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Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
111
CHAPTER 6: Panic, Anxiety, and Their Disorders
Teaching Objectives
1. Compare and evaluate the merits of Freud’s use of the concept of anxiety in the etiology of the neuroses
versus the descriptive approach used in DSM since 1980.
2. Distinguish between fear and anxiety.
3. Describe the major features of phobias, identify and differentiate the different subtypes of phobia, explicate
the major etiological hypotheses, and discuss the most effective treatment approaches.
4. List the diagnostic criteria for panic disorder, contrast panic attacks and other types of anxiety, and explain
the association with agoraphobia. Summarize prevalence, age of onset, and comorbidity.
5. Describe recent findings on the biological, behavioral, and cognitive influences for anxiety proneness.
6. Summarize the evidence that anxiety sensitivity constitutes a diathesis for the development of panic attacks.
7. Describe how safety behaviors and cognitive biases help to maintain panic.
8. Compare and contrast the major treatment approaches for panic disorder and agoraphobia.
9. Summarize the central features of generalized anxiety disorder, and distinguish among psychoanalytic,
conditioning, and cognitive theories of etiology.
10. Identify the central nervous system processes and structures associated with generalized anxiety disorder,
and evaluate treatments for the disorder.
11. Describe the defining features of obsessive-compulsive disorder, summarize theories of etiology along with
supporting evidence (or the lack thereof), and outline the treatment of OCD.
12. Provide several examples of sociocultural effects on anxiety disorders.
Chapter Overview/Summary
Although anxiety disorders were initially considered neuroses, this term has been largely abandoned ever since
DSM-III (1980). The anxiety disorders have panic or anxiety or both at their core. Today anxiety impacts 25%–29%
of Americans. Anxiety is defined as an anticipation for possible future danger and fear is in response to immediate
danger. Panic is a basic emotion that involves activation of the fight-or-flight response of the autonomic nervous
system. Anxiety is more diffuse, including blends of high levels of negative affect, worry about possible threat or
danger, and a sense that threats are unpredictable or uncontrollable. Although everyone has identifiable, rational,
realistic sources of anxiety, people with anxiety disorders, by definition, have irrational sources of, and unrealistic
levels of, anxiety. Mood-congruent information processing, such as attentional and interpretive biases, seem to
maintain all anxiety disorders.
Specific phobias are intense and irrational fears of specific objects or situations accompanied by avoidance
of the feared object. Stimuli may acquire phobic properties through conditioning or other learning mechanisms or
through activation of constitutional predispositions. Because stimuli such as heights and menacing animals that
posed a threat to our early ancestors are better able to become the target of phobias, it is thought that we are
biologically “prepared” to associate them with trauma. Phobia subtypes include: (1) animals—the fear of snakes,
spiders, dogs, insects, and birds; (2) natural environment—fear of storms, heights, and water; (3) blood-injection-
injury—fear of seeing blood or an injury, receiving an injection, or seeing a person in a wheelchair; (4) situational—
fear of public transportation, tunnels, bridges, elevators, flying, driving, and enclosed spaces; and (5) other—phobias
associated with choking, vomiting, or “space phobias.”
Social phobia, also known as social anxiety disorder, involves disabling fears, or even panic attacks, in one
or more social situations, usually out of fear of negative evaluation by others or fear of acting in an embarrassing or
humiliating manner. Social stimuli signaling dominance and aggression from other humans, including facial
expressions of anger or contempt, appear “prepared” in the evolutionary sense to elicit phobic responses. The
preoccupation with negative self-evaluative thoughts characteristic of social phobia tends to interfere with the ability
to interact in socially skillful ways. Panic disorder involves unexpected panic attacks that often create a sense of
stark terror, which usually subsides in a matter of minutes. The fear of future panic attacks is known as “anxious
apprehension.” Many people with panic disorder also develop agoraphobic avoidance of situations in which they

112
fear they might have an attack and would find it difficult to escape or would be especially embarrassing. According
to the conditioning theory of panic disorder, interoceptive bodily symptoms associated with early stages of prior
attacks come themselves to be able to elicit panic attacks. According to the cognitive theory of panic disorder, it is
the catastrophic misinterpretation of these bodily cues that produces panic attacks, especially among those with high
levels of preexisting anxiety sensitivity. Biological theories of panic disorder emphasize biochemical abnormalities
in the brain as well as abnormal activity of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine and probably also serotonin. The
area of the brain known as the amygdala is thought to be an especially important source of panic attacks.
Another anxiety disorder is panic disorder, which involves recurrent and unexpected attacks wherein the
individual worries about having more attacks. The average panic attack lasts around ten minutes. A panic attack
usually includes feelings of heart racing, sweating, shaking, shortness of breath, and so on as just some examples.
About 85% of people who experience a panic attack think it is a heart attack and may show up at the emergency
room. Agoraphobia is the fear of public places such as crowded spaces, shopping malls, and movie theaters. Panic
disorder with agoraphobia means that someone has recurrent panic attacks and presence of agoraphobia.
Agoraphobia without a history of panic disorder has the presence of agoraphobia but the person has not met the
diagnostic criterion for panic disorder. Panic disorder without agoraphobia is when one has recurrent panic attacks,
worry about having more attacks, and the absence of agoraphobia.
Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) involves chronic and excessive worry about a number of events or
activities and high levels of psychic and muscle tension. People with GAD may have extensive experience with
unpredictable and/or uncontrollable life events as well as having schemas through which strange and dangerous
situations promote automatic thoughts focused on possible threats. The neurobiological bases of GAD differ from
those related to panic disorder, involving the neurotransmitter GABA and the limbic system of the brain.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) involves unwanted and intrusive distressing thoughts or images
usually accompanied by compulsive behaviors designed to neutralize those thoughts or images. Checking and
cleaning rituals are most common. Genetic, brain function imaging, and psychopharmacological studies all suggest
significant biological contributions to OCD. The anxiety-reducing qualities of the compulsive rituals may help
maintain OCD.
Medical treatments of people with anxiety disorders often include anti-anxiety and anti-depressant
medications. These medications suppress anxiety symptoms, have high addiction potential, and tend to be associated
with high relapse rates once the medications are discontinued. Behavioral and cognitive therapies are effective for
anxiety disorders. Behavior therapies involve prolonged exposure to feared situations to allow fear or anxiety to
habituate. With OCD, the rituals also must be prevented following exposure to the feared situations. Cognitive
therapies focus on getting clients to understand their underlying automatic thoughts, which often involve cognitive
distortions such as unrealistic predictions of catastrophes that in reality are very unlikely to occur, and to change
these thoughts and beliefs through cognitive restructuring.
Detailed Lecture Outline
I. The Fear and Anxiety Response Patterns
A. Fear and Panic Activate the “Fight or Flight” Response
1. Cognitive/subjective components.
2. Physiological components in the absence of any external danger.
3. Behavioral components.
4. Anxiety—involves feeling of apprehension about possible future danger.
5. Fear—a response to immediate danger.
6. Panic Attack—a response that occurs. When the fear response occurs in the absence of
any obvious external danger
Lecture Launcher 6.1: Thrills or Chills?
B. Anxiety Is a Complex Blend of Unpleasant Emotions and Cognitions that Is Both More Oriented

113
to the Future and Much More Diffuse than Fear
1. Adaptive value.
2. Has cognitive/subjective, physiological, and behavioral components.
C. Unconditional versus Learned Sources of Fear and Anxiety
1. Conditionability of fear.
2. External versus internal (interoceptive) cues.
II. Overview of the Anxiety Disorders
A. Unrealistic and Irrational Fears of Disabling Intensity
B. DSM-IV-TR Recognizes Seven Anxiety Disorders
1. Specific phobia
2. Social phobia or social anxiety disorder.
3. Panic disorder with or without agoraphobia and agoraphobia without panic.
4. Generalized anxiety disorder.
5. Obsessive-compulsive disorder.
6. Acute stress disorder .
7. Post traumatic stress disorder.
C. Anxiety Disorders are Relatively Common
1. Most common group of disorders among women.
2. Comorbidity is typical.
3. Phobias are the most common of the anxiety disorders.
4. Commonalities in causes across these disorders:
a. Common genetic vulnerability is the personality trait of neuroticism.
b. Brain structures most commonly involved are generally in the limbic system.
c. Most common neurotransmitters involved are GABA, norepinephrine, and
serotonin.
d. Classical conditioning is common.
e. People with perceptions of lack of control over their environment and their
emotions are more vulnerable.
5. Commonalities across effective treatments:
a. Graduated exposure is the single most effective treatment.
b. Cognitive restructuring.
c. Benzodiazepines and anti-depressants.
MyPsychLab Resource 6.1: Video on “Overcoming Fears and Anxieties”
III. Specific Phobias (See Table 6.1 for a brief overview)—a person is diagnosed with a specific phobia when
she or he shows a persistent fear that is excessive and unreasonable
A. Blood-Injection-Injury Phobia
1. Occurs in about 3%–4% of the population.
2. Disgust is as typical a response as fear.
3. Initial heart acceleration followed by a drop in rate and pressure.
4. Nausea, dizziness, and fainting.
B. Prevalence, Age of Onset, and Gender Differences
1. Common in women.
2. Animal phobias—about 90%–95% are women.
3. Lifetime prevalence rate is about 12%.
4. Animal, dental, and blood-injection-injury phobias begin in childhood.
5. Agoraphobia and claustrophobia begin in adolescence and early adulthood.
C. Psychological Causal Factors
1. Psychoanalytic viewpoint:
a. View of phobia as defense against anxiety via repression of id impulses; anxiety
is then displaced onto some external object or the situation is symbolically

