamed of my wickedness in trying to drown myself; and, besides, my hair had all tumbled down and was sopping wet, and I was such a sight.

“And then some men in blue clothes came around; and he gave them his card, and I heard him tell them he had seen me drop my purse on the edge of the boat outside the rail, and in leaning over to get it I had fallen overboard.  And then I remembered having read in the papers that people who try to kill themselves are locked up in cells with people who try to kill other people, and I was afraid.

“But some ladies on the boat took me downstairs to the furnace-room and got me nearly dry and did up my hair.  When the boat landed, he came and put me in a cab.  He was all dripping himself, but laughed as if he thought it was all a joke.  He begged me, but I wouldn’t tell him my name nor where I lived, I was so ashamed.”

“You were a fool, child,” said Hetty, kindly.  “Wait till I turn the light up a bit.  I wish to Heaven we had an onion.”

“Then he raised his hat,” went on Cecilia, “and said:  ’Very well.  But I’ll find you, anyhow.  I’m going to claim my rights of salvage.’  Then he gave money to the cab-driver and told him to take me where I wanted to go, and walked away.  What is ‘salvage,’ Hetty?”

“The edge of a piece of goods that ain’t hemmed,” said the shop-girl.  “You must have looked pretty well frazzled out to the little hero boy.”