GALLEGHERAND OTHER STORIES

BY

RICHARD HARDING DAVIS

_With Illustrations by Charles Dana Gibson_

COPYRIGHT, 1891, BYCHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

TOMY MOTHER

CONTENTS

GALLEGHER: A NEWSPAPER STORY

A WALK UP THE AVENUE

MY DISREPUTABLE FRIEND, MR. RAEGEN

THE OTHER WOMAN

THE TRAILER FOR ROOM NO. 8

"THERE WERE NINETY AND NINE"

THE CYNICAL MISS CATHERWAIGHT

VAN BIBBER AND THE SWAN-BOATS

VAN BIBBER'S BURGLAR

VAN BIBBER AS BEST MAN

GALLEGHERA Newspaper Story

[Illustration: "Why, it's Gallegher!" said the night editor. ]

We had had so many office-boys before Gallegher came among us thatthey had begun to lose the characteristics of individuals, and becamemerged in a composite photograph of small boys, to whom we applied thegeneric title of "Here, you"; or "You, boy. "

We had had sleepy boys, and lazy boys, and bright, "smart" boys, whobecame so familiar on so short an acquaintance that we were forced topart with them to save our own self-respect. 

They generally graduated into district-messenger boys, andoccasionally returned to us in blue coats with nickel-plated buttons, and patronized us. 

But Gallegher was something different from anything we had experiencedbefore. Gallegher was short and broad in build, with a solid, muscularbroadness, and not a fat and dumpy shortness. He wore perpetually onhis face a happy and knowing smile, as if you and the world in generalwere not impressing him as seriously as you thought you were, and hiseyes, which were very black and very bright, snapped intelligently atyou like those of a little black-and-tan terrier. 

All Gallegher knew had been learnt on the streets; not a very goodschool in itself, but one that turns out very knowing scholars. AndGallegher had attended both morning and evening sessions. He could nottell you who the Pilgrim Fathers were, nor could he name the thirteenoriginal States, but he knew all the officers of the twenty-secondpolice district by name, and he could distinguish the clang of a fire-engine's gong from that of a patrol-wagon or an ambulance fully twoblocks distant. It was Gallegher who rang the alarm when the WoolwichMills caught fire, while the officer on the beat was asleep, and itwas Gallegher who led the "Black Diamonds" against the "Wharf Rats, "when they used to stone each other to their hearts' content on thecoal-wharves of Richmond. 

I am afraid, now that I see these facts written down, that Gallegherwas not a reputable character; but he was so very young and so veryold for his years that we all liked him very much nevertheless. Helived in the extreme northern part of Philadelphia, where the cotton-and woollen-mills run down to the river, and how he ever got homeafter leaving the _Press_ building at two in the morning, was oneof the mysteries of the office. Sometimes he caught a night car, andsometimes he walked all the way, arriving at the little house, wherehis mother and himself lived alone, at four in the morning. Occasionally he was given a ride on an early milk-cart, or on one ofthe newspaper delivery wagons, with its high piles of papers stilldamp and sticky from the press. He knew several drivers of "nighthawks"--those cabs that prowl the streets at night looking for belatedpassengers--and when it was a very cold morning he would not go homeat all, but would crawl into one of these cabs and sleep, curled up onthe cushions, until daylight. 

Besides being quick and cheerful, Gallegher possessed a power ofamusing the _Press's_ young men to a degree seldom attained by theordinary mortal. His clog-dancing on the city editor's desk, when thatgentleman was up-stairs fighting for two more columns of space, wasalways a source of innocent joy to us, and his imitations of thecomedians of the variety halls delighted even the dramatic critic, from whom the comedians themselves failed to force a smile. 

But Gallegher's chief characteristic was his love for that element ofnews generically classed as "crime. " Not that he ever did anythingcriminal himself. On the contrary, his was rather the work of thecriminal specialist, and his morbid interest in the doings of allqueer characters, his knowledge of their methods, their presentwhereabouts, and their past deeds of transgression often rendered hima valuable ally to our police reporter, whose daily feuilletons werethe only portion of the paper Gallegher deigned to read. 

In Gallegher the detective element was abnormally developed. He hadshown this on several occasions, and to excellent purpose. 

Once the paper had sent him into a Home for Destitute Orphans whichwas believed to be grievously mismanaged, and Gallegher, while playingthe part of a destitute orphan, kept his eyes open to what was goingon around him so faithfully that the story he told of the treatmentmeted out to the real orphans was sufficient to rescue the unhappylittle wretches from the individual who had them in charge, and tohave the individual himself sent to jail. 

Gallegher's knowledge of the aliases, terms of imprisonment, andvarious misdoings of the leading criminals in Philadelphia was almostas thorough as that of the chief of police himself, and he could tellto an hour when "Dutchy Mack" was to be let out of prison, and couldidentify at a glance "Dick Oxford, confidence man, " as "Gentleman Dan, petty thief. "

There were, at this time, only two pieces of news in any of thepapers. The least important of the two was the big fight between theChampion of the United States and the Would-be Champion, arranged totake place near Philadelphia; the second was the Burrbank murder, which was filling space in newspapers all over the world, from NewYork to Bombay. 

Richard F. Burrbank was one of the most prominent of New York'srailroad lawyers; he was also, as a matter of course, an owner of muchrailroad stock, and a very wealthy man. He had been spoken of as apolitical possibility for many high offices, and, as the counsel for agreat railroad, was known even further than the great railroad itselfhad stretched its system. 

At six o'clock one morning he was found by his butler lying at thefoot of the hall stairs with two pistol wounds above his heart. He wasquite dead. His safe, to which only he and his secretary had the keys, was found open, and $200, 000 in bonds, stocks, and money, which hadbeen placed there only the night before, was found missing. Thesecretary was missing also. His name was Stephen S. Hade, and his nameand his description had been telegraphed and cabled to all parts ofthe world. There was enough circumstantial evidence to show, beyondany question or possibility of mistake, that he was the murderer. 

It made an enormous amount of talk, and unhappy individuals were beingarrested all over the country, and sent on to New York foridentification. Three had been arrested at Liverpool, and one man justas he landed at Sydney, Australia. But so far the murderer hadescaped. 

We were all talking about it one night, as everybody else was all overthe country, in the local room, and the city editor said it was wortha fortune to any one who chanced to run across Hade and succeeded inhanding him over to the police. Some of us thought Hade had takenpassage from some one of the smaller seaports, and others were of theopinion that he had buried himself in some cheap lodging-house in NewYork, or in one of the smaller towns in New Jersey. 

"I shouldn't be surprised to meet him out walking, right here inPhiladelphia, " said one of the staff. "He'll be disguised, of course, but you could always tell him by the absence of the trigger finger onhis right hand. It's missing, you know; shot off when he was a boy. "

"You want to look for a man dressed like a tough, " said the cityeditor; "for as this fellow is to all appearances a gentleman, he willtry to look as little like a gentleman as possible. "

"No, he won't, " said Gallegher, with that calm impertinence that madehim dear to us. "He'll dress just like a gentleman. Toughs don't weargloves, and you see he's got to wear 'em. The first thing he thoughtof after doing for Burrbank was of that gone finger, and how he was tohide it. He stuffed the finger of that glove with cotton so's to makeit look like a whole finger, and the first time he takes off thatglove they've got him--see, and he knows it. So what youse want to dois to look for a man with gloves on. I've been a-doing it for twoweeks now, and I can tell you it's hard work, for everybody wearsgloves this kind of weather. But if you look long enough you'll findhim. And when you think it's him, go up to him and hold out your handin a friendly way, like a bunco-steerer, and shake his hand; and ifyou feel that his forefinger ain't real flesh, but just wadded cotton, then grip to it with your right and grab his throat with your left, and holler for help. "

There was an appreciative pause. 

"I see, gentlemen, " said the city editor, dryly, "that Gallegher'sreasoning has impressed you; and I also see that before the week isout all of my young men will be under bonds for assaulting innocentpedestrians whose only offence is that they wear gloves in midwinter. "

It was about a week after this that Detective Hefflefinger, ofInspector Byrnes's staff, came over to Philadelphia after a burglar, of whose whereabouts he had been misinformed by telegraph. He broughtthe warrant, requisition, and other necessary papers with him, but theburglar had flown. One of our reporters had worked on a New Yorkpaper, and knew Hefflefinger, and the detective came to the office tosee if he could help him in his so far unsuccessful search. 

He gave Gallegher his card, and after Gallegher had read it, and haddiscovered who the visitor was, he became so demoralized that he wasabsolutely useless. 

"One of Byrnes's men" was a much more awe-inspiring individual toGallegher than a member of the Cabinet. He accordingly seized his hatand overcoat, and leaving his duties to be looked after by others, hastened out after the object of his admiration, who found hissuggestions and knowledge of the city so valuable, and his company soentertaining, that they became very intimate, and spent the rest ofthe day together. 

In the meanwhile the managing editor had instructed his subordinatesto inform Gallegher, when he condescended to return, that his serviceswere no longer needed. Gallegher had played truant once too often. Unconscious of this, he remained with his new friend until late thesame evening, and started the next afternoon toward the _Press_office. 

As I have said, Gallegher lived in the most distant part of the city, not many minutes' walk from the Kensington railroad station, wheretrains ran into the suburbs and on to New York. 

It was in front of this station that a smoothly shaven, well-dressedman brushed past Gallegher and hurried up the steps to the ticketoffice. 

He held a walking-stick in his right hand, and Gallegher, who nowpatiently scrutinized the hands of every one who wore gloves, saw thatwhile three fingers of the man's hand were closed around the cane, thefourth stood out in almost a straight line with his palm. 

Gallegher stopped with a gasp and with a trembling all over his littlebody, and his brain asked with a throb if it could be possible. Butpossibilities and probabilities were to be discovered later. Now wasthe time for action. 

He was after the man in a moment, hanging at his heels and his eyesmoist with excitement. He heard the man ask for a ticket toTorresdale, a little station just outside of Philadelphia, and when hewas out of hearing, but not out of sight, purchased one for the sameplace. 

The stranger went into the smoking-car, and seated himself at one endtoward the door. Gallegher took his place at the opposite end. 

He was trembling all over, and suffered from a slight feeling ofnausea. He guessed it came from fright, not of any bodily harm thatmight come to him, but at the probability of failure in his adventureand of its most momentous possibilities. 

The stranger pulled his coat collar up around his ears, hiding thelower portion of his face, but not concealing the resemblance in histroubled eyes and close-shut lips to the likenesses of the murdererHade. 

They reached Torresdale in half an hour, and the stranger, alightingquickly, struck off at a rapid pace down the country road leading tothe station. 

Gallegher gave him a hundred yards' start, and then followed slowlyafter. The road ran between fields and past a few frame-houses set farfrom the road in kitchen gardens. 

Once or twice the man looked back over his shoulder, but he saw only adreary length of road with a small boy splashing through the slush inthe midst of it and stopping every now and again to throw snowballs atbelated sparrows. 

After a ten minutes' walk the stranger turned into a side road whichled to only one place, the Eagle Inn, an old roadside hostelry knownnow as the headquarters for pothunters from the Philadelphia gamemarket and the battle-ground of many a cock-fight. 

Gallegher knew the place well. He and his young companions had oftenstopped there when out chestnutting on holidays in the autumn. 

The son of the man who kept it had often accompanied them on theirexcursions, and though the boys of the city streets considered him adumb lout, they respected him somewhat owing to his inside knowledgeof dog and cock-fights. 

The stranger entered the inn at a side door, and Gallegher, reachingit a few minutes later, let him go for the time being, and set aboutfinding his occasional playmate, young Keppler. 

Keppler's offspring was found in the wood-shed. 

"'Tain't hard to guess what brings you out here, " said the tavern-keeper's son, with a grin; "it's the fight. "

"What fight?" asked Gallegher, unguardedly. 

"What fight? Why, _the_ fight, " returned his companion, with the slowcontempt of superior knowledge. "It's to come off here to-night. Youknew that as well as me; anyway your sportin' editor knows it. He gotthe tip last night, but that won't help you any. You needn't thinkthere's any chance of your getting a peep at it. Why, tickets is twohundred and fifty apiece!"