114
linked to the real object of the anxiety.
2. Phobias as learned behavior:
a. Classical conditioning and generalization.
b. Direct traumatic conditioning.
c. Vicarious conditioning of phobic fears.
d. Prepared learning—when primates and humans acquire fears of certain objects
or situations that posed real threats.
Lecture Launcher 6.2: The Transmission of Fear Responses
e. Sources of individual differences in the learning of phobias:
(1) History of previous positive experiences reduces the likelihood of a
phobia developing.
(2) Events during conditioning such as inescapable and uncontrollable
events.
(3) Experiences after a conditioning event such as the inflation effect.
(4) Cognitive factors maintaining phobias.
f. Evolutionary preparedness for the development of fears and phobias.
D. Biological Causal Factors
1. Affect the speed and strength of conditioning of fear.
2. Behavioral inhibition and fear—high levels in early development correlate with
developing multiple specific phobias by 7–8 years of age.
3. Twin studies indicate modest heritability—but nonshared factors play a larger role.
E. Treatments
1. Exposure therapy—involves controlled exposure to the stimuli or situations that elicit
phobic fear.
2. Participant modeling.
3. Virtual reality environments.
4. Cognitive and pharmacological treatments are ineffective.
5. Some evidence that anti-anxiety medications may interfere with the positive effects of
exposure therapy.
Activity 6.1: Systematic Desensitization Exercise
Activity 6.2: Roller Coasters
IV. Social Phobias or Social Anxiety Disorder
MyPsychLab Resource 6.2: Video “Steve Social Phobia”
A. Prevalence, Age of Onset, and Gender Differences
1. Approximately 12% of the population qualifies for a social phobia. More than half of
these suffer from one or more additional anxiety disorder during their lives.
2. 60% of individuals are female.
3. Starts in early or middle adolescence—early adulthood.
4. The disorder results in lower employment rates and lower SES.
B. Psychological Causal Factors
1. Social phobias as learned behavior
a. Direct or vicarious conditioning, such as experiencing or witnessing a perceived
social defeat or humiliation, or being or witnessing someone else being the
target of anger or criticism.
b. 92% of an adult sample of those with social phobia recalled severe teasing as a
child.
c. Those with social phobia are also more likely to have grown up with parents
who were socially isolated and avoidant.

115
2. Social fears and phobias in an evolutionary context
a. Proposes that social phobias are a by-product of dominance hierarchies.
b. Evolutionarily based predisposition.
3. Perceptions of uncontrollability and unpredictability
a. Lead to submissive and unassertive behavior.
b. Likelihood increases if person has experienced an actual social defeat.
c. Diminished sense of personal control that may, in part, have developed from
overprotective parents.
4. Cognitive biases
a. Danger schemas concerning others.
b. Expect they will behave in an awkward and unacceptable way resulting in
rejection.
c. Preoccupied with bodily responses and negative self-images in social situations.
d. A negative attribution bias may also come into play here.
Teaching Tip 6.1: Incorporating Social Psychology
C. Biological Causal Factors
1. Genetic and temperamental factors
a. Modest genetic contribution—about 30% due to genes.
b. Behavioral inhibition—those high on behavioral inhibition between 2–6 years of
age are three times more likely (22%) to be diagnosed with a social phobia even
in middle childhood.
D. Treatments
1. Cognitive and behavioral therapies
a. Exposure.
b. Challenge of negative, automatic thoughts.
c. Cognitive restructuring—review the faulty beliefs.
2. Medications
a. Antidepressants may also be effective.
b. Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs).
c. Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs).
b. One study found that cognitive behavioral therapy was more effective than
medication and had better long-term results.
Handout 6.1: Commonalities among Social Phobias
V. Panic Disorder with and without Agoraphobia
A. Panic Disorder—defined as the occurrence of panic attacks
Lecture Launcher 6.3: “False Alarms”
1. As many as 85% seek help from an emergency room or doctor’s office.
2. Case of Mindy Markowitz.
MyPsychLab Resource 6.3: Video on “Panic Disorder”
MyPsychLab Resource 6.4: Video “Panic Disorder: Jerry”
B. Agoraphobia
1. Conceptualized as a complication of repeated panic attacks in varied situations.
2. Case of John D.
3. Most commonly avoided situation is crowded places and streets (see Table 6.2)
MyPsychLab Resource 6.5: Video on “Phobias”

116
C. Agoraphobia without Panic
1. Usually a gradually spreading fearfulness.
2. Extremely rare in clinical settings.
D. Prevalence, Age of Onset, and Gender Differences
1. Prevalence increasing with younger generations.
2. Onset most common between 15–24 years.
3. Twice as common in females, probably for sociocultural reasons (see Table 6.3 for chart
of gender differences in anxiety disorders).
E. Comorbidity with Other Disorders
1. High comorbidity with other anxiety disorders.
2. 30%–50% will experience serious depression.
3. 83% of people with panic disorder also have at least one comorbid disorder.
F. Timing of a First Panic Attack
1. Frequently follows feelings of distress or a highly stressful life situation.
2. Panic attacks more common (23% of population) than panic disorder.
G. Biological Causal Factors
1. Genetic factors
a. Only moderate heritability.
b. Liability is probably for panic disorder and phobias.
2. Panic and the brain
a. Amygdala—a collection of nuclei in front of the hippocampus in the limbic
system of the brain, which is key in the interpretation of fear.
b. Abnormally sensitive fear network.
c. Hippocampus implicated in conditioned anxiety.
d. Higher cortical centers mediate cognitive symptoms.
3. Biochemical abnormalities
a. Biological challenge procedures suggest that no single neurobiological
mechanism is implicated.
b. Noradrenergic and serotonergic systems are implicated.
c. GABA recently shown to be implicated in anticipatory anxiety.
d. Panic provocation procedures—something that produces panic attacks in
panic disorder.
H. Psychological Causal Factors
1. Comprehensive learning theory of panic disorder
a. “Fear of fear” hypothesis and process of interoceptive and extereoceptive
conditioning.
b. Anxiety conditioned to internal and external cues.
c. Panic attacks themselves are likely conditioned to certain internal cues.
d. Constitutional and experiential vulnerabilities.
Teaching Tip 6.2: Fear of Fear
2. The cognitive theory of panic (see Figure 6.2)
a. Catastrophic interpretations of bodily sensations.
b. Automatic thoughts become the triggers of panic.
c. Evidence that cognitive therapy for panic works supports the prediction that
changing cognitions about bodily symptoms may reduce or prevent panic.
3. Learning and cognitive explanations of results from panic provocation studies
a. Catastrophic cognitions are not needed in conditioning theory.
b. Cues can be unconscious.
c. Learning theory is better than cognitive model at explaining nocturnal panic
attacks and panic attacks that occur without any preceding negative
(catastrophic) automatic thoughts.
4. Anxiety sensitivity and perceived control

117
a. Anxiety sensitivity is a trait—like belief that certain bodily sensations may have
harmful consequences.
b. Anxiety sensitivity predicted the development of spontaneous panic attacks
during a highly stressful period.
c. Psychological manipulations, such as having a sense of perceived control or
having a “safe” person, may block panic.
5. Safety behaviors and the persistence of panic
a. Disconfirmation does not occur because people with panic disorder engage in
“safety behaviors” such as breathing slowly.
b. Safety behaviors believed to prevent catastrophe.
c. Safety behaviors need to stop for effective treatment.
6. Cognitive biases and the maintenance of panic
a. People with panic disorder interpret ambiguous bodily sensations and situations
as threatening.
b. Attentional bias toward threat cues.
c. Memory bias favoring threatening information.
I. Treatments
1. Medications
a. Benzodiazepines/anxiolytics, e.g., xanax or klonopin
(1) Rapid effects.
(2) Addictive.
(3) Withdrawal must be gradual.
(4) Rebound panic and relapse.
(5) Interfere with cognitive therapy.
b. Antidepressants (primarily the tricyclics and the SSRIs)
(1) Non-addictive.
(2) Slow effects—may take up to 4 weeks.
(3) Side-effect problems—SSRIs better tolerated.
(4) High relapse rates.
2. Behavioral and cognitive-behavioral treatments
a. Prolonged exposure is effective in 60%–75% of patients.
b. Interoceptive exposure.
c. Integrative cognitive-behavioral techniques.
d. Combined medication and cognitive-behavior therapy seems to always lead to
greater relapse.
Lecture Launcher 6.4: Overcoming Phobias
VI. Generalized Anxiety Disorder
A. General Characteristics
1. Future-oriented mood state of chronic worry and “anxious apprehension.”
2. Restless, easily fatigued, poor concentration, irritable, tense, indecisive.
3. Worry experienced as uncontrollable.
4. The “basic” anxiety disorder.
5. Subtle avoidance such as procrastination and checking.
6. High vigilance, muscle tension, and sleep disturbance.
7. A graduate student with GAD.
1. Relatively common.
2. Twice as common in women.
3. Most continue to function despite symptoms.
4. Age of onset difficult to determine with as many as 60%–80% report being anxious all
their lives.
C. Comorbidity with Other Disorders
1. Seen with other Axis I disorders, especially other anxiety and mood disorders.

118
2. Excessive use of tranquilizing drugs, sleeping pills, and alcohol complicates the clinical
picture.
D. Psychological Causal Factors
1. The psychoanalytic viewpoint
a. Unconscious conflict between id and ego.
b. Defenses broken down or never developed.
c. No object to displace upon.
d. Theory is not testable and has basically been abandoned.
2. Perceptions of uncontrollability and unpredictability
a. Cognitive processes associated with prior aversive events.
b. Unpredictability of important past events generalizes to future ones
c. Lack of safety signals.
3. A sense of mastery: The possibility of immunizing against anxiety
a. “Master” and “yoked” infant monkeys, rhesus monkeys.
b. “Masters” coped better with stress when older.
c. Suggests that early experiences with control and mastery can immunize the
individual against the harmful effects of stressful situations.
4. The central role of worry and its positive functions
a. Five benefits of worry identified by people with GAD: superstitious avoidance
of catastrophe, actual avoidance of catastrophe, avoidance of deeper emotional
topics, coping and preparation, motivating device.
b. Suppression of emotional and aversive physiological responding may serve to
reinforce the process of worry.
c. Worry impairs the processing of the event, thereby preventing fear from being
extinguished.
5. The negative consequences of worry
a. Worrying is itself not pleasant.
b. Attempts to control thoughts and images actually increase them.
6. Cognitive biases for threatening information
a. Attention is drawn toward threat cues.
b. Interpret ambiguous stimuli as threats.
Activity 6.3: Cognitive Restructuring
E. Biological Causal Factors
1. Genetic factors
a. Small to modest heritability.
b. Inherited predisposition is to neuroticism (proneness to experience negative
mood states); shared with major depression.
2. Neurotransmitters and neurohormonal abnormalities
a. A functional deficiency of GABA.
b. The corticotrophin-releasing hormone system and anxiety.
3. Neurobiological differences between anxiety and panic
a. Biology of panic and GAD are not the same.
b. Amygdala and fight-or-flight for fear and panic, limbic system for GAD.
F. Treatments
1. Medications
a. Benzodiazepines not as effective as believed by public.
b. Busipirone is a new, non-addictive, non-sedating, but slow drug.
c. Antidepressants are useful.
2. Cognitive behavioral treatment
a. Therapy involves applied muscle relaxation and cognitive restructuring, is quite
effective.

