Lou nodded. "My sisters and brothers all left town years ago," he remarked rather sadly. "I miss them, but they don't bother to write back when I send letters and the like so I haven't seen most of them in a while." If Mr. McBride let him, Lou helped fix on the strap- most jobs went faster with two hands- and he chattered on about his pets and the other strays he took in. At one point, he mentioned he was letting someone live with him, and at the slip of the tongue that the person was a woman and the two of them weren't involved in any way would probably raise curiosity in Mr. McBride, though Lou saw nothing the matter with it.