"Whew!" whistled Gallegher, "where's it to be?"

"In the barn, " whispered Keppler. "I helped 'em fix the ropes thismorning, I did. "

"Gosh, but you're in luck, " exclaimed Gallegher, with flattering envy. "Couldn't I jest get a peep at it?"

"Maybe, " said the gratified Keppler. "There's a winder with a woodenshutter at the back of the barn. You can get in by it, if you havesome one to boost you up to the sill. "

"Sa-a-y, " drawled Gallegher, as if something had but just that momentreminded him. "Who's that gent who come down the road just a bit aheadof me--him with the cape-coat! Has he got anything to do with thefight?"

"Him?" repeated Keppler in tones of sincere disgust. "No-oh, he ain'tno sport. He's queer, Dad thinks. He come here one day last week aboutten in the morning, said his doctor told him to go out 'en the countryfor his health. He's stuck up and citified, and wears gloves, andtakes his meals private in his room, and all that sort of ruck. Theywas saying in the saloon last night that they thought he was hidingfrom something, and Dad, just to try him, asks him last night if hewas coming to see the fight. He looked sort of scared, and said hedidn't want to see no fight. And then Dad says, 'I guess you mean youdon't want no fighters to see you. ' Dad didn't mean no harm by it, just passed it as a joke; but Mr. Carleton, as he calls himself, gotwhite as a ghost an' says, 'I'll go to the fight willing enough, ' andbegins to laugh and joke. And this morning he went right into the bar-room, where all the sports were setting, and said he was going intotown to see some friends; and as he starts off he laughs an' says, 'This don't look as if I was afraid of seeing people, does it?' butDad says it was just bluff that made him do it, and Dad thinks that ifhe hadn't said what he did, this Mr. Carleton wouldn't have left hisroom at all. "

Gallegher had got all he wanted, and much more than he had hoped for--so much more that his walk back to the station was in the nature of atriumphal march. 

He had twenty minutes to wait for the next train, and it seemed anhour. While waiting he sent a telegram to Hefflefinger at his hotel. It read: "Your man is near the Torresdale station, on PennsylvaniaRailroad; take cab, and meet me at station. Wait until I come. GALLEGHER. "

With the exception of one at midnight, no other train stopped atTorresdale that evening, hence the direction to take a cab. 

The train to the city seemed to Gallegher to drag itself by inches. Itstopped and backed at purposeless intervals, waited for an express toprecede it, and dallied at stations, and when, at last, it reached theterminus, Gallegher was out before it had stopped and was in the caband off on his way to the home of the sporting editor. 

The sporting editor was at dinner and came out in the hall to see him, with his napkin in his hand. Gallegher explained breathlessly that hehad located the murderer for whom the police of two continents werelooking, and that he believed, in order to quiet the suspicions of thepeople with whom he was hiding, that he would be present at the fightthat night. 

The sporting editor led Gallegher into his library and shut the door. "Now, " he said, "go over all that again. "

Gallegher went over it again in detail, and added how he had sent forHefflefinger to make the arrest in order that it might be kept fromthe knowledge of the local police and from the Philadelphia reporters. 

"What I want Hefflefinger to do is to arrest Hade with the warrant hehas for the burglar, " explained Gallegher; "and to take him on to NewYork on the owl train that passes Torresdale at one. It don't get toJersey City until four o'clock, one hour after the morning papers goto press. Of course, we must fix Hefflefinger so's he'll keep quietand not tell who his prisoner really is. "

The sporting editor reached his hand out to pat Gallegher on the head, but changed his mind and shook hands with him instead. 

"My boy, " he said, "you are an infant phenomenon. If I can pull therest of this thing off to-night it will mean the $5, 000 reward andfame galore for you and the paper. Now, I'm going to write a note tothe managing editor, and you can take it around to him and tell himwhat you've done and what I am going to do, and he'll take you back onthe paper and raise your salary. Perhaps you didn't know you've beendischarged?"

"Do you think you ain't a-going to take me with you?" demandedGallegher. 

"Why, certainly not. Why should I? It all lies with the detective andmyself now. You've done your share, and done it well. If the man'scaught, the reward's yours. But you'd only be in the way now. You'dbetter go to the office and make your peace with the chief. "

"If the paper can get along without me, I can get along without theold paper, " said Gallegher, hotly. "And if I ain't a-going with you, you ain't neither, for I know where Hefflefinger is to be, and youdon't, and I won't tell you. "

"Oh, very well, very well, " replied the sporting editor, weaklycapitulating. "I'll send the note by a messenger; only mind, if youlose your place, don't blame me. "

Gallegher wondered how this man could value a week's salary againstthe excitement of seeing a noted criminal run down, and of getting thenews to the paper, and to that one paper alone. 

From that moment the sporting editor sank in Gallegher's estimation. 

Mr. Dwyer sat down at his desk and scribbled off the following note:

"I have received reliable information that Hade, the Burrbankmurderer, will be present at the fight to-night. We have arranged itso that he will be arrested quietly and in such a manner that the factmay be kept from all other papers. I need not point out to you thatthis will be the most important piece of news in the country to-morrow. 

"Yours, etc. , MICHAEL E. DWYER. "

The sporting editor stepped into the waiting cab, while Gallegherwhispered the directions to the driver. He was told to go first to adistrict-messenger office, and from there up to the Ridge Avenue Road, out Broad Street, and on to the old Eagle Inn, near Torresdale. It wasa miserable night. The rain and snow were falling together, andfreezing as they fell. The sporting editor got out to send his messageto the _Press_ office, and then lighting a cigar, and turning up thecollar of his great-coat, curled up in the corner of the cab. 

"Wake me when we get there, Gallegher, " he said. He knew he had a longride, and much rapid work before him, and he was preparing for thestrain. 

To Gallegher the idea of going to sleep seemed almost criminal. Fromthe dark corner of the cab his eyes shone with excitement, and withthe awful joy of anticipation. He glanced every now and then to wherethe sporting editor's cigar shone in the darkness, and watched it asit gradually burnt more dimly and went out. The lights in the shopwindows threw a broad glare across the ice on the pavements, and thelights from the lamp-posts tossed the distorted shadow of the cab, andthe horse, and the motionless driver, sometimes before and sometimesbehind them. 

After half an hour Gallegher slipped down to the bottom of the cab anddragged out a lap-robe, in which he wrapped himself. It was growingcolder, and the damp, keen wind swept in through the cracks until thewindow-frames and woodwork were cold to the touch. 

An hour passed, and the cab was still moving more slowly over therough surface of partly paved streets, and by single rows of newhouses standing at different angles to each other in fields coveredwith ash-heaps and brick-kilns. Here and there the gaudy lights of adrug-store, and the forerunner of suburban civilization, shone fromthe end of a new block of houses, and the rubber cape of an occasionalpoliceman showed in the light of the lamp-post that he hugged forcomfort. 

Then even the houses disappeared, and the cab dragged its way betweentruck farms, with desolate-looking glass-covered beds, and pools ofwater, half-caked with ice, and bare trees, and interminable fences. 

Once or twice the cab stopped altogether, and Gallegher could hear thedriver swearing to himself, or at the horse, or the roads. At lastthey drew up before the station at Torresdale. It was quite deserted, and only a single light cut a swath in the darkness and showed aportion of the platform, the ties, and the rails glistening in therain. They walked twice past the light before a figure stepped out ofthe shadow and greeted them cautiously. 

"I am Mr. Dwyer, of the _Press, _" said the sporting editor, briskly. "You've heard of me, perhaps. Well, there shouldn't be any difficultyin our making a deal, should there? This boy here has found Hade, andwe have reason to believe he will be among the spectators at the fightto-night. We want you to arrest him quietly, and as secretly aspossible. You can do it with your papers and your badge easily enough. We want you to pretend that you believe he is this burglar you cameover after. If you will do this, and take him away without any one somuch as suspecting who he really is, and on the train that passes hereat 1. 20 for New York, we will give you $500 out of the $5, 000 reward. If, however, one other paper, either in New York or Philadelphia, oranywhere else, knows of the arrest, you won't get a cent. Now, what doyou say?"

The detective had a great deal to say. He wasn't at all sure the manGallegher suspected was Hade; he feared he might get himself intotrouble by making a false arrest, and if it should be the man, he wasafraid the local police would interfere. 

"We've no time to argue or debate this matter, " said Dwyer, warmly. "We agree to point Hade out to you in the crowd. After the fight isover you arrest him as we have directed, and you get the money and thecredit of the arrest. If you don't like this, I will arrest the manmyself, and have him driven to town, with a pistol for a warrant. "

Hefflefinger considered in silence and then agreed unconditionally. "As you say, Mr. Dwyer, " he returned. "I've heard of you for athoroughbred sport. I know you'll do what you say you'll do; and asfor me I'll do what you say and just as you say, and it's a verypretty piece of work as it stands. "

They all stepped back into the cab, and then it was that they were metby a fresh difficulty, how to get the detective into the barn wherethe fight was to take place, for neither of the two men had $250 topay for his admittance. 

But this was overcome when Gallegher remembered the window of whichyoung Keppler had told him. 

In the event of Hade's losing courage and not daring to show himselfin the crowd around the ring, it was agreed that Dwyer should come tothe barn and warn Hefflefinger; but if he should come, Dwyer wasmerely to keep near him and to signify by a prearranged gesture whichone of the crowd he was. 

They drew up before a great black shadow of a house, dark, forbidding, and apparently deserted. But at the sound of the wheels on the gravelthe door opened, letting out a stream of warm, cheerful light, and aman's voice said, "Put out those lights. Don't youse know no betterthan that?" This was Keppler, and he welcomed Mr. Dwyer with effusivecourtesy. 

The two men showed in the stream of light, and the door closed onthem, leaving the house as it was at first, black and silent, save forthe dripping of the rain and snow from the eaves. 

The detective and Gallegher put out the cab's lamps and led the horsetoward a long, low shed in the rear of the yard, which they nownoticed was almost filled with teams of many different makes, from theHobson's choice of a livery stable to the brougham of the man abouttown. 

"No, " said Gallegher, as the cabman stopped to hitch the horse besidethe others, "we want it nearest that lower gate. When we newspaper menleave this place we'll leave it in a hurry, and the man who is nearesttown is likely to get there first. You won't be a-following of nohearse when you make your return trip. "

Gallegher tied the horse to the very gate-post itself, leaving thegate open and allowing a clear road and a flying start for theprospective race to Newspaper Row. 

The driver disappeared under the shelter of the porch, and Gallegherand the detective moved off cautiously to the rear of the barn. "Thismust be the window, " said Hefflefinger, pointing to a broad woodenshutter some feet from the ground. 

"Just you give me a boost once, and I'll get that open in a jiffy, "said Gallegher. 

The detective placed his hands on his knees, and Gallegher stood uponhis shoulders, and with the blade of his knife lifted the woodenbutton that fastened the window on the inside, and pulled the shutteropen. 

Then he put one leg inside over the sill, and leaning down helped todraw his fellow-conspirator up to a level with the window. "I feeljust like I was burglarizing a house, " chuckled Gallegher, as hedropped noiselessly to the floor below and refastened the shutter. Thebarn was a large one, with a row of stalls on either side in whichhorses and cows were dozing. There was a haymow over each row ofstalls, and at one end of the barn a number of fence-rails had beenthrown across from one mow to the other. These rails were covered withhay. 

[Illustration with caption: Gallegher stood upon his shoulders. ]

In the middle of the floor was the ring. It was not really a ring, buta square, with wooden posts at its four corners through which ran aheavy rope. The space inclosed by the rope was covered with sawdust. 

Gallegher could not resist stepping into the ring, and after stampingthe sawdust once or twice, as if to assure himself that he was reallythere, began dancing around it, and indulging in such a remarkableseries of fistic manoeuvres with an imaginary adversary that theunimaginative detective precipitately backed into a corner of thebarn. 