119
Handout 6.2: Progressive Muscle Relaxation
VII. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
MyPsychLab Resource 6.6: Video “Dave: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder”
MyPsychLab Resource 6.7: Video “Margo: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder”
A. Characteristics of OCD
1. Types of obsessive thoughts
a. Obsessions—Contamination fears, harming self or others, lack of symmetry,
pathological doubt, sexual obsessions, and obsessions concerning religion or
aggression.
b. Obsessions rarely carried out.
2. Types of compulsions
a. Compulsions—Five primary types: cleaning, checking, repeating,
ordering/arranging, and counting.
b. Performance of act brings feeling of reduced tension and satisfaction, as well as
a sense of control.
3. Consistent characteristics
a. Anxiety is the affective symptom.
Teaching Tip 6.3: The ABCs of Psychology
b. Fear that something terrible will happen to them or to others because of them.
c. Compulsion reduces anxiety in the short term.
d. “What if” illness; this tendency to judge risks unrealistically is very common
among those with OCD.
1. Not as rare as once thought, 2.3% lifetime prevalence.
2. More than 90% of those who present for treatment experience both obsessions and
compulsions; if include mental rituals and compulsions, this jumps to 98%.
3. Divorced and unemployed people overrepresented.
4. Little or no gender difference.
5. Typically begins in late adolescence or adulthood but is not uncommon in children.
6. Early onset more common in boys and is usually associated with more severe symptoms.
7. Gradual onset and chronic once serious.
C. Comorbidity with other disorders
1. Depression is especially common, up to 80% may experience significant depressive
symptoms.
2. Body dysmorphic disorder also rather common as a comorbid disorder.
D. Psychological Causal Factors
1. OCD as learned behavior
a. Mowrer’s two-process theory of avoidance learning.
b. Several classic experiments have supported this theory.
c. Core of the most effective form of behavior therapy for OCD.
d. Does not explain development of obsessions or abnormal assessments of risk.
2. OCD and preparedness
a. Some fears have occurrence rates that seem nonrandom.
b. Obsessions also adaptive in evolutionary terms.
3. Cognitive causal factors
a. The effects of attempting to suppress obsessive thoughts
(1) Thought suppression may lead to paradoxical increase in those thoughts
later.

120
(2) Normal and abnormal obsessions differ in degree to which they are
resisted.
b. Appraisals of responsibility for intrusive thoughts
(1) Inflated sense of responsibility may lead to thought-action fusion.
c. Cognitive biases and distortions.
(1) Problems inhibiting cognitive processing.
(2) Predisposition to thought suppression.
(3) Nonverbal, but not verbal, memory deficits.
Handout 6.3: Superstitious Behavior and Compulsions
E. Biological Causal Factors
1. Genetic influences
a. Moderately high heritability.
b. Higher rates if sub-clinical obsessive-compulsive symptoms and tic-related
OCD is included.
2. OCD and the brain
a. Abnormally active metabolic levels in the orbital frontal cortex, caudate nucleus,
and cingulate cortex.
b. Brain functions normalize after behavior or pharmacotherapy.
c. Dysfunction of the cortico-basal-ganglionic-thalamic circuit leading to
inappropriate behavioral responses that are normally inhibited.
d. Orbital frontal cortex is responsible in the obsessions.
3. Neurotransmitter abnormalities
a. Anafranil (clomipramine) and prozac often effective.
b. Drugs must be taken at least 6–12 weeks before changes noted.
c. Leads to a functional decrease in availability of serotonin.
F. Treatments
1. Behavioral and cognitive-behavioral treatments
a. Behavioral treatment that combines exposure and response prevention is most
effective.
b. Success in 50%–70% of patients; this is superior to medication.
2. Exposure and response prevention—the treatment involves having OCD clients
develop a hierarchy of upsetting stimuli
3. Medications
a. Serotonin-reuptake inhibitors.
b. Relapse rates high (up to 90%) following medication discontinuance.
c. Combining medication with behavioral treatment has not been shown to be more
effective in adults; one study showed promise in children.
d. Neurosurgery being investigated once again.
e. Antipsychotic medications.
Lecture Launcher 6.5: Medications
VIII. Sociocultural Causal Factors for all Anxiety Disorders
A. Cultural Differences in Sources of Worry
1. Yoruba culture in Nigeria indicates three clusters of symptoms: worry, dreams, bodily
complaints.
2. Culturally related syndrome in China is called Koro.
3. Caribbean cultures and ataque de nervios.
B. Taijin Kyofusho
1. Anxiety disorder symptoms unique to Japanese cultural patterns.
2. Fear of blushing, making eye contact, emitting an offensive odor.
IX. Unresolved Issues

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A. Compulsive Hoarding: Is it a Subtype of OCD?
1. When considered a subtype of OCD, hoarding accounts for 10%–40% of diagnosed
persons.
2. Generally, these individuals are for more disabled than those with OCD and are at greater
risk for fire and health risks.
3. Recent studies indicate that the brain scans of hoarders is different than those of persons
with OCD that don’t hoard.
4. Many persons with hoarding do not respond to the medications that work on those with
OCD.

122
Key Terms
Lecture Launchers
Lecture Launcher 6.1: Thrills or Chills?
Bungee jumping, riding roller coasters, participating in extreme sports, scary movies, and parachuting all produce
physiological reactions extraordinarily similar to panic attacks. Of course, they are not panic attacks, and this is
likely to be related to the fact that the sensations being experienced are expected and, indeed, even sought after.
Nevertheless, they are also frequently described as very fear provoking—and that’s a big part of their appeal! A
classroom discussion of fear-seeking and fear-avoidance can help illustrate how cognitive and environmental factors
can influence the experience of fear to a remarkable degree.
Lecture Launcher 6.2: The Transmission of Fear Responses
This is a great time to again discuss conditioning theories. You may want to refer back to Handout 2.4 from Chapter
2 on classical conditioning. This demonstrates how classical conditioning accounts for at least part of the learning
aspect of fear. Ask students to discuss fear responses they have and how they could have been classically, operantly,
or socially learned. One example could be the fear of dogs; it could be classically conditioned (e.g., you’ve been
bitten by a dog and now fear all dogs) or vicariously conditioned (e.g., mom and dad always show a fear response to
dogs so now you do too).
Lecture Launcher 6.3: “False Alarms”
The comprehensive learning theory of panic emphasizes the reactions to initial panic attacks. A variety of external
circumstances can lead up to initial attacks, but if people experiencing attacks fail to attribute the attacks to external
circumstances, they might be left to imagine they are having heart attacks, dying, or going crazy instead. For
instance, one might run up the stairs to get to an important meeting but nevertheless attribute physiological
symptoms to cardiac problems, neglecting to consider the roles of upcoming meeting stress and of bounding up the
stairs. Similarly, one might attribute feelings of dizziness and disorientation to “going crazy” when it might be more
accurate to attribute these feelings to, say, a missed lunch and physical exertion. These points can be emphasized
through a discussion of why pregnant women rarely experience panic attacks. One likely explanation is that
pregnant women have a readily available attribution for any physiological symptoms they experience—the
physiological changes associated with pregnancy. If students appreciate the role of attributions, they should be able
to offer this explanation with fairly minimal prompting. It can further emphasize elements of the theory to discuss
ambiguous circumstances, where ready attributions to external circumstances are not available to anyone. That is,
even people prone to appropriately attribute panic symptoms to external circumstances might sometimes fail to
identify any. In these ambiguous circumstances, any particular attribution is arbitrary, and the preference for
catastrophizing attributions is what sets those prone to panic disorder apart from those who are not. The class might
be asked to brainstorm benign alternatives to catastrophic interpretations. This would also be a good time to
agoraphobia
amygdala
anxiety
anxiety disorder
anxiety sensitivity
blood-injection-injury phobia
cognitive restructuring
compulsions
exposure and response prevention
exposure therapy
exteroceptive conditioning
fear
generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)
interoceptive conditioning
obsessions
obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
panic attack
panic disorder
panic provocation procedures
phobia
prepared learning
social phobia
specific phobia

