Who is Dr. Brooks?
     Ah, that is the very question I asked my friend Theophilus.
     "How strange!" he replied, mildly at first, but allowing himself to grow unaccountably indignant as he proceeded, "how very strange that any one here in New York, and in this day and generation, should have to ask that question! But I might have taken it for granted. Such men are known as they deserve to be. What a world it is! Well, when can you go?"
     "Almost any day," I replied, abjectly.
     "That means exactly never," said he.
     "Well, then, tomorrow."
     So, on the next afternoon, at 5.10 precisely, we took the Hudson River R. R. cars for Fort Washington, in search of the man whom it was my disgrace not to know. On, through ugly suburbs, to the shore of the beautiful river which kept alongside till we alighted at a dear little amphibious railroad station that might had just crept up on the rocks to sun itself. Then came the half walk half climb up a romantic stairpath, and at last the meeting with a party of ragged Fort Washington boys, who we accosted on their way to the river for a swim.
     They had answered our inquiry as to the whereabouts of the New York Juvenile Asylum, and vouchsafed some further conversation, when Theophilus suddenly exlaimed:--
     "He beats the children -- do you say?"
     "O awful, sir!" returned the smallest boy.
     "You bet he licks 'em!" put in another.
     "With what?" pursued Theophilus.
     "Big stick."
     "Why?" I asked indignantly.
     "Why for breakin' loose, ma'am."
     "Breaking loose?"
     "Yes'm. Lots of 'em breaks loose and runs away."
     "Try to run away, do they;" corrected another boy, evidently a brother of the speaker; "but they gen'rally gets ketched afore they start."
     Thereupon gloom settled upon the dirty little faces of the prospecive bathers, and they passed on silently.
     This looks rather bad for the doctor thought I. But I said nothing.
     "Pretty country," remarked Theophilus.
     "Very."
     We walked along, admiring the distance and gathering way-side flowers, until we came to a large iron gate. A shabby village street, suddenly appearing not far off at our right, made it easier to realize that, though on Washington Height, were were still within city limits-- near the corner of 10th avenue and 175th street.
     "Here we are!" said Theophilus.
     The gate could be opened readily enough, but we preferred first to peer through is ornamental open-work Nobody thinks of breaking the seal of a puzzling letter till after curiously scanning the outside.
     We spied two boys with in, raking hay; also some men at work in a distance. The general effect was that of fine private grounds.
     Loudly, as the gate clicked in closing behind us, the busy little hay-makers hardly raised their eyes.
     He halted to speak with them.
     "Are you inmates here?" I asked.
     They leaned on their rakes and answered simultaneously, in class-fashion.
     "Yes ma'am."
     "How many are there altogether?"
     "About four hundred and fifty boys, and more than one hundred girls."
     "Do you like it here?" asked Theophilus, thereby, as I feared, for the second time greatly imperilling the doctor.
     "Well, we do," said the larger boy, brightly, though not without an instant's reflection --- "we get good learning and " - --
     "First-rate learning," put in the other. "I get on better'n I did at the Ward school down in town. They're not so set in their way of teaching here."
     "Do the children ever try to run away?" I asked, not looking at Theophilus. "they do sometimes," answered the big boy, in an off-hand yet confidential way, as if to say a fellow likes his liberty, you know; "they mostly get brought right back, though, by the p'licemen. Some chaps hide away in the water-tanks, and so slip off when the way comes. But there's lots of chances all the time if your sharp.
     "All us boys out of work are watched," interposed his companion; "you see those two fellows working over there -- they're on the lookout."
     "Their back are turned away now," remarked the first boy dryly; then added after a moment, "What's the sense of running away from a man that's good to you? I don't see it."
     "We're hurrin' now," said the other, tugging violently at a tangle tuft as he spoke, "for cherries. All who get through their job before the bell rings can spend the extra time up in the trees."
     We move on, following a wide, well-graded carriage road, passing grass-plots and rows of vegetables in various stages of growth, and noting by the way that the men working there turned right about face as soon as we left our young hay-makers. As we advanced, now in full view of the fine buildings constituting the Asylum, we saw a forlorn-looking girl outside the grounds, who had climbed up and was peering over the fence. She was ragged, dirty, and wretchedly thin.
     "Do you belong here:?" I asked, much shocked,
     "No indeed," was her haughty reply as she slid out of sight, "nor do I want to neither."
     "That's it," said Theophilus. "Of course there's a strong outside prejudice against the Asylum among the children of the poor. They use it probably as a 'hangman's whip' to keep the little wretches in order."
     Just then we heard a familiar sound -- the clicking of wooden balls.
     "The Doctor is out playing croquet," exclaimed Theophilus, radiantly -- "Ah, here he comes!"
     A tall, fine looking man, of perhaps fifty years, emerged from the shrubbery and advanced to meet us.
     You're not the hard and stern looking man as one might suppose, thought I, as with a cordial welcome he led the way up the massive steps of the main entrance.