"Now, then, " said Gallegher, having apparently vanquished his foe, "you come with me. " His companion followed quickly as Gallegherclimbed to one of the hay-mows, and crawling carefully out on thefence-rail, stretched himself at full length, face downward. In thisposition, by moving the straw a little, he could look down, withoutbeing himself seen, upon the heads of whomsoever stood below. "This isbetter'n a private box, ain't it?" said Gallegher. 

The boy from the newspaper office and the detective lay there insilence, biting at straws and tossing anxiously on their comfortablebed. 

It seemed fully two hours before they came. Gallegher had listenedwithout breathing, and with every muscle on a strain, at least a dozentimes, when some movement in the yard had led him to believe that theywere at the door. And he had numerous doubts and fears. Sometimes itwas that the police had learnt of the fight, and had raided Keppler'sin his absence, and again it was that the fight had been postponed, or, worst of all, that it would be put off until so late that Mr. Dwyer could not get back in time for the last edition of the paper. Their coming, when at last they came, was heralded by an advance-guardof two sporting men, who stationed themselves at either side of thebig door. 

"Hurry up, now, gents, " one of the men said with a shiver, "don't keepthis door open no longer'n is needful. "

It was not a very large crowd, but it was wonderfully well selected. It ran, in the majority of its component parts, to heavy white coatswith pearl buttons. The white coats were shouldered by long blue coatswith astrakhan fur trimmings, the wearers of which preserved acliqueness not remarkable when one considers that they believed everyone else present to be either a crook or a prize-fighter. 

There were well-fed, well-groomed club-men and brokers in the crowd, apolitician or two, a popular comedian with his manager, amateur boxersfrom the athletic clubs, and quiet, close-mouthed sporting men fromevery city in the country. Their names if printed in the papers wouldhave been as familiar as the types of the papers themselves. 

And among these men, whose only thought was of the brutal sport tocome, was Hade, with Dwyer standing at ease at his shoulder, --Hade, white, and visibly in deep anxiety, hiding his pale face beneath acloth travelling-cap, and with his chin muffled in a woollen scarf. Hehad dared to come because he feared his danger from the alreadysuspicious Keppler was less than if he stayed away. And so he wasthere, hovering restlessly on the border of the crowd, feeling hisdanger and sick with fear. 

When Hefflefinger first saw him he started up on his hands and elbowsand made a movement forward as if he would leap down then and thereand carry off his prisoner single-handed. 

"Lie down, " growled Gallegher; "an officer of any sort wouldn't livethree minutes in that crowd. "

The detective drew back slowly and buried himself again in the straw, but never once through the long fight which followed did his eyesleave the person of the murderer. The newspaper men took their placesin the foremost row close around the ring, and kept looking at theirwatches and begging the master of ceremonies to "shake it up, do. "

There was a great deal of betting, and all of the men handled thegreat roll of bills they wagered with a flippant recklessness whichcould only be accounted for in Gallegher's mind by temporary mentalderangement. Some one pulled a box out into the ring and the master ofceremonies mounted it, and pointed out in forcible language that asthey were almost all already under bonds to keep the peace, itbehooved all to curb their excitement and to maintain a severesilence, unless they wanted to bring the police upon them and havethemselves "sent down" for a year or two. 

Then two very disreputable-looking persons tossed their respectiveprincipals' high hats into the ring, and the crowd, recognizing inthis relic of the days when brave knights threw down their gauntletsin the lists as only a sign that the fight was about to begin, cheeredtumultuously. 

This was followed by a sudden surging forward, and a mutter ofadmiration much more flattering than the cheers had been, when theprincipals followed their hats, and slipping out of their great-coats, stood forth in all the physical beauty of the perfect brute. 

Their pink skin was as soft and healthy looking as a baby's, andglowed in the lights of the lanterns like tinted ivory, and underneaththis silken covering the great biceps and muscles moved in and out andlooked like the coils of a snake around the branch of a tree. 

Gentleman and blackguard shouldered each other for a nearer view; thecoachmen, whose metal buttons were unpleasantly suggestive of police, put their hands, in the excitement of the moment, on the shoulders oftheir masters; the perspiration stood out in great drops on theforeheads of the backers, and the newspaper men bit somewhat nervouslyat the ends of their pencils. 

And in the stalls the cows munched contentedly at their cuds and gazedwith gentle curiosity at their two fellow-brutes, who stood waitingthe signal to fall upon, and kill each other if need be, for thedelectation of their brothers. 

"Take your places, " commanded the master of ceremonies. 

In the moment in which the two men faced each other the crowd becameso still that, save for the beating of the rain upon the shingled roofand the stamping of a horse in one of the stalls, the place was assilent as a church. 

"Time, " shouted the master of ceremonies. 

The two men sprang into a posture of defence, which was lost asquickly as it was taken, one great arm shot out like a piston-rod;there was the sound of bare fists beating on naked flesh; there was anexultant indrawn gasp of savage pleasure and relief from the crowd, and the great fight had begun. 

How the fortunes of war rose and fell, and changed and rechanged thatnight, is an old story to those who listen to such stories; and thosewho do not will be glad to be spared the telling of it. It was, theysay, one of the bitterest fights between two men that this country hasever known. 

But all that is of interest here is that after an hour of thisdesperate brutal business the champion ceased to be the favorite; theman whom he had taunted and bullied, and for whom the public had butlittle sympathy, was proving himself a likely winner, and under hiscruel blows, as sharp and clean as those from a cutlass, his opponentwas rapidly giving way. 

The men about the ropes were past all control now; they drownedKeppler's petitions for silence with oaths and in inarticulate shoutsof anger, as if the blows had fallen upon them, and in mad rejoicings. They swept from one end of the ring to the other, with every muscleleaping in unison with those of the man they favored, and when a NewYork correspondent muttered over his shoulder that this would be thebiggest sporting surprise since the Heenan-Sayers fight, Mr. Dwyernodded his head sympathetically in assent. 

In the excitement and tumult it is doubtful if any heard the threequickly repeated blows that fell heavily from the outside upon the bigdoors of the barn. If they did, it was already too late to mendmatters, for the door fell, torn from its hinges, and as it fell acaptain of police sprang into the light from out of the storm, withhis lieutenants and their men crowding close at his shoulder. 

In the panic and stampede that followed, several of the men stood ashelplessly immovable as though they had seen a ghost; others made amad rush into the arms of the officers and were beaten back againstthe ropes of the ring; others dived headlong into the stalls, amongthe horses and cattle, and still others shoved the rolls of money theyheld into the hands of the police and begged like children to beallowed to escape. 

The instant the door fell and the raid was declared Hefflefingerslipped over the cross rails on which he had been lying, hung for aninstant by his hands, and then dropped into the centre of the fightingmob on the floor. He was out of it in an instant with the agility of apickpocket, was across the room and at Hade's throat like a dog. Themurderer, for the moment, was the calmer man of the two. 

"Here, " he panted, "hands off, now. There's no need for all thisviolence. There's no great harm in looking at a fight, is there?There's a hundred-dollar bill in my right hand; take it and let meslip out of this. No one is looking. Here. "

But the detective only held him the closer. 

"I want you for burglary, " he whispered under his breath. "You've gotto come with me now, and quick. The less fuss you make, the better forboth of us. If you don't know who I am, you can feel my badge under mycoat there. I've got the authority. It's all regular, and when we'reout of this d--d row I'll show you the papers. "

He took one hand from Hade's throat and pulled a pair of handcuffsfrom his pocket. 

"It's a mistake. This is an outrage, " gasped the murderer, white andtrembling, but dreadfully alive and desperate for his liberty. "Let mego, I tell you! Take your hands off of me! Do I look like a burglar, you fool?"

"I know who you look like, " whispered the detective, with his faceclose to the face of his prisoner. "Now, will you go easy as aburglar, or shall I tell these men who you are and what I _do_ wantyou for? Shall I call out your real name or not? Shall I tell them?Quick, speak up; shall I?"

There was something so exultant--something so unnecessarily savage inthe officer's face that the man he held saw that the detective knewhim for what he really was, and the hands that had held his throatslipped down around his shoulders, or he would have fallen. The man'seyes opened and closed again, and he swayed weakly backward andforward, and choked as if his throat were dry and burning. Even tosuch a hardened connoisseur in crime as Gallegher, who stood closelyby, drinking it in, there was something so abject in the man's terrorthat he regarded him with what was almost a touch of pity. 

"For God's sake, " Hade begged, "let me go. Come with me to my room andI'll give you half the money. I'll divide with you fairly. We can bothget away. There's a fortune for both of us there. We both can getaway. You'll be rich for life. Do you understand--for life!"

But the detective, to his credit, only shut his lips the tighter. 

"That's enough, " he whispered, in return. "That's more than Iexpected. You've sentenced yourself already. Come!"

Two officers in uniform barred their exit at the door, butHefflefinger smiled easily and showed his badge. 

"One of Byrnes's men, " he said, in explanation; "came over expresslyto take this chap. He's a burglar; 'Arlie' Lane, _alias_ Carleton. I've shown the papers to the captain. It's all regular. I'm just goingto get his traps at the hotel and walk him over to the station. Iguess we'll push right on to New York to-night. "

The officers nodded and smiled their admiration for the representativeof what is, perhaps, the best detective force in the world, and lethim pass. 

Then Hefflefinger turned and spoke to Gallegher, who still stood aswatchful as a dog at his side. "I'm going to his room to get the bondsand stuff, " he whispered; "then I'll march him to the station and takethat train. I've done my share; don't forget yours!"

"Oh, you'll get your money right enough, " said Gallegher. "And, sa-ay, "he added, with the appreciative nod of an expert, "do you know, you didit rather well. "

Mr. Dwyer had been writing while the raid was settling down, as he hadbeen writing while waiting for the fight to begin. Now he walked overto where the other correspondents stood in angry conclave. 

The newspaper men had informed the officers who hemmed them in thatthey represented the principal papers of the country, and wereexpostulating vigorously with the captain, who had planned the raid, and who declared they were under arrest. 

[Illustration with caption: "For God's sake, " Hade begged, "let mego!"]

"Don't be an ass, Scott, " said Mr. Dwyer, who was too excited to bepolite or politic. "You know our being here isn't a matter of choice. We came here on business, as you did, and you've no right to hold us. "

"If we don't get our stuff on the wire at once, " protested a New Yorkman, "we'll be too late for to-morrow's paper, and----"

Captain Scott said he did not care a profanely small amount for to-morrow's paper, and that all he knew was that to the station-house thenewspaper men would go. There they would have a hearing, and if themagistrate chose to let them off, that was the magistrate's business, but that his duty was to take them into custody. 

"But then it will be too late, don't you understand?" shouted Mr. Dwyer. "You've got to let us go _now, _ at once. "

"I can't do it, Mr. Dwyer, " said the captain, "and that's all there isto it. Why, haven't I just sent the president of the Junior RepublicanClub to the patrol-wagon, the man that put this coat on me, and do youthink I can let you fellows go after that? You were all put underbonds to keep the peace not three days ago, and here you're at it--fighting like badgers. It's worth my place to let one of you off. "

What Mr. Dwyer said next was so uncomplimentary to the gallant CaptainScott that that overwrought individual seized the sporting editor bythe shoulder, and shoved him into the hands of two of his men. 

This was more than the distinguished Mr. Dwyer could brook, and heexcitedly raised his hand in resistance. But before he had time to doanything foolish his wrist was gripped by one strong, little hand, andhe was conscious that another was picking the pocket of his great-coat. 

He slapped his hands to his sides, and looking down, saw Gallegherstanding close behind him and holding him by the wrist. Mr. Dwyer hadforgotten the boy's existence, and would have spoken sharply ifsomething in Gallegher's innocent eyes had not stopped him. 