123
emphasize that medical rule-outs are always necessary before pursuing such psychological aspects of panic disorder.
Lecture Launcher 6.4: Overcoming Phobias
Students are often more comfortable talking about their phobias when asked how they defeated them. Alternatively,
they can be asked how they intervened with their fears before they became full-blown phobias. For instance, they
might be asked whether they recall things that made them fearful initially but about which they later became at ease.
How did the initial apprehension come about? What did they think about it? Was there anything they did
deliberately to combat the fear? What worked and what didn’t? These informal attempts can be compared to the
more formal ones described in the book, and the characteristics of effective and ineffective self-help strategies can
be explored in the context of therapeutic principles drawn out in the text.
Lecture Launcher 6.5: Medications
A variety of issues about medications are nicely illustrated in the context of anxiety disorders. For one, students
often associate medication with “cure” and are surprised to learn that once anxiety medications are discontinued, the
underlying physiology of the disorder returns. That is, these medications control but do not cure the disorders for
which they are being taken. Another medication issue concerns the way medications can undermine the
effectiveness of behavior therapy for panic disorder. This can be used to re-examine the important features of
effective behavior therapy. When students are asked why medication might undermine behavior therapy, they
should recognize that medications can weaken exposure experiences and that medications provide complicating
additional targets to which attributions about fear can be made and to which therapeutic progress can be credited.
Classroom Activities, Demonstrations, and Assignments
Activity 6.1: Systematic Desensitization Exercise
Systematic desensitization is a popular technique to demonstrate in the classroom. To demonstrate systematic
desensitization, a volunteer must be secured from the class or else a “guest” can be brought in especially for this
purpose. The demonstration begins with a brief interview to determine what is anxiety-provoking for this person
(simulated symptoms are suitable). Prompt the person for as many details as possible about the circumstances
surrounding the fear; when it occurs, where it occurs, who else is there, coping strategies, how long it lasts, how it
feels, and so on. Write each scenario onto a separate index card. Then, you construct a fear hierarchy of about 15
specific fear situations, ordered in terms of how anxiety provoking they are. Tell the subject to signal you with a
raised finger anytime anxious feelings occur. When the subject seems and reports being very relaxed, begin by
describing the least anxiety-provoking situation from the hierarchy. Pause and let the subject imagine it for about 10
seconds. Then ask the volunteer to stop imagining this situation and to relax once again. Proceed to the next scene
from the hierarchy in the same way. If the person signals anxiety, ask him or her to stop visualizing the scene and to
relax. If this is difficult to do, it might help to pre-arrange a relaxing scene to visualize. Once the volunteer is relaxed
again, start with the image one step lower on the hierarchy than the one that prompted the anxiety and proceed as
before. If the next step again provokes anxiety, it may be necessary to construct an intermediate step to soften the
transition.
Activity 6.2: Roller Coasters
Working individually, have each student imagine him or herself waiting in line to ride a roller coaster. Each student
is to record the physical sensations they would experience while waiting to get on the ride. Warn students that you
are interested only in physical sensations and that they are not to list their emotional reactions or thoughts. Once
students have completed this task, have volunteers read their physical sensations. Make a list on the board or use an
overhead projector. Once again, eliminate any descriptors that interpret their physical sensations such as emotional
reactions or thoughts. Once a thorough listing has been created that represents the responses of all students, have
students raise their hands to indicate if they like roller coasters or dislike them. Point out that their physical
sensations are identical. Use this activity as a launching point to discuss cognitive appraisal and the importance of
past experiences in interpreting events.
Activity 6.3: Cognitive Restructuring
For this exercise, ask the class to report the automatic thoughts associated with the various anxiety disorders. It can
be helpful to select one disorder or else to structure the task by going through the disorders one-by-one. Student
responses often feed off of each other and fairly comprehensive sets of thoughts are fairly quickly produced. Once a

124
detailed set of these dysfunctional thoughts is produced, students can brainstorm therapeutic “challenges” to these
thoughts as well as more functional coping thoughts. Alternatively, once the dysfunctional thoughts are listed,
students can be asked to write them down and to generate challenges and replacement thoughts on their own as a
homework assignment.
Activity 6.4: Stressors and Worries from the letter A to Z
Defining stressors and coping strategies
The exercise is designed to allow students to use their creativity and critical thinking to analyze the impact of stress
and ways of coping. Before beginning the activity, split the class into small groups of three to four students. Then
ask the students to work together as a group and come up with a list of stressors, starting with every letter of the
alphabet from A–Z, and then come up with an additional list of ways to cope with stressors, again using every letter
of the alphabet A–Z. Ask each group to pull out two separate sheets of notebook paper and designate a group
member to be the recorder. The coping techniques can be positive or negative ways to deal with stress. You may
also get more specific, asking the students to make a list using every letter of the alphabet from A–Z of anxiety-
provoking events, situations, or objects as well. You could also designate certain letters of the alphabet like B, C, D,
R, S, T, L, A, and D. After every group has completed the activity, allow time for an in-class discussion of the
various stressors and ways to cope with stress. Was it easier to come up with a list of stressors or was it easier to
come up with the list of ways to cope? Can stress lead to anxiety disorders? Why or why not? At what point does a
worry turn into anxiety? This can also be a time to discuss the stress and anxiety that college brings, and it also
offers a chance to normalize this experience for students, as it shows a sense of universality.
MyPsychLab Resources
MyPsychLab Resource 6.1: Video “Overcoming Fears and Anxieties”
You may want to show a brief, 3-minute video discussing treatment options for anxiety disorders. To access this
video, log in to MyPsychLab, select the front cover of this textbook, then click on the “Multimedia Library” button
on the next page in the left-hand column. A new page will appear with search criteria. In the pull-down menu next to
“Chapter,” select Chapter 6, Panic, Anxiety, and Their Disorders. In the Media Type field, select “Watch,” then
click the “Find Now” button at the bottom. “Overcoming Fears and Anxieties” will appear as one of your video
offerings. You can either watch this video as an in-class demo—if your room has a computer set up—or assign as a
suggested exercise.
MyPsychLab Resource 6.2: Video “Steve Social Phobia”
You may want to show a brief, 3-minute video case study on Steve who has social anxiety disorder. To access this
video, log in to MyPsychLab, select the front cover of this textbook, then click on the “Multimedia Library” button
on the next page in the left-hand column. A new page will appear with search criteria. In the pull-down menu next to
“Chapter,” select Chapter 6, Panic, Anxiety, and Their Disorders. In the Media Type field, select “Watch,” then
click the “Find Now” button at the bottom. “Steve Social Phobia” will appear as one of your video offerings. You
can either watch this video as an in-class demo—if your room has a computer set up—or assign as a suggested
exercise.
MyPsychLab Resource 6.3: Video “Panic Disorder”
You may want to show a brief, 1-minute video on panic disorder brain imaging and the role of serotonin in panic
disorder. To access this video, log in to MyPsychLab, select the front cover of this textbook, then click on the
“Multimedia Library” button on the next page in the left-hand column. A new page will appear with search criteria.
In the pull-down menu next to “Chapter,” select Chapter 6, Panic, Anxiety, and Their Disorders. In the Media Type
field, select “Watch,” then click the “Find Now” button at the bottom. “Panic Disorder II” will appear as one of your
video offerings. You can either watch this video as an in-class demo—if your room has a computer set up—or
assign as a suggested exercise.
MyPsychLab Resource 6.4: Video “Panic Disorder: Jerry”
You may want to show a brief, 2-minute video on a case study on panic disorder. To access this video, log in to
MyPsychLab, select the front cover of this textbook, then click on the “Multimedia Library” button on the next page
in the left-hand column. A new page will appear with search criteria. In the pull-down menu next to “Chapter,”
select Chapter 6, Panic, Anxiety, and Their Disorders. In the Media Type field, select “Watch,” then click the “Find

125
Now” button at the bottom. “Panic Disorder: Jerry” will appear as one of your video offerings. You can either watch
this video as an in-class demo—if your room has a computer set up—or assign as a suggested exercise.
MyPsychLab Resource 6.5: Video “Phobias”
You may want to show a brief 2-minute video case study of an agoraphobic. To access this video, log in to
Now” button at the bottom. “Phobias” will appear as one of your video offerings. You can either watch this video as
an in-class demo—if your room has a computer set up—or assign as a suggested exercise.
MyPsychLab Resource 6.6: Video “Dave: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder”
You may want to show a brief, 3-minute case study on Dave who has OCD. To access this video, log in to
Now” button at the bottom. “Dave: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder” will appear as one of your video offerings.
You can either watch this video as an in-class demo—if your room has a computer set up—or assign as a suggested
exercise.
MyPsychLab Resource 6.7: Video “Margo: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder”
You may want to show a brief, 2-minute case study on Margo who has OCD. To access this video, log in to
Now” button at the bottom. “Margo: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder” will appear as one of your video offerings.
You can either watch this video as an in-class demo—if your room has a computer set up—or assign as a suggested
exercise.
Teaching Tips
Teaching Tip 6.1: Incorporating Social Psychology
You may want to draw the connection here between social cognition, specifically attribution and social facilitation,
and how these processes may have gone awry or be more sensitively set in some than others. For example, in social
facilitation, tasks like public speaking become easier or more difficult based on if there is an audience present. A
study by Zajonc, Heingartner and Herman (1969) found that even cockroaches show this effect, suggesting that this
is a very basic response. In the case of social phobias, some individuals may be reacting to a larger extent than the
average. It is also a good time to remind students that much of abnormal psychology are processes, like anxiety and
attribution, that all of us have but are stronger or set more sensitively in some than others. This should further
illustrate the adaptive values of many of these traits and faculties.
Teaching Tip 6.2: Fear of Fear
Many students fail to recognize how easy it could be to condition a fear to being in public spaces. You may want to
help illustrate this point with the following example. Say you were at the mall shopping when you suddenly had a
panic attack for no apparent reason. The next time you are at the mall you begin to worry that you might have
another panic attack because the first one was not in response to any specific event or stimuli. Now because you are
worried you leave the mall and start to feel better. It would not be surprising for you to not be eager to return to the
mall anytime soon. Why? Initially, you associate mall and panic attack via classical conditioning then it becomes
maintained via operant conditioning. This almost guarantees that you will avoid the mall. If your brain starts to think
the panic can occur in other social contexts, generalization will occur. Thus, it could be quite easy for someone to
become agoraphobic after even one panic attack at the mall.
Teaching Tip 6.3: The ABC’s of Psychology
This is a great time to cover how affect, behavior, and cognition are intertwined. Remind students that this

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joined them in their talk, but it was some days before Laura found
the chance for which she was looking so anxiously.
One morning the old gentleman arrived just after the whole of the
Van Kuren family, excepting Laura, had gone out and it was she
therefore who received him in the private parlor. Mr. Dexter seated
himself in an easy chair by the fire and entered into conversation
with the young girl regarding her lessons, her friends in America and
the amusement which she found in Paris. This was the chance she
had been waiting for, and with an air of deep mystery she said.
“Mr. Dexter there was a very curious thing that happened some
time ago and if I tell you I want you to promise me not to say
anything about it to anybody not even to papa, and particularly not
to Harry.” In her eagerness she forgot the agreement she had made
with Bruce, an agreement which had more than once prevented him
from speaking of the subject to friends and others who might have
aided him in his search.
“Certainly my dear, I will make that promise,” replied Mr. Dexter,
with a beneficent smile, “now tell me what this mysterious thing is. I
assure you I am very anxious to know.”
Then Laura told him the story with which my readers have been
already made familiar—she described to him their acquaintance with
Bruce and repeated what he had told her in regard to the old house
and his instant recognition of it. As she proceeded, the old
gentleman’s interest in her story grew stronger and stronger, and
when she ended he wiped the perspiration from his forehead with a
hand that was by no means steady and exclaimed “What you tell me
is very strange indeed! I remember the young man very well. He
came up to my house one day to get some magazines and papers that
I had there; and so he found Harry that very day did he? Well my
dear, I scarcely know what to think of it, for strangely enough his
story fits in with certain other things that I have learned within a
year and makes it more than possible that—but after all what is the
use of allowing such thoughts to enter my head?” and breaking off
abruptly he rose from his chair pacing slowly up and down the floor
talking indistinctly to himself as he did so.
And as he walked, Laura, who had become thoroughly excited over
the mystery which she found as romantic and interesting as any she
had ever found in a novel, watched him intently, carefully noting the

effect that her words had had on him and wondering what the
meaning of the whole matter was.
“Do you happen to know the address of this young man?” inquired
Mr. Dexter suddenly stopping in his walk.
“Mr. Dexter * * * held out his
hand for the address.”—Page
257.
“Yes,” said Laura, “I’ll run and get it for you, but you must never
tell anybody that I did because it would make awful trouble for me.”
When she returned she found her father, her aunt and Harry in the
room and for a moment she was at a loss what to do, but Mr. Dexter,
who was anxiously looking for her, held out his hand for the address
and said, as Laura placed the scrap of paper in it, “Remember, this is
our secret, my little girl, and Harry is not to know anything about it.”
The way in which he said this and the smile with which his words
were accompanied stimulated Harry’s curiosity and at the same time
served to put the elders off the scent. Then the conversation was
turned into other channels and in five minutes the incident had
passed out of the minds of everyone but the two concerned in it.
That afternoon Laura spread her writing materials on the parlor
table and sat down to write her regular weekly letter to her dear
friend in America, Kitty Harriott. She had just written “Dear Kitty,”
when a thought came into her mind that caused her to drop her pen

and sit for a moment in deep meditation. Then with cheeks flushed
with excitement, she continued as follows:
“I hope you are well and enjoying yourself and that all the other girls are well
too. We are having a splendid time here but we have to study as hard as we did at
home. There is something that I want you to do for me and you must never tell any
one that I mentioned it to you for it is something very mysterious and important.
You know about Bruce Decker, the young fireman who was in the hospital. I have
often talked to you about him. Well, Papa has made me promise not to write to him
and I dare not disobey him, but I did not promise that you would not write to him,
and something has happened which he ought to know. I want you to write him a
letter and send it to the address on the scrap of paper enclosed. Tell him that Mr.
Dexter and Papa are great friends now and he comes to see us every day. This
morning I was alone when he called and he sat down and we had a long talk. I told
him what Bruce told me about the Dexter house (just write it that way and he will
know what I mean), and he was very much interested in what I said and got up and
walked up and down the room talking to himself but I could not hear a word he
said. Then he asked me for Bruce’s address and I copied it out and gave it to him
right before Papa and Aunt Sarah and Harry who had all come into the room, and
Harry’s wild to know what was on the paper I gave him. Now Kitty you must do
exactly what I tell you. Bruce will know who you are because he has heard me talk
about you and I’m sure he’s just dying to know you. But remember it is important
that he should get this message right away and nobody must know anything about
it. If he makes any answer to your note write to me at once. No more at present,
from
Your loving friend
Laura Van Kuren.”

N
Chapter XXVIII.
ow the interest which old Mr. Dexter had betrayed while
listening to Laura’s story was in reality as nothing compared
with that which he felt, and when he reached his home that
afternoon he seated himself by the fire and fell into a condition of
deep thought.
Mr. Van Kuren who called on him that evening found him in his
parlor busy with a number of old letters, papers and photographs
which were spread out on the table before him.
“You see,” he said as he rose to greet his guest, “that even here in
Paris, with enough to render most men contented, my thoughts go
back to my old friends and home in America. I don’t know whether I
shall ever return or not; but of late I have been thinking seriously of
running over to New York for a week or two to settle a little matter of
business that has been worrying me for a short time past.”
Mr. Dexter did not explain that the “short time past” meant only
about eight hours nor did he, of course, say what the matter was that
troubled him but his guest divined that it might be some family affair
and asked him if that were not the case.
“Well yes,” rejoined Mr. Dexter, “it is a family matter, and one that
I cannot settle very well by mail, though I might write my nephew
and ask him to attend to it for me.”
“Your nephew?” exclaimed Mr. Van Kuren, “why I was not aware
that you were even on speaking terms with him, and for my part I
would not blame you if you never have anything more to say to him.”
The older man looked up at his visitor, and said very gently and
with the same pleasant smile that always came into his face when he
spoke to either Harry or Laura, “My dear Horace, when you reach my
age you will be anxious to settle up all your earthly quarrels so that
when the time comes for you to leave this world you may do so with a
feeling that you leave no enemies behind.”

“But do you mean to tell me,” demanded Mr. Van Kuren, “that you
have become a friend of that good-for-nothing nephew of yours
again? I can’t understand it after the way in which he treated you ten
years ago.”
“You must remember, Horace, that Sam is the only blood relation I
have left in this world. He came to see me a few months before I left
America, and I found him so regretful for the past, and so much
changed for the better that I have now fully as much confidence in
him as I ever had in my own son.”
Mr. Van Kuren shrugged his shoulders, and after a moment’s
hesitation, replied, “There’s nothing in the world that would induce
me to place any confidence whatever in Sam Dexter, even if he is
your only blood relation. It is entirely through him that the
misunderstanding occurred which separated us for years, and I have
heard of him in New York of late as connected with some very
dubious enterprises.”
“But my dear Horace,” continued the old gentleman, “you must
not believe everything that you hear. I have no doubt that my
nephew’s career has not been altogether what it should have been;
but that he is thoroughly contrite now I have no reason to doubt.
When he first came to see me I supposed, of course, that he was in
want of money again, and was therefore inclined to be a little
suspicious, but when he not only assured me, but proved to me, that
he had a handsome sum laid by out of his savings for a future day,
that he wanted nothing of me, and was only anxious to heal up old
breaches while I was still alive, then I was forced to admit that he
was, indeed, a different man from the one whom I had known
formerly.”
“Do you mean to say that he never tried to beg or borrow anything
from you, that is to say, since this last reconciliation?” demanded Mr.
Van Kuren, incredulously.
“I certainly do mean to say exactly that,” replied the other
emphatically. “He is occupying the old house at present but that is
because I asked him to do so. It is not safe to leave one’s home in the
hands of servants or caretakers.”
Mr. Van Kuren shrugged his shoulders again and remarked, in a
tone that showed he had no faith in the repentance or sincerity of
Mr. Dexter’s nephew: “Well, just mark my words, that man will still
manage to injure you in some way. He is not to be trusted.”

For a few moments the old gentleman sat quietly looking into the
fire, then he lifted his eyes and said, “I should be sorry to have as bad
an opinion of Sam as you have, but it may be that you are nearer
right in your estimate of him than I am. Nevertheless it’s an old
man’s fancy, and one that should be, for that reason, pardoned, to
feel that after he is gone he will be succeeded at his home and in his
estate by one of his own blood rather than by a stranger.”
“And so,” remarked Mr. Van Kuren dryly, “you have arranged to
make Sam your heir, have you?”
“Yes that is my present intention. As my will stands now, all my
property goes to my son and as he is dead, Sam as the next of kin
would inherit it anyway. Therefore I hardly think it necessary to
write a new one, but will destroy the old one, which will throw the
property into his hands.”
“And does he know this?” asked Mr. Van Kuren.
“I haven’t told him so in so many words, but I am sure he must
know what my intentions are. However he has never broached the
topic to me and I am bound to say that he seems to be thoroughly
disinterested in his regard for me.”
“In that case,” observed Mr. Van Kuren, watching his friend’s face
carefully as he spoke, “you had better write to him and ask him to
arrange this little family matter that troubles you. At any rate it will
save you the trouble of making a trip across the water. A journey at
your time of life and at this season of the year might be regarded as
almost unsafe.”
Mr. Dexter made no reply to this remark, and there was silence in
the room for fully a minute. Then he shook his head slowly, and said:
“No, I don’t exactly like to ask Sam to help me in this affair, and
perhaps, after all it would be better for me to write than to make the
journey myself.”
“My dear Mr. Dexter,” said Mr. Van Kuren, rising from his seat
and placing his hand on his old friends arm, “the mere fact that you
do not write to him in this matter is a proof that you do not fully trust
him; but don’t take the trip yourself. Write a letter; this is no season
for a man of your age to travel.”
Soon after this the visitor took his leave, and the old gentleman sat
down at his library table and addressed a polite and formal note to
Bruce Decker, telling him what he had learned from a mutual friend,
and asking him to send him full information concerning himself and

his family, adding that he very well remembered meeting him before,
and hoped that he was making progress in the calling which he had
chosen. Having sealed and addressed this letter he sat for some time
lost in reflection. Then taking up his pen again, he wrote another
letter to the man to whom Mr. Van Kuren had referred as “Sam.”
Both these letters reached New York on the same day, and were
the cause of the strange meeting of the two boys, which has been
described in another chapter. But in the letter to his kinsman, Sam,
the old gentleman did not reveal the address which Laura had given
him.