Gallegher's hand was still in that pocket, in which Mr. Dwyer hadshoved his note-book filled with what he had written of Gallegher'swork and Hade's final capture, and with a running descriptive accountof the fight. With his eyes fixed on Mr. Dwyer, Gallegher drew it out, and with a quick movement shoved it inside his waistcoat. Mr. Dwyergave a nod of comprehension. Then glancing at his two guardsmen, andfinding that they were still interested in the wordy battle of thecorrespondents with their chief, and had seen nothing, he stooped andwhispered to Gallegher: "The forms are locked at twenty minutes tothree. If you don't get there by that time it will be of no use, butif you're on time you'll beat the town--and the country too. "

Gallegher's eyes flashed significantly, and nodding his head to showhe understood, started boldly on a run toward the door. But theofficers who guarded it brought him to an abrupt halt, and, much toMr. Dwyer's astonishment, drew from him what was apparently a torrentof tears. 

"Let me go to me father. I want me father, " the boy shrieked, hysterically. "They've 'rested father. Oh, daddy, daddy. They're a-goin' to take you to prison. "

"Who is your father, sonny?" asked one of the guardians of the gate. 

"Keppler's me father, " sobbed Gallegher. "They're a-goin' to lock himup, and I'll never see him no more. "

"Oh, yes, you will, " said the officer, good-naturedly; "he's there inthat first patrol-wagon. You can run over and say good night to him, and then you'd better get to bed. This ain't no place for kids of yourage. "

"Thank you, sir, " sniffed Gallegher, tearfully, as the two officersraised their clubs, and let him pass out into the darkness. 

The yard outside was in a tumult, horses were stamping, and plunging, and backing the carriages into one another; lights were flashing fromevery window of what had been apparently an uninhabited house, and thevoices of the prisoners were still raised in angry expostulation. 

Three police patrol-wagons were moving about the yard, filled withunwilling passengers, who sat or stood, packed together like sheep, and with no protection from the sleet and rain. 

Gallegher stole off into a dark corner, and watched the scene untilhis eyesight became familiar with the position of the land. 

Then with his eyes fixed fearfully on the swinging light of a lanternwith which an officer was searching among the carriages, he groped hisway between horses' hoofs and behind the wheels of carriages to thecab which he had himself placed at the furthermost gate. It was stillthere, and the horse, as he had left it, with its head turned towardthe city. Gallegher opened the big gate noiselessly, and workednervously at the hitching strap. The knot was covered with a thincoating of ice, and it was several minutes before he could loosen it. But his teeth finally pulled it apart, and with the reins in his handshe sprang upon the wheel. And as he stood so, a shock of fear ran downhis back like an electric current, his breath left him, and he stoodimmovable, gazing with wide eyes into the darkness. 

The officer with the lantern had suddenly loomed up from behind acarriage not fifty feet distant, and was standing perfectly still, with his lantern held over his head, peering so directly towardGallegher that the boy felt that he must see him. Gallegher stood withone foot on the hub of the wheel and with the other on the box waitingto spring. It seemed a minute before either of them moved, and thenthe officer took a step forward, and demanded sternly, "Who is that?What are you doing there?"

There was no time for parley then. Gallegher felt that he had beentaken in the act, and that his only chance lay in open flight. Heleaped up on the box, pulling out the whip as he did so, and with aquick sweep lashed the horse across the head and back. The animalsprang forward with a snort, narrowly clearing the gate-post, andplunged off into the darkness. 

"Stop!" cried the officer. 

So many of Gallegher's acquaintances among the 'longshoremen and millhands had been challenged in so much the same manner that Gallegherknew what would probably follow if the challenge was disregarded. Sohe slipped from his seat to the footboard below, and ducked his head. 

The three reports of a pistol, which rang out briskly from behind him, proved that his early training had given him a valuable fund of usefulmiscellaneous knowledge. 

"Don't you be scared, " he said, reassuringly, to the horse; "he'sfiring in the air. "

The pistol-shots were answered by the impatient clangor of a patrol-wagon's gong, and glancing over his shoulder Gallegher saw its red andgreen lanterns tossing from side to side and looking in the darknesslike the side-lights of a yacht plunging forward in a storm. 

"I hadn't bargained to race you against no patrol-wagons, " saidGallegher to his animal; "but if they want a race, we'll give them atough tussle for it, won't we?"

Philadelphia, lying four miles to the south, sent up a faint yellowglow to the sky. It seemed very far away, and Gallegher's braggadociogrew cold within him at the loneliness of his adventure and thethought of the long ride before him. 

It was still bitterly cold. 

The rain and sleet beat through his clothes, and struck his skin witha sharp chilling touch that set him trembling. 

Even the thought of the over-weighted patrol-wagon probably stickingin the mud some safe distance in the rear, failed to cheer him, andthe excitement that had so far made him callous to the cold died outand left him weaker and nervous. But his horse was chilled with thelong standing, and now leaped eagerly forward, only too willing towarm the half-frozen blood in its veins. 

"You're a good beast, " said Gallegher, plaintively. "You've got morenerve than me. Don't you go back on me now. Mr. Dwyer says we've gotto beat the town. " Gallegher had no idea what time it was as he rodethrough the night, but he knew he would be able to find out from a bigclock over a manufactory at a point nearly three-quarters of thedistance from Keppler's to the goal. 

He was still in the open country and driving recklessly, for he knewthe best part of his ride must be made outside the city limits. 

He raced between desolate-looking corn-fields with bare stalks andpatches of muddy earth rising above the thin covering of snow, truckfarms and brick-yards fell behind him on either side. It was verylonely work, and once or twice the dogs ran yelping to the gates andbarked after him. 

Part of his way lay parallel with the railroad tracks, and he drovefor some time beside long lines of freight and coal cars as they stoodresting for the night. The fantastic Queen Anne suburban stations weredark and deserted, but in one or two of the block-towers he could seethe operators writing at their desks, and the sight in some waycomforted him. 

Once he thought of stopping to get out the blanket in which he hadwrapped himself on the first trip, but he feared to spare the time, and drove on with his teeth chattering and his shoulders shaking withthe cold. 

He welcomed the first solitary row of darkened houses with a faintcheer of recognition. The scattered lamp-posts lightened his spirits, and even the badly paved streets rang under the beats of his horse'sfeet like music. Great mills and manufactories, with only a night-watchman's light in the lowest of their many stories, began to takethe place of the gloomy farm-houses and gaunt trees that had startledhim with their grotesque shapes. He had been driving nearly an hour, he calculated, and in that time the rain had changed to a wet snow, that fell heavily and clung to whatever it touched. He passed blockafter block of trim workmen's houses, as still and silent as thesleepers within them, and at last he turned the horse's head intoBroad Street, the city's great thoroughfare, that stretches from itsone end to the other and cuts it evenly in two. 

He was driving noiselessly over the snow and slush in the street, withhis thoughts bent only on the clock-face he wished so much to see, when a hoarse voice challenged him from the sidewalk. "Hey, you, stopthere, hold up!" said the voice. 

Gallegher turned his head, and though he saw that the voice came fromunder a policeman's helmet, his only answer was to hit his horsesharply over the head with his whip and to urge it into a gallop. 

This, on his part, was followed by a sharp, shrill whistle from thepoliceman. Another whistle answered it from a street-corner one blockahead of him. "Whoa, " said Gallegher, pulling on the reins. "There'sone too many of them, " he added, in apologetic explanation. The horsestopped, and stood, breathing heavily, with great clouds of steamrising from its flanks. 

"Why in hell didn't you stop when I told you to?" demanded the voice, now close at the cab's side. 

"I didn't hear you, " returned Gallegher, sweetly. "But I heard youwhistle, and I heard your partner whistle, and I thought maybe it wasme you wanted to speak to, so I just stopped. "

"You heard me well enough. Why aren't your lights lit?" demanded thevoice. 

"Should I have 'em lit?" asked Gallegher, bending over and regardingthem with sudden interest. 

"You know you should, and if you don't, you've no right to be drivingthat cab. I don't believe you're the regular driver, anyway. Where'dyou get it?"

"It ain't my cab, of course, " said Gallegher, with an easy laugh. "It's Luke McGovern's. He left it outside Cronin's while he went in toget a drink, and he took too much, and me father told me to drive itround to the stable for him. I'm Cronin's son. McGovern ain't in nocondition to drive. You can see yourself how he's been misusing thehorse. He puts it up at Bachman's livery stable, and I was just goingaround there now. "

Gallegher's knowledge of the local celebrities of the districtconfused the zealous officer of the peace. He surveyed the boy with asteady stare that would have distressed a less skilful liar, butGallegher only shrugged his shoulders slightly, as if from the cold, and waited with apparent indifference to what the officer would saynext. 

In reality his heart was beating heavily against his side, and he feltthat if he was kept on a strain much longer he would give way andbreak down. A second snow-covered form emerged suddenly from theshadow of the houses. 

"What is it, Reeder?" it asked. 

"Oh, nothing much, " replied the first officer. 

"This kid hadn't any lamps lit, so I called to him to stop and hedidn't do it, so I whistled to you. It's all right, though. He's justtaking it round to Bachman's. Go ahead, " he added, sulkily. 

"Get up!" chirped Gallegher. "Good night, " he added, over hisshoulder. 

Gallegher gave an hysterical little gasp of relief as he trotted awayfrom the two policemen, and poured bitter maledictions on their headsfor two meddling fools as he went. 

"They might as well kill a man as scare him to death, " he said, withan attempt to get back to his customary flippancy. But the effort wassomewhat pitiful, and he felt guiltily conscious that a salt, warmtear was creeping slowly down his face, and that a lump that would notkeep down was rising in his throat. 

"'Tain't no fair thing for the whole police force to keep worrying ata little boy like me, " he said, in shame-faced apology. "I'm not doingnothing wrong, and I'm half froze to death, and yet they keep a-nagging at me. "

It was so cold that when the boy stamped his feet against thefootboard to keep them warm, sharp pains shot up through his body, andwhen he beat his arms about his shoulders, as he had seen real cabmendo, the blood in his finger-tips tingled so acutely that he criedaloud with the pain. 

He had often been up that late before, but he had never felt sosleepy. It was as if some one was pressing a sponge heavy withchloroform near his face, and he could not fight off the drowsinessthat lay hold of him. 

He saw, dimly hanging above his head, a round disc of light thatseemed like a great moon, and which he finally guessed to be theclock-face for which he had been on the look-out. He had passed itbefore he realized this; but the fact stirred him into wakefulnessagain, and when his cab's wheels slipped around the City Hall corner, he remembered to look up at the other big clock-face that keeps awakeover the railroad station and measures out the night. 

He gave a gasp of consternation when he saw that it was half-past two, and that there was but ten minutes left to him. This, and the manyelectric lights and the sight of the familiar pile of buildings, startled him into a semi-consciousness of where he was and how greatwas the necessity for haste. 

He rose in his seat and called on the horse, and urged it into areckless gallop over the slippery asphalt. He considered nothing elsebut speed, and looking neither to the left nor right dashed off downBroad Street into Chestnut, where his course lay straight away to theoffice, now only seven blocks distant. 

Gallegher never knew how it began, but he was suddenly assaulted byshouts on either side, his horse was thrown back on its haunches, andhe found two men in cabmen's livery hanging at its head, and pattingits sides, and calling it by name. And the other cabmen who have theirstand at the corner were swarming about the carriage, all of themtalking and swearing at once, and gesticulating wildly with theirwhips. 

They said they knew the cab was McGovern's, and they wanted to knowwhere he was, and why he wasn't on it; they wanted to know whereGallegher had stolen it, and why he had been such a fool as to driveit into the arms of its owner's friends; they said that it was abouttime that a cab-driver could get off his box to take a drink withouthaving his cab run away with, and some of them called loudly for apoliceman to take the young thief in charge. 

Gallegher felt as if he had been suddenly dragged into consciousnessout of a bad dream, and stood for a second like a half-awakenedsomnambulist. 

They had stopped the cab under an electric light, and its glare shonecoldly down upon the trampled snow and the faces of the men aroundhim. 

Gallegher bent forward, and lashed savagely at the horse with hiswhip. 

"Let me go, " he shouted, as he tugged impotently at the reins. "Let mego, I tell you. I haven't stole no cab, and you've got no right tostop me. I only want to take it to the _Press_ office, " he begged. "They'll send it back to you all right. They'll pay you for the trip. I'm not running away with it. The driver's got the collar--he's'rested--and I'm only a-going to the _Press_ office. Do you hear me?"he cried, his voice rising and breaking in a shriek of passion anddisappointment. "I tell you to let go those reins. Let me go, or I'llkill you. Do you hear me? I'll kill you. " And leaning forward, the boystruck savagely with his long whip at the faces of the men about thehorse's head. 