W
Chapter XXIX.
hen Skinny the Swiper, standing in the little country burying-
ground, looked upon the time-stained marble slab, and
deciphered the inscription upon it, he opened his eyes in wonder,
and for the second time within five minutes, uttered the exclamation
which he kept on hand for such emergencies as demanded something
more vigorous and expressive than commonplace English.
“Hully gee!” was all that this little New York street boy had to say;
but coming from him it possessed a deeper significance than is
conveyed by the cold type which spells the words.
First he looked at the grave-stone, and then he looked at Bruce
Decker, and finally he asked: “Wuz dat your mother?”
“Yes,” replied Bruce, simply.
Skinny said nothing but he thought a great deal; and while he was
thinking he scratched his head and looked down at the half
obliterated mound of earth that marked the grave of Mrs. Decker.
From the very first he had suspected that there was some connection
between the gallant young fire laddie, who had saved his life and
carried him from the burning building, and the scarred and bearded
man who had sent him to this remote corner of the world. He had
not forgotten that he had been solemnly charged not to breathe a
word to any human being in regard to his strange errand, and he had
an intuitive feeling that if he violated in any way the trust reposed in
him, his employer would learn of it, and mete out to him a terrible
vengeance, instead of the liberal reward that he had promised.
On the other hand, he saw before him the boy who had done for
him what no one else in the world would have done for a friendless,
ragged child of the streets, and for a moment he hesitated as to which
of these two masters he should choose to serve. To the one he owed a
certain amount of loyalty—a few dollars worth, perhaps—but to the
other he owed his life. He raised his eyes, and encountered the clear,

honest, truthful ones of Bruce, which looked him square in the face,
and he hesitated no longer. Rough contact with the world had taught
him to be suspicious of others, and it was rare enough in his career
that he had encountered any one whom he fully trusted. But there
was that in Bruce’s face which caused him to say to himself: “Dat
man is all right, an’ white,” which is a high compliment for a
newsboy to pay any one.
Having reached the conclusion that Bruce was the best friend he
was likely to have in the world, he took from his pocket the written
instructions which Mr. Korwein had given him, handed the paper to
the new master whom he had elected to serve, and blurted out: “Hay,
boss, ain’t dat de same party?”
To say that Bruce was surprised when he saw his mother’s name
written in an unknown handwriting, and in the possession of his
little hospital friend but feebly describes his condition of mind.
“Come over here with me,” he said, as he led the way to a low stone
wall, somewhat remote from the couples who were walking up and
down the paths, laughing and whispering and talking. Then, seating
himself on a convenient bowlder, he said to Skinny: “How in the
world did you ever get hold of this paper?”
And Skinny in reply told him the whole story of the dark-bearded
man, who had summoned him to his office, and sent him away to the
shore of the great inland lake, simply to get information about Mary
Decker and her son, if son she had. Skinny’s recital occupied nearly a
quarter of an hour, for he stretched it so as to include his adventures
while on the road from New York, and the circumstances which had
led to his becoming what he called a haymaker. Bruce listened
intently to every word the boy uttered, and questioned him narrowly
in regard to Mr. Korwein and his motive in entrusting him with such
a strange commission. Of course Skinny could not account for the
man’s motives, and, indeed, that was something he had not troubled
himself about. It was enough to him that his employer wished to
obtain certain information, and was willing to pay for it. So long as
he could be well paid for his work he did not concern himself about
people’s motives, or ask what would be done with the information
which he supplied. But he did not neglect to mention the fact that in
telling as much as he had, he had betrayed his employer, and he
warned his friend to keep strictly to himself all that he had told him.
Bruce readily agreed to this, and then, as the afternoon had already

merged into twilight, they returned to the village, Skinny, passing on
to Mr. Wolcott’s house and Bruce going to that of the friends whom
he was visiting.
The following evening the two boys met again by agreement, and,
with his friends assistance, Skinny composed and sent to his
employer in New York the following letter:
“Mr. Korwein—
Dear Sir:—I went up to the cemetery yesterday, and seen the grave, which had
on it
Sacred to the memory
of
Mary, wife of Frank Decker.
Born Dec. 1st, 1855,
Died Sept. 5th, 1877.
There wasn’t no other graves of any folks named Decker. I am still on the farm.
No more at present. From
Skinny.”
Then he entrusted to Bruce his employer’s address and bade him
good-bye with a parting injunction not to let the man know where he
learned of him; and with this address in his pocket, Bruce climbed
aboard a New York train, said good-bye to a number of admiring
villagers who accompanied him to the depot and was borne away
toward New York, while the street boy walked slowly back to the
Wolcott’s.

Skinny writes a letter to Mr.
Korwein.—Page 270.
As the train rolled swiftly along our young hero sat with his face
pressed against the car window looking out into the quiet night and
thinking over the strange things that happened to him of late. To
begin with, there was this dark bearded man of mystery who, he was
positive, could tell him everything that he wished to know; and who
was this ragged newsboy whom he had befriended—could it be
possible that he was simply a hireling of the other and that he had
been sent to Rocky Point to spy upon him? No, he could not doubt
Skinny’s sincerity, and the feeling had been growing daily within him
that through him the mystery which enveloped his early days and
even his origin would finally be cleared up. One thing he had
determined, and that was that as soon as he reached New York he
would go to Mr. Korwein and boldly ask him—what? That was the
trouble. What should he ask him? He would feel very foolish saying
to that scarred and bearded gentleman: “Please sir will you tell me
who I am and clear up the mystery which enshrouds me?”
His mind was still busy with this problem when the monotonous
motion of the train got the better of his senses and he fell into a deep
sleep.
And just at that moment Skinny the Swiper was lying wide awake
in the comfortable attic room in which Mr. Wolcott had installed him

and was asking himself what it all meant. Why should Mr. Korwein
have sent him up to Rocky Point, and what had he to do with the
grave of the young fireman’s mother? For the life of him he could not
make it out and then he wondered if Mr. Korwein would ever find
out about his treachery and at the thought of that great man’s wrath
he curled himself up in bed, drew the clothes up over his face and
resolved that he would remain on the farm until he had changed
beyond all recognition. “Anyway,” he said to himself, “dis is a better
place dan de Bowery, because dere’s more to eat an’ a place to sleep.”
And then he too fell asleep and did not waken until the daylight
was streaming through the window over his head and Mrs. Wolcott
calling to him from the foot of the staircase.
The little newsboy found life so pleasant during the autumnal
weather on the shore of Lake Ontario that he began to think seriously
of settling down to an agricultural life. The air was fine and bracing,
the food plentiful and nutritious and the farmer and his wife treated
him with great kindness and did not ask him to do more than a boy’s
amount of work. Skinny’s life had been a hard one, and never in his
recollection had he had as much to eat or enjoyed himself more than
he had since his arrival in the little country place on the shore of the
great lake. Good treatment was something that was more of a novelty
to him than kicks and curses, and when his naturally suspicious
mind grasped the fact that the farmer and his wife were kind to him,
not because they expected to get the better of him in any way, but
because it was their nature to be kind to all living things, and that
they trusted him implicitly and seemed inclined to trust him so long
as he proved worthy, it occurred to him for almost the first time in
his life that there were some people in the world who did not go
about with their hands lifted against such Arabs as himself, and he
determined to repay their confidence with absolute fidelity to their
interests.
He had remained with them nearly a month, and, as has been said
already was beginning to think favorably of an agricultural life when
something occurred which drove all ideas of rural felicity out of his
mind and sent him adrift in the world once more. The something
which served to alter his intentions was a letter which came to him
one morning in the mail. It was from Bruce Decker who wanted to
know how much longer he intended to stay in the country, and

whether he could be induced to make a little trip to the city for the
purpose of rendering him (Bruce) an important service.
As the newsboy finished spelling out his friend’s epistle, a gleam of
delight came into his freckled face. Here was another friend who
treated him like a human being and came to him as to some one
whom he could trust to render him a service. Thrusting the letter
into the inside pocket of his jacket he buttoned that faded and rather
rusty garment tightly about him and went at once to his employer.
“Say, boss, I gotter go ter de city ter night,” was the way in which
Skinny announced his intended departure.
“To-night!” exclaimed the farmer, who was accustomed to slow
country ways rather than to Skinny’s metropolitan swiftness of
action, “What’s the matter? Don’t we use you right?”
“Use me right? Why, boss, der aint nobody never used me no
whiter den you an’ de missus, but I’ve gotter go on important bizness
an’ if yer’ll lemme come back when de biz is done, I’ll stop wid yer till
I’m a reg’lar haymaker.”
The farmer saw that the boy was in earnest, and although both he
and his wife were sorry to have him go they made no attempt to
dissuade him, but fitted him out with a new hat and shoes, and then
to the lad’s intense surprise handed him a five-dollar note as a
present.
“Wot’s dis fur?” he demanded, looking with his keen, suspicious
little blue eyes from the greenback in his hand to the farmer’s ruddy
and honest face. He had agreed to work for his keep and never before
in his experience had any one of his numerous employers paid him a
nickel more than he was obliged to.
“You’ve earned it, my boy,” said the farmer heartily, “and if you
want to come back again you’ll find a home for you here the same as
before. You’ve saved me hiring an extra man since you have been
here and next summer if you choose to pitch in and work the same as
you have this fall, I’ll do better by you than this.”
Skinny was a boy of but few words, but sometimes he did a good
deal of quiet thinking. He said but little in farewell to his friends, but
as he was passing through the gate he turned for a last look at the
house which had given him shelter and at the farmer and his wife
who were still standing in the doorway and who had treated him with
so much kindness.

The night train bore him swiftly to New York and by nine o’clock
the next morning he was standing in front of the superintendent of
the Newsboys’ Lodging House, in negotiation for what he described
as “first-class commerdations widder best grub in der place.”
Having made arrangements for food and lodging, the boy started
uptown with the intention of seeing Bruce at the truck quarters, but
he had not gone many blocks before he felt a strong hand on his
shoulder and heard a stern voice behind him saying: “And so you’ve
turned up again, you young rascal! Now, let’s hear what you have to
say for yourself!”
The newsboy knew the voice at once. There was no need for him to
turn his head. He felt that the hand of fate, in the person of the tall,
black-bearded man, had overtaken him. But it was not the first time
that the hand of vengeance or justice had fallen upon him, and no
one knew better than Skinny that such a grasp is not always a sure
one. Without even turning his head or uttering a single sound the
boy simply slid out of his jacket, twisted himself free and darted
around the nearest corner, leaving his captor standing on the
sidewalk with the ragged jacket in his hand and on his face a look of
rage that it was well for Skinny’s peace of mind that he did not see.
“I’ll catch him yet, the young vagabond, and find out what he’s
been doing all this time!” muttered the tall man between his teeth as
he looked down at the shabby garment which remained in his hand
as evidence of the brief captivity and sudden, eel-like escape of
Skinny the Swiper. He was about to throw the jacket in the gutter, for
it would look odd to be seen carrying it through the crowded streets,
when his eye fell upon the corner of an envelope protruding from an
inside pocket, and thinking that it might contain a clue to the boy’s
haunts in the city, he took it out and examined it. It was simply a
letter written two days before, but it was the signature of Bruce
Decker which arrested the attention of the man who read it and
brought a sudden gleam into his eyes.

W
Chapter XXX.
hen Bruce returned to New York after his short vacation in the
country, he received such a hearty welcome from every
member of the company, that he realized the fact that it is a good
thing for one to go away now and then if only to indicate the value of
one’s services.
He had not only enjoyed himself during his absence and gained
new health and strength from the clear lake air but he had also
proved to the chief and his subordinates that he was a decidedly
useful boy. The many little duties which he performed about the
quarters had been done so quietly and unostentatiously as well as
effectively that it was not until he was out of the city that the others
realized how much trouble he saved them. As it was, the men had to
burden their minds with a number of small details which had
previously been left entirely in Bruce’s hands, and every time that
one of them was called upon to feed the horses or perform some
small duty for the chief he thought of Bruce and wondered how much
longer that boy was going to stay away.
On his return he found awaiting him a letter bearing no signature
and written in an unformed, girlish hand telling him what he already
knew about the interest which Mr. Dexter had felt in him, and
although there was nothing in the note to indicate its origin, Bruce
knew that it must have been inspired by Laura herself. And a very
delightful thing it was to believe that this young girl had taken so
much trouble on his account as to ask somebody in America to give
him this information. But why did she not write to him herself? That
is what puzzled him, for of course he knew nothing about Mr. Van
Kuren’s reason for breaking off the intimacy.
He had scarcely recovered from the glow of satisfaction which
suffused him, as he read his anonymous letter, and thought of the
young girl to whose kindly interest he owed it, when Chief Trask

approached him and informed him that he was to sleep in the
quarters with the men in future, in order to be on hand in case of a
night alarm.
“You see, my boy, you’re growing older every day now, and I want
you to learn this business through and through, so as to be ready to
take a man’s place when the time comes.”
And, in accordance with the Chiefs orders, which he was only too
glad to obey, Bruce established himself in the dormitory above the
truck quarters, and as he placed his head on the pillow that night,
and saw that his turnout was lying on the floor beside him, he
realized that, although his name was not on the pay-roll of the
department, he was really a fireman at last, and would be expected to
respond to an alarm as readily as any of the men in the company.
The next morning as soon he had finished feeding the horses, and
attended to the other small duties required of him, he took his
particular friend, Charley Weyman, aside and told him of his
experiences in the little graveyard at Rocky Point. He told him how
Skinny had been sent there by the man whom the newsboy called
“Scar-faced Charley,” and who was, he was positive, none other than
the mysterious stranger that Charley Weyman himself had first told
him about.
At the mention of this man, Weyman’s face assumed an expression
of intense interest, which deepened as Bruce continued with his
account of how Skinny had been employed to visit the grave in the
little burying ground and ascertain if possible the whereabouts of any
living member of the Decker family.
“And so this ugly-faced chap is taking all this trouble to find out
whether you were ever burned, and if so, whether you are alive or
dead?” exclaimed the fireman. “Well, if it’s worth anything to him to
find out about you, my opinion is that it’s worth just as much to you
to find out why he is so much interested. He was just as much
concerned about your father that’s dead and gone, and he don’t seem
inclined to lose sight of the family. If I were you, I’d lose no time in
finding out what it all means. But let me tell you one thing, that
fellow never brought good luck to anybody. Your father was never
the same man after he had a visit from him, and if you get him
coming around here after you, you may have cause to be sorry for it.”
“You know he’s living in the same house where I went to call on
Mr. Dexter,” said Bruce, “and I’ve been thinking of going up there to

pay him a visit and put it to him fair and square, ‘what do you want
of me, and why are you so interested in the Decker family?’”
For a moment, Weyman remained silent, evidently thinking over
what the boy had said to him. Then he made answer: “Yes I think on
the whole that’s the quickest and surest-way of finding out what you
want to know. There’s nothing like suddenly facing a man of that sort
and putting your question to him before he has time to frame some
answer that might suit his own purpose. Likely as not if he knew you
were coming he’d cook up some reply that would throw you off your
scent but when you come upon him unexpectedly he is apt to tell the
truth even when it’s contrary to his usual practice. Yes I’d go up there
if I were you because if he’s hunting up for the son of Frank Decker
he’s bound to come across him sooner or later. It’s funny he never
came around here to ask the Chief or any of us about him, and it’s
just as strange to me that he didn’t find out at headquarters that you
were drawing a pension. However, I’ve noticed that these very smart
and tricky fellows often over-reach themselves by trying to be too
smart when they might accomplish some thing by being
straightforward and honest.”
Bruce, having slept on the matter, determined to take his friend’s
advice, and although it was more difficult for him to obtain leave of
absence now that he had become a more useful member of the
company than formerly, he soon found an opportunity to make the
long journey to the upper part of the city where Mr. Dexter’s house
was situated. Leaving the elevated railroad, he walked a few blocks
out of his way in order to pass the gate of the great mansion in which
Harry and Laura Van Kuren had lived. The house was closed now,
and it was evident from the unkempt appearance of the lawn and
shrubbery that its master had been away for some time.
For several minutes he stood leaning sadly upon the gate and
thinking of the kind friends whom he had known there, and from
whom he was now separated not only by the trackless waste of ocean,
but also by something he knew not what, but which was nevertheless
an invisible and impassable barrier. It was with a sad heart that he
finally turned his back on the Van Kuren mansion and walked
rapidly along the same highway which he had last trodden in
company with the Van Kuren children and their tutor on that day
when he discovered that Mr. Dexter had departed for Europe.

Once more he entered the broad gate and made his way along the
winding road through the dense shrubbery to the door of the stately
old colonial mansion. A servant answered his ring of the bell and said
in response to his inquiry that Mr. Korwein lived there nominally but
spent most of his time down town, the woman did not know where.
Sometimes she did not see him for a week, and then he would appear
suddenly, remain with them three or four days without quitting the
house, and then disappear to be gone perhaps a week or two longer.
She had no idea where his office was and did not know when Mr.
Dexter would return. Having vouchsafed this information, she closed
the door, and as her young visitor departed, he heard the bolt sharply
snap behind him.
Before leaving the grounds, Bruce walked to the corner of the
house and refreshed his memory with another long look at the old
vine-clad porch which had attracted his attention on the occasion of
his first visit and had suggested to his mind the long search upon
which he was still engaged. There it was just as when he had last seen
it, just as it was when he saw it in those long gone by childish days.
He returned in a rather disconsolate mood to the quarters and told
Weyman the result of his visit.
“Never mind,” said the latter, “you mustn’t expect to learn every
thing all in a hurry. Go up again there the next time you can get away
for an afternoon and you may find him. Anyhow while there’s life
there’s hope, and if you can’t find him there you may run across him
down town some time. Keep your eyes open whenever you go about
the streets, and you’ll find him some day when you’ll least expect
him. I never go out without looking for him myself.”
Bruce paid two more visits to the Dexter mansion without learning
anything further, and it was then that he sat down and wrote the
letter to Skinny asking him how soon he expected to be back in town
again, the effect of which has been shown in a preceding chapter.

A
Chapter XXXI.
bout one hour after the brief but violent sidewalk encounter
already described, a small and ragged street boy entered Chief
Trask’s quarters, cast a searching eye over the group of men who
were assembled there, and then walked quickly over to Bruce Decker,
who was at work, can in hand, oiling the wheels of the chief’s wagon.
“Is dis your name, boss?” he inquired, as he handed to him a letter,
enclosed in a dirty yellow envelope, on which was written, in
sprawling, uncertain characters, the words:
Bruce Decker,
In Care of Hook and Ladder.
The young fire lad opened the message, and deciphered the
following sentence:
“Cum down and meet me at Lyonse’s, and eat supper to-night. Wot time will you
come?
Skinny.”
“Dere’s an answer ter dat,” said the boy, as Bruce finished reading
the note.

“Dere’s an answer ter dat,” said
the boy.—Page 286.
“Very well, then, tell him I’ll be with him at six,” he said, and the
young ragamuffin departed, while Bruce resumed his work on the
chief’s wagon, amazed and delighted to get an answer in such a short
time to his letter. The afternoon seemed to pass very slowly, and at
half-past five he obtained the chief’s permission to go out for a little
while, and bent his steps immediately to Lyons’s, a restaurant on the
Bowery, which Skinny visited once in a while when he was
prosperous enough to treat himself to a substantial meal.
Bruce found the little newsboy standing in front of the open door.
“I got your note yesterday, an’ here I am,” was Skinny’s greeting, as
the two boys shook hands. “I cum right on de minute I knowed I wuz
wanted here,” he added, “an’ what’s more I’ve got dat mun’ yer let me
have de time we cum outter de hospital,” and he handed four dollars
and twenty-two cents to his companion, with a distinct look of pride.
It pleased Bruce very much to feel that his humble little friend was
so honest and so willing to do his bidding, and he said so in a hearty,
straightforward manner that Skinny readily understood. Then they
entered the restaurant, selected a quiet table, in an obscure corner,
and sat down to a nice supper, Skinny acting as host for perhaps the
first time in his life. And as they ate they talked, the newsboy

describing his experiences on the farm, and Bruce plying him with
questions about the different country people he knew.
Never before in his life had Bruce felt so much like a character in a
story book as he did now, and even Skinny remarked that the
situation reminded him of a similar one in his favorite romance
“Shorty, the Boy Detective.”
It was the first time that the newsboy had ever entertained anyone
at a dinner as sumptuous as the one which he now offered to the
young lad whom he admired and liked as he liked and admired no
other human being. He recommended all the most expensive dishes
on the bill of fare, ordered the waiter around in a way that brought a
broad smile to that functionary’s face, and “showed off” in so many
other ways that Bruce, who was at heart a modest and unobtrusive
young chap, finally felt constrained to ask him to attract less
attention, and conduct himself with more decorum.
The fact was, that Skinny “felt his oats,” as they say in the country.
He was very proud to be called in as a sort of advisory counsel in
such a delicate and important matter as the one which now occupied
Bruce’s mind, and he was ready enough to give his friend the full
benefit of his long experience in the city and really remarkable
knowledge of the habits of crooked, crafty and dangerous people.
Young as he was, the newsboy had long since learned the great lesson
of eternal vigilance, and he knew well enough that the man whom he
called “Scar-faced Charlie” was not one in whom implicit confidence
should be reposed.
He listened attentively as Bruce described his visits to the Dexter
mansion, and then said to him “Wot’s de matter wid bracin’ him in
his Eldridge Street joint?”
“But I don’t know where it is,” replied the other.
“Come along wid me, an’ I’ll show yer,” said Skinny quickly, and,
having paid the check and handed the amazed waiter a quarter,
coupling his gift with an admonition to “hustle lively” the next time
he had any visitors of distinction to wait on, the newsboy led the way
down the Bowery which was by this time crowded with people and
brilliantly lighted, to Grand Street, and then in an easterly direction
to a corner from which he could see the building in which Mr.
Korwein had his office.
But beyond this corner Skinny positively refused to go. Plucky as
he was, and heedless of results, he had a profound fear for the big