Some one in the crowd reached up and caught him by the ankles, andwith a quick jerk pulled him off the box, and threw him on to thestreet. But he was up on his knees in a moment, and caught at theman's hand. 

"Don't let them stop me, mister, " he cried, "please let me go. Ididn't steal the cab, sir. S'help me, I didn't. I'm telling you thetruth. Take me to the _Press_ office, and they'll prove it to you. They'll pay you anything you ask 'em. It's only such a little waysnow, and I've come so far, sir. Please don't let them stop me, " hesobbed, clasping the man about the knees. "For Heaven's sake, mister, let me go!"

The managing editor of the _Press_ took up the india-rubber speaking-tube at his side, and answered, "Not yet" to an inquiry the nighteditor had already put to him five times within the last twentyminutes. 

Then he snapped the metal top of the tube impatiently, and went up-stairs. As he passed the door of the local room, he noticed that thereporters had not gone home, but were sitting about on the tables andchairs, waiting. They looked up inquiringly as he passed, and the cityeditor asked, "Any news yet?" and the managing editor shook his head. 

The compositors were standing idle in the composing-room, and theirforeman was talking with the night editor. 

"Well, " said that gentleman, tentatively. 

"Well, " returned the managing editor, "I don't think we can wait; doyou?"

"It's a half-hour after time now, " said the night editor, "and we'llmiss the suburban trains if we hold the paper back any longer. Wecan't afford to wait for a purely hypothetical story. The chances areall against the fight's having taken place or this Hade's having beenarrested. "

"But if we're beaten on it--" suggested the chief. "But I don't thinkthat is possible. If there were any story to print, Dwyer would havehad it here before now. "

The managing editor looked steadily down at the floor. 

"Very well, " he said, slowly, "we won't wait any longer. Go ahead, " headded, turning to the foreman with a sigh of reluctance. The foremanwhirled himself about, and began to give his orders; but the twoeditors still looked at each other doubtfully. 

As they stood so, there came a sudden shout and the sound of peoplerunning to and fro in the reportorial rooms below. There was the trampof many footsteps on the stairs, and above the confusion they heardthe voice of the city editor telling some one to "run to Madden's andget some brandy, quick. "

No one in the composing-room said anything; but those compositors whohad started to go home began slipping off their overcoats, and everyone stood with his eyes fixed on the door. 

It was kicked open from the outside, and in the doorway stood a cab-driver and the city editor, supporting between them a pitiful littlefigure of a boy, wet and miserable, and with the snow melting on hisclothes and running in little pools to the floor. "Why, it'sGallegher, " said the night editor, in a tone of the keenestdisappointment. 

Gallegher shook himself free from his supporters, and took an unsteadystep forward, his fingers fumbling stiffly with the buttons of hiswaistcoat. 

"Mr. Dwyer, sir, " he began faintly, with his eyes fixed fearfully onthe managing editor, "he got arrested--and I couldn't get here nosooner, 'cause they kept a-stopping me, and they took me cab fromunder me--but--" he pulled the notebook from his breast and held itout with its covers damp and limp from the rain, "but we got Hade, andhere's Mr. Dwyer's copy. "

And then he asked, with a queer note in his voice, partly of dread andpartly of hope, "Am I in time, sir?"

The managing editor took the book, and tossed it to the foreman, whoripped out its leaves and dealt them out to his men as rapidly as agambler deals out cards. 

Then the managing editor stooped and picked Gallegher up in his arms, and, sitting down, began to unlace his wet and muddy shoes. 

Gallegher made a faint effort to resist this degradation of themanagerial dignity; but his protest was a very feeble one, and hishead fell back heavily on the managing editor's shoulder. 

To Gallegher the incandescent lights began to whirl about in circles, and to burn in different colors; the faces of the reporters kneelingbefore him and chafing his hands and feet grew dim and unfamiliar, andthe roar and rumble of the great presses in the basement sounded faraway, like the murmur of the sea. 

And then the place and the circumstances of it came back to him againsharply and with sudden vividness. 

Gallegher looked up, with a faint smile, into the managing editor'sface. "You won't turn me off for running away, will you?" hewhispered. 

The managing editor did not answer immediately. His head was bent, andhe was thinking, for some reason or other, of a little boy of his own, at home in bed. Then he said, quietly, "Not this time, Gallegher. "

Gallegher's head sank back comfortably on the older man's shoulder, and he smiled comprehensively at the faces of the young men crowdedaround him. "You hadn't ought to, " he said, with a touch of his oldimpudence, "'cause--I beat the town. "

A WALK UP THE AVENUE

He came down the steps slowly, and pulling mechanically at his gloves. 

He remembered afterwards that some woman's face had nodded brightly tohim from a passing brougham, and that he had lifted his hat throughforce of habit, and without knowing who she was. 

He stopped at the bottom of the steps, and stood for a momentuncertainly, and then turned toward the north, not because he had anydefinite goal in his mind, but because the other way led toward hisrooms, and he did not want to go there yet. 

He was conscious of a strange feeling of elation, which he attributedto his being free, and to the fact that he was his own master again ineverything. And with this he confessed to a distinct feeling oflittleness, of having acted meanly or unworthily of himself or of her. 

And yet he had behaved well, even quixotically. He had tried to leavethe impression with her that it was her wish, and that she had brokenwith him, not he with her. 

He held a man who threw a girl over as something contemptible, and hecertainly did not want to appear to himself in that light; or, for hersake, that people should think he had tired of her, or found herwanting in any one particular. He knew only too well how people wouldtalk. How they would say he had never really cared for her; that hedidn't know his own mind when he had proposed to her; and that it wasa great deal better for her as it is than if he had grown out of humorwith her later. As to their saying she had jilted him, he didn't mindthat. He much preferred they should take that view of it, and he waschivalrous enough to hope she would think so too. 

He was walking slowly, and had reached Thirtieth Street. A great manyyoung girls and women had bowed to him or nodded from the passingcarriages, but it did not tend to disturb the measure of his thoughts. He was used to having people put themselves out to speak to him;everybody made a point of knowing him, not because he was so veryhandsome and well-looking, and an over-popular youth, but because hewas as yet unspoiled by it. 

But, in any event, he concluded, it was a miserable business. Still, he had only done what was right. He had seen it coming on for a monthnow, and how much better it was that they should separate now thanlater, or that they should have had to live separated in all butlocation for the rest of their lives! Yes, he had done the rightthing--decidedly the only thing to do. 

He was still walking up the Avenue, and had reached Thirty-secondStreet, at which point his thoughts received a sudden turn. A half-dozen men in a club window nodded to him, and brought to him sharplywhat he was going back to. He had dropped out of their lives asentirely of late as though he had been living in a distant city. Whenhe had met them he had found their company uninteresting andunprofitable. He had wondered how he had ever cared for that sort ofthing, and where had been the pleasure of it. Was he going back now tothe gossip of that window, to the heavy discussions of traps andhorses, to late breakfasts and early suppers? Must he listen to theircongratulations on his being one of them again, and must he guess attheir whispered conjectures as to how soon it would be before he againtook up the chains and harness of their fashion? He struck thepavement sharply with his stick. No, he was not going back. 

She had taught him to find amusement and occupation in many thingsthat were better and higher than any pleasures or pursuits he hadknown before, and he could not give them up. He had her to thank forthat at least. And he would give her credit for it too, andgratefully. He would always remember it, and he would show in his wayof living the influence and the good effects of these three months inwhich they had been continually together. 

He had reached Forty-second Street now. Well, it was over with, and hewould get to work at something or other. This experience had shown himthat he was not meant for marriage; that he was intended to livealone. Because, if he found that a girl as lovely as she undeniablywas palled on him after three months, it was evident that he wouldnever live through life with any other one. Yes, he would always be abachelor. He had lived his life, had told his story at the age oftwenty-five, and would wait patiently for the end, a marked and gloomyman. He would travel now and see the world. He would go to that hotelin Cairo she was always talking about, where they were to have gone ontheir honeymoon; or he might strike further into Africa, and come backbronzed and worn with long marches and jungle fever, and with his hairprematurely white. He even considered himself, with great self-pity, returning and finding her married and happy, of course. And heenjoyed, in anticipation, the secret doubts she would have of herlater choice when she heard on all sides praise of this distinguishedtraveller. 

And he pictured himself meeting her reproachful glances with fatherlyfriendliness, and presenting her husband with tiger-skins, and buyingher children extravagant presents. 

This was at Forty-fifth Street. 

Yes, that was decidedly the best thing to do. To go away and improvehimself, and study up all those painters and cathedrals with which shewas so hopelessly conversant. 

He remembered how out of it she had once made him feel, and howsecretly he had admired her when she had referred to a modern paintingas looking like those in the long gallery of the Louvre. He thought heknew all about the Louvre, but he would go over again and locate thatlong gallery, and become able to talk to her understandingly about it. 

And then it came over him like a blast of icy air that he could nevertalk over things with her again. He had reached Fifty-fifth Streetnow, and the shock brought him to a standstill on the corner, where hestood gazing blankly before him. He felt rather weak physically, anddecided to go back to his rooms, and then he pictured how cheerlessthey would look, and how little of comfort they contained. He had usedthem only to dress and sleep in of late, and the distaste with whichhe regarded the idea that he must go back to them to read and sit andlive in them, showed him how utterly his life had become bound up withthe house on Twenty-seventh Street. 

"Where was he to go in the evening?" he asked himself, with pathetichopelessness, "or in the morning or afternoon for that matter?" Werethere to be no more of those journeys to picture-galleries and to thebig publishing houses, where they used to hover over the new bookcounter and pull the books about, and make each other innumerablepresents of daintily bound volumes, until the clerks grew to know themso well that they never went through the form of asking where thebooks were to be sent? And those tete-a-tete luncheons at her housewhen her mother was upstairs with a headache or a dressmaker, and thelong rides and walks in the Park in the afternoon, and the rush downtown to dress, only to return to dine with them, ten minutes latealways, and always with some new excuse, which was allowed if it wasclever, and frowned at if it was common-place--was all this reallyover?

Why, the town had only run on because she was in it, and as he walkedthe streets the very shop windows had suggested her to him--floristsonly existed that he might send her flowers, and gowns and bonnets inthe milliners' windows were only pretty as they would become her; andas for the theatres and the newspapers, they were only worth while asthey gave her pleasure. And he had given all this up, and for what, heasked himself, and why?

He could not answer that now. It was simply because he had beensurfeited with too much content, he replied, passionately. He had notappreciated how happy he had been. She had been too kind, toogracious. He had never known until he had quarrelled with her and losther how precious and dear she had been to him. 

He was at the entrance to the Park now, and he strode on along thewalk, bitterly upbraiding himself for being worse than a criminal--afool, a common blind mortal to whom a goddess had stooped. 

He remembered with bitter regret a turn off the drive into which theyhad wandered one day, a secluded, pretty spot with a circle of boxaround it, and into the turf of which he had driven his stick, andclaimed it for them both by the right of discovery. And he recalledhow they had used to go there, just out of sight of their friends inthe ride, and sit and chatter on a green bench beneath a bush of box, like any nursery maid and her young man, while her groom stood at thebrougham door in the bridle-path beyond. He had broken off a sprig ofthe box one day and given it to her, and she had kissed it foolishly, and laughed, and hidden it in the folds of her riding-skirt, inburlesque fear lest the guards should arrest them for breaking themuch-advertised ordinance. 

And he remembered with a miserable smile how she had delighted himwith her account of her adventure to her mother, and described them asfleeing down the Avenue with their treasure, pursued by a squadron ofmounted policemen. 

This and a hundred other of the foolish, happy fancies they had sharedin common came back to him, and he remembered how she had stopped onecold afternoon just outside of this favorite spot, beside an open irongrating sunk in the path, into which the rain had washed the autumnleaves, and pretended it was a steam radiator, and held her slimgloved hands out over it as if to warm them. 

How absurdly happy she used to make him, and how light-hearted she hadbeen! He determined suddenly and sentimentally to go to that secretplace now, and bury the engagement ring she had handed back to himunder that bush as he had buried his hopes of happiness, and hepictured how some day when he was dead she would read of this in hiswill, and go and dig up the ring, and remember and forgive him. Hestruck off from the walk across the turf straight toward this dell, taking the ring from his waistcoat pocket and clinching it in hishand. He was walking quickly with rapt interest in this idea ofabnegation when he noticed, unconsciously at first and then with astart, the familiar outlines and colors of her brougham drawn up inthe drive not twenty yards from their old meeting-place. He could notbe mistaken; he knew the horses well enough, and there was old Wallison the box and young Wallis on the path. 

He stopped breathlessly, and then tipped on cautiously, keeping theencircling line of bushes between him and the carriage. And then hesaw through the leaves that there was some one in the place, and thatit was she. He stopped, confused and amazed. He could not comprehendit. She must have driven to the place immediately on his departure. But why? And why to that place of all others?

He parted the bushes with his hands, and saw her lovely and sweet-looking as she had always been, standing under the box bush beside thebench, and breaking off one of the green branches. The branch partedand the stem flew back to its place again, leaving a green sprig inher hand. She turned at that moment directly toward him, and he couldsee from his hiding-place how she lifted the leaves to her lips, andthat a tear was creeping down her cheek. 

Then he dashed the bushes aside with both arms, and with a cry that noone but she heard sprang toward her. 

Young Van Bibber stopped his mail phaeton in front of the club, andwent inside to recuperate, and told how he had seen them driving homethrough the Park in her brougham and unchaperoned. 

"Which I call very bad form, " said the punctilious Van Bibber, "eventhough they are engaged. "

MY DISREPUTABLE FRIEND, MR. RAEGEN

Rags Raegen was out of his element. The water was his proper element--the water of the East River by preference. And when it came to"running the roofs, " as he would have himself expressed it, he was"not in it. "

On those other occasions when he had been followed by the police, hehad raced them toward the river front and had dived boldly in from thewharf, leaving them staring blankly and in some alarm as to hissafety. Indeed, three different men in the precinct, who did not knowof young Raegen's aquatic prowess, had returned to the station-houseand seriously reported him to the sergeant as lost, and regrettedhaving driven a citizen into the river, where he had beenunfortunately drowned. It was even told how, on one occasion, whenhotly followed, young Raegen had dived off Wakeman's Slip, at EastThirty-third Street, and had then swum back under water to thelanding-steps, while the policeman and a crowd of stevedores stoodwatching for him to reappear where he had sunk. It is further relatedthat he had then, in a spirit of recklessness, and in the possibilityof the policeman's failing to recognize him, pushed his way throughthe crowd from the rear and plunged in to rescue the supposedlydrowned man. And that after two or three futile attempts to find hisown corpse, he had climbed up on the dock and told the officer that hehad touched the body sticking in the mud. And, as a result of thisfiction, the river-police dragged the river-bed around Wakeman's Slipwith grappling irons for four hours, while Rags sat on the wharf anddirected their movements. 

But on this present occasion the police were standing between him andthe river, and so cut off his escape in that direction, and as theyhad seen him strike McGonegal and had seen McGonegal fall, he had torun for it and seek refuge on the roofs. What made it worse was thathe was not in his own hunting-grounds, but in McGonegal's, and whileany tenement on Cherry Street would have given him shelter, either forlove of him or fear of him, these of Thirty-third Street were againsthim and "all that Cherry Street gang, " while "Pike" McGonegal wastheir darling and their hero. And, if Rags had known it, any tenementon the block was better than Case's, into which he first turned, forCase's was empty and untenanted, save in one or two rooms, and theopportunities for dodging from one to another were in consequence veryfew. But he could not know this, and so he plunged into the dark hall-way and sprang up the first four flights of stairs, three steps at ajump, with one arm stretched out in front of him, for it was very darkand the turns were short. On the fourth floor he fell headlong over abucket with a broom sticking in it, and cursed whoever left it there. There was a ladder leading from the sixth floor to the roof, and heran up this and drew it after him as he fell forward out of the woodentrap that opened on the flat tin roof like a companion-way of a ship. The chimneys would have hidden him, but there was a policeman's helmetcoming up from another companion-way, and he saw that the Italianshanging out of the windows of the other tenements were pointing at himand showing him to the officer. So he hung by his hands and droppedback again. It was not much of a fall, but it jarred him, and the racehe had already run had nearly taken his breath from him. For Rags didnot live a life calculated to fit young men for sudden trials ofspeed. 

He stumbled back down the narrow stairs, and, with a vividrecollection of the bucket he had already fallen upon, felt his waycautiously with his hands and with one foot stuck out in front of him. If he had been in his own bailiwick, he would have rather enjoyed thetense excitement of the chase than otherwise, for there he was at homeand knew all the cross-cuts and where to find each broken paling inthe roof-fences, and all the traps in the roofs. But here he wasrunning in a maze, and what looked like a safe passage-way might throwhim head on into the outstretched arms of the officers. 

And while he felt his way his mind was terribly acute to the fact thatas yet no door on any of the landings had been thrown open to him, either curiously or hospitably as offering a place of refuge. He didnot want to be taken, but in spite of this he was quite cool, and so, when he heard quick, heavy footsteps beating up the stairs, he stoppedhimself suddenly by placing one hand on the side of the wall and theother on the banister and halted, panting. He could distinguish frombelow the high voices of women and children and excited men in thestreet, and as the steps came nearer he heard some one lowering theladder he had thrown upon the roof to the sixth floor and preparing todescend. "Ah!" snarled Raegen, panting and desperate, "youse think youhave me now, sure, don't you?" It rather frightened him to find thehouse so silent, for, save the footsteps of the officers, descendingand ascending upon him, he seemed to be the only living person in allthe dark, silent building. 

He did not want to fight. 

He was under heavy bonds already to keep the peace, and this last hadsurely been in self-defence, and he felt he could prove it. What hewanted now was to get away, to get back to his own people and to liehidden in his own cellar or garret, where they would feed and guardhim until the trouble was over. And still, like the two ends of avise, the representatives of the law were closing in upon him. Heturned the knob of the door opening to the landing on which he stood, and tried to push it in, but it was locked. Then he stepped quickly tothe door on the opposite side and threw his shoulder against it. Thedoor opened, and he stumbled forward sprawling. The room in which hehad taken refuge was almost bare, and very dark; but in a little roomleading from it he saw a pile of tossed-up bedding on the floor, andhe dived at this as though it was water, and crawled far under ituntil he reached the wall beyond, squirming on his face and stomach, and flattening out his arms and legs. Then he lay motionless, holdingback his breath, and listening to the beating of his heart and to thefootsteps on the stairs. The footsteps stopped on the landing leadingto the outer room, and he could hear the murmur of voices as the twomen questioned one another. Then the door was kicked open, and therewas a long silence, broken sharply by the click of a revolver. 

"Maybe he's in there, " said a bass voice. The men stamped across thefloor leading into the dark room in which he lay, and halted at theentrance. They did not stand there over a moment before they turnedand moved away again; but to Raegen, lying with blood-vessels choked, and with his hand pressed across his mouth, it seemed as if they hadbeen contemplating and enjoying his agony for over an hour. "I was inthis place not more than twelve hours ago, " said one of them easily. "I come in to take a couple out for fighting. They were yelling'murder' and 'police, ' and breaking things; but they went quietenough. The man is a stevedore, I guess, and him and his wife used toget drunk regular and carry on up here every night or so. They gotthirty days on the Island. "

"Who's taking care of the rooms?" asked the bass voice. The firstvoice said he guessed "no one was, " and added: "There ain't much totake care of, that I can see. " "That's so, " assented the bass voice. "Well, " he went on briskly, "he's not here; but he's in the building, sure, for he put back when he seen me coming over the roof. And hedidn't pass me, neither, I know that, anyway, " protested the bassvoice. Then the bass voice said that he must have slipped into theflat below, and added something that Raegen could not hear distinctly, about Schaffer on the roof, and their having him safe enough, as thatred-headed cop from the Eighteenth Precinct was watching on thestreet. They closed the door behind them, and their footstepsclattered down the stairs, leaving the big house silent and apparentlydeserted. Young Raegen raised his head, and let his breath escape witha great gasp of relief, as when he had been a long time under water, and cautiously rubbed the perspiration out of his eyes and from hisforehead. It had been a cruelly hot, close afternoon, and the stiflingburial under the heavy bedding, and the excitement, had left himfeverishly hot and trembling. It was already growing dark outside, although he could not know that until he lifted the quilts an inch ortwo and peered up at the dirty window-panes. He was afraid to rise, asyet, and flattened himself out with an impatient sigh, as he gatheredthe bedding over his head again and held back his breath to listen. There may have been a minute or more of absolute silence in which helay there, and then his blood froze to ice in his veins, his breathstopped, and he heard, with a quick gasp of terror, the sound ofsomething crawling toward him across the floor of the outer room. Theinstinct of self-defence moved him first to leap to his feet, and toface and fight it, and then followed as quickly a foolish sense ofsafety in his hiding-place; and he called upon his greatest strength, and, by his mere brute will alone, forced his forehead down to thebare floor and lay rigid, though his nerves jerked with unknown, unreasoning fear. And still he heard the sound of this living thingcoming creeping toward him until the instinctive terror that shook himovercame his will, and he threw the bed-clothes from him with a hoarsecry, and sprang up trembling to his feet, with his back against thewall, and with his arms thrown out in front of him wildly, and withthe willingness in them and the power in them to do murder. 

The room was very dark, but the windows of the one beyond let in alittle stream of light across the floor, and in this light he sawmoving toward him on its hands and knees a little baby who smiled andnodded at him with a pleased look of recognition and kindly welcome. 

The fear upon Raegen had been so strong and the reaction was so greatthat he dropped to a sitting posture on the heap of bedding andlaughed long and weakly, and still with a feeling in his heart thatthis apparition was something strangely unreal and menacing. 

[Illustration with caption: He sprang up trembling to his feet. ]

But the baby seemed well pleased with his laughter, and stopped tothrow back its head and smile and coo and laugh gently with him asthough the joke was a very good one which they shared in common. Thenit struggled solemnly to its feet and came pattering toward him on arun, with both bare arms held out, and with a look of such confidencein him, and welcome in its face, that Raegen stretched out his armsand closed the baby's fingers fearfully and gently in his own. 

He had never seen so beautiful a child. There was dirt enough on itshands and face, and its torn dress was soiled with streaks of coal andashes. The dust of the floor had rubbed into its bare knees, but theface was like no other face that Rags had ever seen. And then itlooked at him as though it trusted him, and just as though they hadknown each other at some time long before, but the eyes of the babysomehow seemed to hurt him so that he had to turn his face away, andwhen he looked again it was with a strangely new feeling ofdissatisfaction with himself and of wishing to ask pardon. They werewonderful eyes, black and rich, and with a deep superiority ofknowledge in them, a knowledge that seemed to be above the knowledgeof evil; and when the baby smiled at him, the eyes smiled too withconfidence and tenderness in them that in some way frightened Rags andmade him move uncomfortably. "Did you know that youse scared me sothat I was going to kill you?" whispered Rags, apologetically, as hecarefully held the baby from him at arm's length. "Did you?" But thebaby only smiled at this and reached out its hand and stroked Rag'scheek with its fingers. There was something so wonderfully soft andsweet in this that Rags drew the baby nearer and gave a quick, strangegasp of pleasure as it threw its arms around his neck and brought theface up close to his chin and hugged him tightly. The baby's arms werevery soft and plump, and its cheek and tangled hair were warm andmoist with perspiration, and the breath that fell on Raegen's face wassweeter than anything he had ever known. He felt wonderfully and forsome reason uncomfortably happy, but the silence was oppressive. 