strong man out of whose stern grasp he had wriggled that very day.
“You go over dere, an’ brace de old bloke. I’ll wait here. He’s dere,
fer de lights in the windy,” he said. And Bruce was forced to make his
visit alone.
Never before in his life had he gone about any task that so tried his
nerves as this one, and it was fully five minutes before he could make
up his mind to open the door and enter the money-lender’s dingy
office. At last, however, his will conquered his fears, and he marched
boldly up the steps, opened the door and closed it behind him with a
sharp bang. Mr. Korwein was standing behind the tall desk adding
up a long column of figures in his ledger. He looked up as the boy
entered and said rather roughly: “Well, what can I do for you this
evening?”
“I’m not quite sure what you can do for me,” rejoined his visitor,
looking him carefully in the face and speaking in a tone which
arrested the tall man’s attention at once. “I heard that you are
making some rather particular inquiries about me, and I thought if
there was anything you wanted to know, I might be able to tell you
myself.”
“Inquiries about you!” repeated Mr. Korwein, dropping his pen
and coming out from behind the tall desk, in order to get a good view
of his visitor, “why, who are you?”
“My name is Bruce Decker, and I am the son of Frank Decker, the
fireman,” was the boy’s answer.
Not much in the words he uttered nor in the tone of his voice, one
would say. But enough to drive every particle of color from the
money-lender’s face and to cause him to start back with a half
suppressed oath on his lips, and an expression in which rage,
disappointment and astonishment seemed to be blended in equal
parts.
“Frank Decker’s son! He never had any son!” he exclaimed.
“Oh yes he did,” replied Bruce “and I am that son. I heard you were
looking for me. Now that I am here, tell me what you want.”
“And so you are really Frank’s boy are you,” said the money-
lender, speaking in a more conciliatory tone and evidently trying to
recover his equanimity, “well I am glad to see you, glad to see you.
I’ve been looking for you because, because—to tell the truth, there is
a little money coming to you, not much my boy, not very much, but
something. It was left to your father, and by his death goes to his

next of kin. If you are really his son, you are entitled to it. But I must
have proof you know, proof, before I can pay it over. Where do you
live, my boy? Let me know your address and I will look you up and
see that you receive every cent that is your due.” He wiped the
perspiration from his face as he entered with much care in a
memorandum book the address which Bruce gave him, which was
that of Chief Trask’s house and not of the boy’s. And then, declaring
that he could say no more until he received absolute proof that Bruce
was what he represented himself to be, he opened the door and
ushered his visitor out into the street.
Bruce stood for a moment on the sidewalk, utterly bewildered by
what he had heard.
“Well, did yer brace de bloke?” demanded Skinny appearing
suddenly in front of him.
“Yes,” answered Bruce “and he told me he had some money to pay
me that was left to my father.”
“Hully gee,” exclaimed the boy. “Better look out though dat yer get
all wot’s comin’ to yer. Dat Scar-faced Charlie don’t never pay bills in
full.”

I
Chapter XXXII.
n his private office in the poor, shabby building, in which for
reasons best known to himself he had chosen to establish his place
of business, the tall saturnine black bearded and altogether
mysterious character known already to some of our readers sat busy
with books and letters.
In the outer office his bookkeeper stood at his tall desk pausing
now and then to talk to those who came in, intent on some business
errand, and once in a while referring some particular person to his
master who sat in the inside room.
It was just twelve o’clock and during the morning all sorts of
people had been coming and going in and out of that dingy little
place of business. Some of the visitors were well to do in appearance
while others looked as if poverty and misfortune had long since
claimed them as their own. Some were men and others women, and
there were three or four children among the clients of the place. If
the visitors were noticeable for any one thing it was for the stealthy
and mysterious manner in which they entered and made known their
wishes to the bookkeeper who stood guard at the outer office. This
functionary, by the way, seemed to be well acquainted with nearly
every one that called, and he usually had a word of greeting that was
sometimes pleasant sometimes sarcastic and often contemptuous. To
a man with a cast in his eye who slouched cautiously in after having
scanned the neighborhood from under his hat for at least three
minutes before entering, the bookkeeper said jocosely:
“Well what have you got for us to-day? Any nice loose diamonds or
a few watch cases?”
“Hush!” exclaimed the visitor warily as he laid his finger-against
his nose, “you’re always talking foolishly. Can I have a word with the
boss to-day?”

“I guess so; you’re a pretty good customer here. So you may walk
right in.” The visitor tip-toed into the private room, closed the door
behind him, drew his chair up beside the tall saturnine man who was
still busy with his pen, and whispered something in his ear that
caused him to sit bolt upright and gaze sharply and with amazement
in the face of his visitor. For fully an hour the man with the cast in
his eye remained in the inner office and when he finally withdrew,
the other accompanied him to the door and stood for a moment
talking earnestly to him in a low voice before he permitted him to
depart. Then he went back to his desk, and his face as he passed
through the room, was so stern and troubled that one or two visitors
who were seated awaiting his pleasure viewed him carefully, then
shook their heads and departed, preferring to talk to him at some
time when they should find him in better humor. As for the visitors
they all came with one object in view which was money, for the well
dressed man who sat at the desk in the inner office made a business
of lending money at exorbitant rates of interest and on all sorts
securities.
“But why,” some reader might inquire, “should a man of good
connections and education embark in such a business and select as
his headquarters a dirty cheap office in a poverty stricken part of the
town?”
And the reply is that he selected a neighborhood in which he knew
money to be a scarce commodity, and which all his clients, the high
as well as the low, could visit without fear of detection. As has been
already said he had clients of various classes. There was one man, for
example, who could be found almost any evening in some
fashionable club or drawing-room up town and who, on the very
morning of which we write, had spent nearly half an hour in that
little private office. This man had debts amounting to $25,000, and a
father whose fortune of a million he had reasonable hopes of
acquiring in due course of time. But his father was a man of the
strictest honor, and the son well knew that if he were to hear of his
losses at cards and horse racing he would cut him off without a
dollar, and leave all his money to a distant cousin whom he had
always detested. Situated as he was, this man found the money-
lender of Eldridge Street a most convenient friend, and it was an easy
matter for the latter to persuade him that for the use of ten or fifteen
thousand dollars in cash with which to appease the most

importunate of his creditors, he could well afford to give a note for
five times the amount payable after the death of his parent.
“And even now,” continued the money lender, shaking his head as
he handed him a large roll of bills, “I am taking risks that I ought not
to take with you or with anybody else. How do I know that you will
outlive your father? How do I know that the old man will leave you
anything when he dies? How do I know even that he has got anything
to leave, or that having it now he will have it a year hence? These are
ticklish times, and if I were a prudent business man, without
anything of the speculator in me, I would just hang on to what
money I’ve got, and let you and the rest of them like you shift for
yourselves. I’ve half a mind now,” he added, suddenly, as he
tightened his grip on the greenbacks, which had not quite passed out
of his hand, “to tear your note up and put the money back in my
safe.” But at this threat his visitor snatched the coveted roll from his
hand, placed it in his inside pocket, and buttoning his coat up tightly,
exclaimed, “Don’t talk to me about the chances you take, Mr.
Shylock, when you know perfectly well that I’m good for anything I
put my name to, and that it won’t be long before you get your own
again with a pound of my flesh into the bargain.”
It will be seen from this conversation that the mysterious bearded
man had a keen eye for business, and as his little shop was full of
customers from morning till night, one may readily believe that he
made a large income with very little mental or physical exertion on
his part.
It was just one o’clock when, having disposed of his visiter with the
cast in his eye, the money-lender sat behind his desk with his cigar in
his mouth, lost in thought. Something must have troubled him for
his brow was ruffled and from time to time an angry blush crept into
his cheek. One might have noticed too—had there been any one there
to notice him—that he started uneasily at every sound that came
from the little outer room and finally when he heard a woman’s voice
raised in shrill anger he stepped to the door, listened for a moment
or so and then come out to see what was the matter. It was an old
Irish woman who stood with a package in her hand talking angrily to
the bookkeeper.
“An’ sure you’ll not refuse a poor old woman the loan of a ten
dollar note on these little bits of things?” she was saying in a voice
that betrayed her peevishness and annoyance.

“Can’t give you anything to-day, madam,” returned the bookkeeper
speaking very positively and then, noticing his employer he added,
“There’s the boss himself, and he’ll tell you the same thing.”
But the “boss” had already caught a glimpse of the old Irish
woman’s face, and to the intense surprise of his subordinate he
retreated suddenly into his private room, banged the door after him
and then thinking better of his act, opened it wide enough to say in a
low and guarded whisper, “Give the old woman what she wants and
bring the package in to me. Get her address, too, while you’re about
it.”
The bookkeeper did as he was ordered. And as the old woman
wrote her name on the receipt with trembling fingers she uttered:
“Now remember, I’ll be back for this when my allowance comes. But
me friends are coming back from Europe soon and they will never let
old Ann Crehan go hungry. They’ll all be back, the master and Miss
Emma and the two young children and then I’ll have everything I
want. An’ it’ll be a sorry day for that hard-hearted spalpeen who
forgot the one who took care of him and will let her go to the
poorhouse for the want of a few dollars. Sure his fine old uncle would
never threat me in that fashion.”
As the old woman departed, the clerk took the package into the
inner office and laid it before his employer, and the latter before
opening the paper shut and bolted the door. He found nothing within
but a few thin and worn silver spoons and an old fashioned open-
faced gold watch. Inside of the case was the following inscription
“FOR FIDELITY AND COURAGE
TO ANN CREHAN
FROM SAMUEL DEXTER.”
Well did that strong, bearded man, whose face, with its deep lines
and heavy, overhanging brow, was an index to his passionate, wilful
nature, know what that inscription meant. It carried him back in
memory to a bright, spring morning, years ago, when this same old
woman, whose tottering footsteps had just passed over his threshold,
was a servant in the family of his kinsman, Samuel Dexter, with
whom he, an orphan boy, had found a home. Well did he recall that
day, and the accident through which he might have lost his life had it
not been for the courage of the Irish servant, who rushed at the peril

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