"What's your name, little 'un?" said Rags. The baby ran its arms moreclosely around Raegen's neck and did not speak, unless its cooing inRaegen's ear was an answer. "What did you say your name was?"persisted Raegen, in a whisper. The baby frowned at this and stoppedcooing long enough to say: "Marg'ret, " mechanically and withoutapparently associating the name with herself or anything else. "Margaret, eh!" said Raegen, with grave consideration. "It's a verypretty name, " he added, politely, for he could not shake off thefeeling that he was in the presence of a superior being. "An' what didyou say your dad's name was?" asked Raegen, awkwardly. But this wasbeyond the baby's patience or knowledge, and she waived the questionaside with both arms and began to beat a tattoo gently with her twoclosed fists on Raegen's chin and throat. "You're mighty strong now, ain't you?" mocked the young giant, laughing. "Perhaps you don't know, Missie, " he added, gravely, "that your dad and mar are doing time onthe Island, and you won't see 'em again for a month. " No, the baby didnot know this nor care apparently; she seemed content with Rags andwith his company. Sometimes she drew away and looked at him long anddubiously, and this cut Rags to the heart, and he felt guilty, andunreasonably anxious until she smiled reassuringly again and ran backinto his arms, nestling her face against his and stroking his roughchin wonderingly with her little fingers. 

Rags forgot the lateness of the night and the darkness that fell uponthe room in the interest of this strange entertainment, which was somuch more absorbing, and so much more innocent than any other he hadever known. He almost forgot the fact that he lay in hiding, that hewas surrounded by unfriendly neighbors, and that at any moment therepresentatives of local justice might come in and rudely lead himaway. For this reason he dared not make a light, but he moved hisposition so that the glare from an electric lamp on the street outsidemight fall across the baby's face, as it lay alternately dozing andawakening, to smile up at him in the bend of his arm. Once it reachedinside the collar of his shirt and pulled out the scapular that hungaround his neck, and looked at it so long, and with such apparentseriousness, that Rags was confirmed in his fear that this kindlyvisitor was something more or less of a superhuman agent, and hisefforts to make this supposition coincide with the fact that theangel's parents were on Blackwell's Island, proved one of the severeststruggles his mind had ever experienced. He had forgotten to feelhungry, and the knowledge that he was acutely so, first came to himwith the thought that the baby must obviously be in greatest need offood herself. This pained him greatly, and he laid his burden downupon the bedding, and after slipping off his shoes, tip-toed his wayacross the room on a foraging expedition after something she couldeat. There was a half of a ham-bone, and a half loaf of hard bread ina cupboard, and on the table he found a bottle quite filled withwretched whiskey. That the police had failed to see the baby had notappealed to him in any way, but that they should have allowed thislast find to remain unnoticed pleased him intensely, not because itnow fell to him, but because they had been cheated of it. It reallystruck him as so humorous that he stood laughing silently for severalminutes, slapping his thigh with every outward exhibition of thekeenest mirth. But when he found that the room and cupboard were bareof anything else that might be eaten he sobered suddenly. It was veryhot, and though the windows were open, the perspiration stood upon hisface, and the foul close air that rose from the court and street belowmade him gasp and pant for breath. He dipped a wash rag in the waterfrom the spigot in the hall, and filled a cup with it and bathed thebaby's face and wrists. She woke and sipped up the water from the cupeagerly, and then looked up at him, as if to ask for something more. Rags soaked the crusty bread in the water, and put it to the baby'slips, but after nibbling at it eagerly she shook her head and lookedup at him again with such reproachful pleading in her eyes, that Ragsfelt her silence more keenly than the worst abuse he had everreceived. 

It hurt him so, that the pain brought tears to his eyes. 

"Deary girl, " he cried, "I'd give you anything you could think of if Ihad it. But I can't get it, see? It ain't that I don't want to--goodLord, little 'un, you don't think that, do you?"

The baby smiled at this, just as though she understood him, andtouched his face as if to comfort him, so that Rags felt that sameexquisite content again, which moved him so strangely whenever thechild caressed him, and which left him soberly wondering. Then thebaby crawled up onto his lap and dropped asleep, while Rags satmotionless and fanned her with a folded newspaper, stopping every nowand then to pass the damp cloth over her warm face and arms. It wasquite late now. Outside he could hear the neighbors laughing andtalking on the roofs, and when one group sang hilariously to anaccordion, he cursed them under his breath for noisy, drunken fools, and in his anger lest they should disturb the child in his arms, expressed an anxious hope that they would fall off and break theiruseless necks. It grew silent and much cooler as the night ran out, but Rags still sat immovable, shivering slightly every now and thenand cautiously stretching his stiff legs and body. The arm that heldthe child grew stiff and numb with the light burden, but he took afierce pleasure in the pain, and became hardened to it, and at lastfell into an uneasy slumber from which he awoke to pass his handsgently over the soft yielding body, and to draw it slowly and closerto him. And then, from very weariness, his eyes closed and his headfell back heavily against the wall, and the man and the child in hisarms slept peacefully in the dark corner of the deserted tenement. 

The sun rose hissing out of the East River, a broad, red disc of heat. It swept the cross-streets of the city as pitilessly as the search-light of a man-of-war sweeps the ocean. It blazed brazenly into openwindows, and changed beds into gridirons on which the sleepers tossedand turned and woke unrefreshed and with throats dry and parched. Itsglare awakened Rags into a startled belief that the place about himwas on fire, and he stared wildly until the child in his arms broughthim back to the knowledge of where he was. He ached in every joint andlimb, and his eyes smarted with the dry heat, but the baby concernedhim most, for she was breathing with hard, long, irregular gasps, hermouth was open and her absurdly small fists were clenched, and aroundher closed eyes were deep blue rings. Rags felt a cold rush of fearand uncertainty come over him as he stared about him helplessly foraid. He had seen babies look like this before, in the tenements; theywere like this when the young doctors of the Health Board climbed tothe roofs to see them, and they were like this, only quiet and still, when the ambulance came clattering up the narrow streets, and borethem away. Rags carried the baby into the outer room, where the sunhad not yet penetrated, and laid her down gently on the coverlets;then he let the water in the sink run until it was fairly cool, andwith this bathed the baby's face and hands and feet, and lifted a cupof the water to her open lips. She woke at this and smiled again, butvery faintly, and when she looked at him he felt fearfully sure thatshe did not know him, and that she was looking through and past him atsomething he could not see. 

He did not know what to do, and he wanted to do so much. Milk was theonly thing he was quite sure babies cared for, but in want of this hemade a mess of bits of the dry ham and crumbs of bread, moistened withthe raw whiskey, and put it to her lips on the end of a spoon. Thebaby tasted this, and pushed his hand away, and then looked up andgave a feeble cry, and seemed to say, as plainly as a grown womancould have said or written, "It isn't any use, Rags. You are very goodto me, but, indeed, I cannot do it. Don't worry, please; I don't blameyou. "

"Great Lord, " gasped Rags, with a queer choking in his throat, "butain't she got grit. " Then he bethought him of the people who he stillbelieved inhabited the rest of the tenement, and he concluded that asthe day was yet so early they might still be asleep, and that whilethey slept, he could "lift"--as he mentally described the act--whatever they might have laid away for breakfast. Excited with thishope, he ran noiselessly down the stairs in his bare feet, and triedthe doors of the different landings. But each he found open and eachroom bare and deserted. Then it occurred to him that at this hour hemight even risk a sally into the street. He had money with him, andthe milk-carts and bakers' wagons must be passing every minute. He ranback to get the money out of his coat, delighted with the chance andchiding himself for not having dared to do it sooner. He stood overthe baby a moment before he left the room, and flushed like a girl ashe stooped and kissed one of the bare arms. "I'm going out to get yousome breakfast, " he said. "I won't be gone long, but if I should, " headded, as he paused and shrugged his shoulders, "I'll send thesergeant after you from the station-house. If I only wasn't underbonds, " he muttered, as he slipped down the stairs. "If it wasn't forthat they couldn't give me more'n a month at the most, even knowingall they do of me. It was only a street fight, anyway, and there wassome there that must have seen him pull his pistol. " He stopped at thetop of the first flight of stairs and sat down to wait. He could seebelow the top of the open front door, the pavement and a part of thestreet beyond, and when he heard the rattle of an approaching cart heran on down and then, with an oath, turned and broke up-stairs again. He had seen the ward detectives standing together on the opposite sideof the street. 

"Wot are they doing out a bed at this hour?" he demanded angrily. "Don't they make trouble enough through the day, without prowlingaround before decent people are up? I wonder, now, if they're afterme. " He dropped on his knees when he reached the room where the babylay, and peered cautiously out of the window at the detectives, whohad been joined by two other men, with whom they were talkingearnestly. Raegen knew the new-comers for two of McGonegal's friends, and concluded, with a momentary flush of pride and self-importance, that the detectives were forced to be up at this early hour solely onhis account. But this was followed by the afterthought that he musthave hurt McGonegal seriously, and that he was wanted in consequencevery much. This disturbed him most, he was surprised to find, becauseit precluded his going forth in search of food. "I guess I can't getyou that milk I was looking for, " he said, jocularly, to the baby, forthe excitement elated him. "The sun outside isn't good for me health. "The baby settled herself in his arms and slept again, which soberedRags, for he argued it was a bad sign, and his own ravenous appetitewarned him how the child suffered. When he again offered her themixture he had prepared for her, she took it eagerly, and Ragsbreathed a sigh of satisfaction. Then he ate some of the bread and hamhimself and swallowed half the whiskey, and stretched out beside thechild and fanned her while she slept. It was something strangelyincomprehensible to Rags that he should feel so keen a satisfaction indoing even this little for her, but he gave up wondering, and forgoteverything else in watching the strange beauty of the sleeping babyand in the odd feeling of responsibility and self-respect she hadbrought to him. 

He did not feel it coming on, or he would have fought against it, butthe heat of the day and the sleeplessness of the night before, and thefumes of the whiskey on his empty stomach, drew him unconsciously intoa dull stupor, so that the paper fan slipped from his hand, and hesank back on the bedding into a heavy sleep. When he awoke it wasnearly dusk and past six o'clock, as he knew by the newsboys callingthe sporting extras on the street below. He sprang up, cursinghimself, and filled with bitter remorse. 

"I'm a drunken fool, that's what I am, " said Rags, savagely. "I've lether lie here all day in the heat with no one to watch her. " Margaretwas breathing so softly that he could hardly discern any life at all, and his heart almost stopped with fear. He picked her up and fannedand patted her into wakefulness again and then turned desperately tothe window and looked down. There was no one he knew or who knew himas far as he could tell on the street, and he determined recklessly torisk another sortie for food. 

"Why, it's been near two days that child's gone without eating, " hesaid, with keen self-reproach, "and here you've let her suffer to saveyourself a trip to the Island. You're a hulking big loafer, you are, "he ran on, muttering, "and after her coming to you and taking noticeof you and putting her face to yours like an angel. " He slipped offhis shoes and picked his way cautiously down the stairs. 

As he reached the top of the first flight a newsboy passed, callingthe evening papers, and shouted something which Rags could notdistinguish. He wished he could get a copy of the paper. It might tellhim, he thought, something about himself. The boy was coming nearer, and Rags stopped and leaned forward to listen. 

"Extry! Extry!" shouted the newsboy, running. "Sun, World, and Mail. Full account of the murder of Pike McGonegal by Ragsey Raegen. "

The lights in the street seemed to flash up suddenly and grow dimagain, leaving Rags blind and dizzy. 

"Stop, " he yelled, "stop. Murdered, no, by God, no, " he cried, staggering half-way down the stairs; "stop, stop!" But no one heardRags, and the sound of his own voice halted him. He sank back weak andsick upon the top step of the stairs and beat his hands together uponhis head. 

"It's a lie, it's a lie, " he whispered, thickly. "I struck him inself-defence, s'help me. I struck him in self-defence. He drove me toit. He pulled his gun on me. I done it in self-defence. "

And then the whole appearance of the young tough changed, and theterror and horror that had showed on his face turned to one of lowsharpness and evil cunning. His lips drew together tightly and hebreathed quickly through his nostrils, while his fingers locked andunlocked around his knees. All that he had learned on the streets andwharves and roof-tops, all that pitiable experience and dangerousknowledge that had made him a leader and a hero among the thieves andbullies of the river-front he called to his assistance now. He facedthe fact flatly and with the cool consideration of an uninterestedcounsellor. He knew that the history of his life was written on PoliceCourt blotters from the day that he was ten years old, and withpitiless detail; that what friends he had he held more by fear than byaffection, and that his enemies, who were many, only wanted just sucha chance as this to revenge injuries long suffered and bitterlycherished, and that his only safety lay in secret and instant flight. The ferries were watched, of course; he knew that the depots, too, were covered by the men whose only duty was to watch the coming and tohalt the departing criminal. But he knew of one old man who was toowise to ask questions and who would row him over the East River toAstoria, and of another on the west side whose boat was always at thedisposal of silent white-faced young men who might come at any hour ofthe night or morning, and whom he would pilot across to the Jerseyshore and keep well away from the lights of the passing ferries andthe green lamp of the police boat. And once across, he had only tochange his name and write for money to be forwarded to that name, andturn to work until the thing was covered up and forgotten. He rose tohis feet in his full strength again, and intensely and agreeablyexcited with the danger, and possibly fatal termination, of hisadventure, and then there fell upon him, with the suddenness of ablow, the remembrance of the little child lying on the dirty beddingin the room above. 

"I can't do it, " he muttered fiercely; "I can't do it, " he cried, asif he argued with some other presence. "There's a rope around me neck, and the chances are all against me; it's every man for himself and nofavor. " He threw his arms out before him as if to push the thoughtaway from him and ran his fingers through his hair and over his face. All of his old self rose in him and mocked him for a weak fool, andshowed him just how great his personal danger was, and so he turnedand dashed forward on a run, not only to the street, but as if toescape from the other self that held him back. He was still withouthis shoes, and in his bare feet, and he stopped as he noticed this andturned to go up stairs for them, and then he pictured to himself thebaby lying as he had left her, weakly unconscious and with dark rimsaround her eyes, and he asked himself excitedly what he would do, if, on his return, she should wake and smile and reach out her hands tohim. 

"I don't dare go back, " he said, breathlessly. "I don't dare do it;killing's too good for the likes of Pike McGonegal, but I'm notfighting babies. An' maybe, if I went back, maybe I wouldn't have thenerve to leave her; I can't do it, " he muttered, "I don't dare goback. " But still he did not stir, but stood motionless, with one handtrembling on the stair-rail and the other clenched beside him, and sofought it on alone in the silence of the empty building. 

The lights in the stores below came out one by one, and the minutespassed into half-hours, and still he stood there with the noise of thestreets coming up to him below speaking of escape and of a long lifeof ill-regulated pleasures, and up above him the baby lay in thedarkness and reached out her hands to him in her sleep. 

The surly old sergeant of the Twenty-first Precinct station-house hadread the evening papers through for the third time and was dozing inthe fierce lights of the gas-jet over the high desk when a young manwith a white, haggard face came in from the street with a baby in hisarms. 

"I want to see the woman thet look after the station-house--quick, " hesaid. 

The surly old sergeant did not like the peremptory tone of the youngman nor his general appearance, for he had no hat, nor coat, and hisfeet were bare; so he said, with deliberate dignity, that the char-woman was up-stairs lying down, and what did the young man want withher? "This child, " said the visitor, in a queer thick voice, "she'ssick. The heat's come over her, and she ain't had anything to eat fortwo days, an' she's starving. Ring the bell for the matron, will yer, and send one of your men around for the house surgeon. " The sergeantleaned forward comfortably on his elbows, with his hands under hischin so that the gold lace on his cuffs shone effectively in thegaslight. He believed he had a sense of humor and he chose thisunfortunate moment to exhibit it. 

"Did you take this for a dispensary, young man?" he asked; "or, " hecontinued, with added facetiousness, "a foundling hospital?"

The young man made a savage spring at the barrier in front of the highdesk. "Damn you, " he panted, "ring that bell, do you hear me, or I'llpull you off that seat and twist your heart out. "

The baby cried at this sudden outburst, and Rags fell back, patting itwith his hand and muttering between his closed teeth. The sergeantcalled to the men of the reserve squad in the reading-room beyond, andto humor this desperate visitor, sounded the gong for the janitress. The reserve squad trooped in leisurely with the playing-cards in theirhands and with their pipes in their mouths. 

"This man, " growled the sergeant, pointing with the end of his cigarto Rags, "is either drunk, or crazy, or a bit of both. "

The char-woman came down stairs majestically, in a long, loosewrapper, fanning herself with a palm-leaf fan, but when she saw thechild, her majesty dropped from her like a cloak, and she ran towardher and caught the baby up in her arms. "You poor little thing, " shemurmured, "and, oh, how beautiful!" Then she whirled about on the menof the reserve squad: "You, Conners, " she said, "run up to my room andget the milk out of my ice-chest; and Moore, put on your coat and goaround and tell the surgeon I want to see him. And one of you cracksome ice up fine in a towel. Take it out of the cooler. Quick, now. "

Raegen came up to her fearfully. "Is she very sick?" he begged; "sheain't going to die, is she?"

"Of course not, " said the woman, promptly, "but she's down with theheat, and she hasn't been properly cared for; the child looks half-starved. Are you her father?" she asked, sharply. But Rags did notspeak, for at the moment she had answered his question and had saidthe baby would not die, he had reached out swiftly, and taken thechild out of her arms and held it hard against his breast, as thoughhe had lost her and some one had been just giving her back to him. 

His head was bending over hers, and so he did not see Wade andHeffner, the two ward detectives, as they came in from the street, looking hot, and tired, and anxious. They gave a careless glance atthe group, and then stopped with a start, and one of them gave a long, low whistle. 

"Well, " exclaimed Wade, with a gasp of surprise and relief. "SoRaegen, you're here, after all, are you? Well, you did give us achase, you did. Who took you?"

The men of the reserve squad, when they heard the name of the man forwhom the whole force had been looking for the past two days, shiftedtheir positions slightly, and looked curiously at Rags, and the womanstopped pouring out the milk from the bottle in her hand, and staredat him in frank astonishment. Raegen threw back his head andshoulders, and ran his eyes coldly over the faces of the semicircle ofmen around him. 

"Who took me?" he began defiantly, with a swagger of braggadocio, andthen, as though it were hardly worth while, and as though the presenceof the baby lifted him above everything else, he stopped, and raisedher until her cheek touched his own. It rested there a moment, whileRag stood silent. 

"Who took me?" he repeated, quietly, and without lifting his eyes fromthe baby's face. "Nobody took me, " he said. "I gave myself up. "

One morning, three months later, when Raegen had stopped his ice-cartin front of my door, I asked him whether at any time he had everregretted what he had done. 

"Well, sir, " he said, with easy superiority, "seeing that I've shookthe gang, and that the Society's decided her folks ain't fit to takecare of her, we can't help thinking we are better off, see?

[Illustration with caption: She'd reach out her hands and kiss me. ]

"But, as for my ever regretting it, why, even when things was at theworst, when the case was going dead against me, and before that cop, you remember, swore to McGonegal's drawing the pistol, and when I usedto sit in the Tombs expecting I'd have to hang for it, well, eventhen, they used to bring her to see me every day, and when they'd lifther up, and she'd reach out her hands and kiss me through the bars, why--they could have took me out and hung me, and been damned to 'em, for all I'd have cared. "

THE OTHER WOMAN

Young Latimer stood on one of the lower steps of the hall stairs, leaning with one hand on the broad railing and smiling down at her. She had followed him from the drawing-room and had stopped at theentrance, drawing the curtains behind her, and making, unconsciously, a dark background for her head and figure. He thought he had neverseen her look more beautiful, nor that cold, fine air of thoroughbreeding about her which was her greatest beauty to him, more stronglyin evidence. 

"Well, sir, " she said, "why don't you go?"

He shifted his position slightly and leaned more comfortably upon therailing, as though he intended to discuss it with her at some length. 

"How can I go, " he said, argumentatively, "with you standing there--looking like that?"

"I really believe, " the girl said, slowly, "that he is afraid; yes, heis afraid. And you always said, " she added, turning to him, "you wereso brave. "

"Oh, I am sure I never said that, " exclaimed the young man, calmly. "Imay be brave, in fact, I am quite brave, but I never said I was. Someone must have told you. "

"Yes, he is afraid, " she said, nodding her head to the tall clockacross the hall, "he is temporizing and trying to save time. Andafraid of a man, too, and such a good man who would not hurt any one. "

"You know a bishop is always a very difficult sort of a person, " hesaid, "and when he happens to be your father, the combination is justa bit awful. Isn't it now? And especially when one means to ask himfor his daughter. You know it isn't like asking him to let one smokein his study. "

"If I loved a girl, " she said, shaking her head and smiling up at him, "I wouldn't be afraid of the whole world; that's what they say inbooks, isn't it? I would be so bold and happy. "

"Oh, well, I'm bold enough, " said the young man, easily; "if I had notbeen, I never would have asked you to marry me; and I'm happy enough--that's because I did ask you. But what if he says no, " continued theyouth; "what if he says he has greater ambitions for you, just as theysay in books, too. What will you do? Will you run away with me? I canborrow a coach just as they used to do, and we can drive off throughthe Park and be married, and come back and ask his blessing on ourknees--unless he should overtake us on the elevated. "

"That, " said the girl, decidedly, "is flippant, and I'm going to leaveyou. I never thought to marry a man who would be frightened at thevery first. I am greatly disappointed. "

She stepped back into the drawing-room and pulled the curtains tobehind her, and then opened them again and whispered, "Please don't belong, " and disappeared. He waited, smiling, to see if she would makeanother appearance, but she did not, and he heard her touch the keysof the piano at the other end of the drawing-room. And so, stillsmiling and with her last words sounding in his ears, he walked slowlyup the stairs and knocked at the door of the bishop's study. Thebishop's room was not ecclesiastic in its character. It looked muchlike the room of any man of any calling who cared for his books and tohave pictures about him, and copies of the beautiful things he hadseen on his travels. There were pictures of the Virgin and the Child, but they were those that are seen in almost any house, and there wereetchings and plaster casts, and there were hundreds of books, and darkred curtains, and an open fire that lit up the pots of brass withferns in them, and the blue and white plaques on the top of thebookcase. The bishop sat before his writing-table, with one handshading his eyes from the light of a red-covered lamp, and looked upand smiled pleasantly and nodded as the young man entered. He had avery strong face, with white hair hanging at the side, but was still ayoung man for one in such a high office. He was a man interested inmany things, who could talk to men of any profession or to the mereman of pleasure, and could interest them in what he said, and forcetheir respect and liking. And he was very good, and had, they said, seen much trouble. 

"I am afraid I interrupted you, " said the young man, tentatively. 

"No, I have interrupted myself, " replied the bishop. "I don't seem tomake this clear to myself, " he said, touching the paper in front ofhim, "and so I very much doubt if I am going to make it clear to anyone else. However, " he added, smiling, as he pushed the manuscript toone side, "we are not going to talk about that now. What have you totell me that is new?"

The younger man glanced up quickly at this, but the bishop's faceshowed that his words had had no ulterior meaning, and that hesuspected nothing more serious to come than the gossip of the clubs ora report of the local political fight in which he was keenlyinterested, or on their mission on the East Side. But it seemed anopportunity to Latimer. 

"I _have_ something new to tell you, " he said, gravely, and with hiseyes turned toward the open fire, "and I don't know how to do itexactly. I mean I don't just know how it is generally done or how totell it best. " He hesitated and leaned forward, with his hands lockedin front of him, and his elbows resting on his knees. He was not inthe least frightened. The bishop had listened to many strange stories, to many confessions, in this same study, and had learned to take themas a matter of course; but to-night something in the manner of theyoung man before him made him stir uneasily, and he waited for him todisclose the object of his visit with some impatience. 

"I will suppose, sir, " said young Latimer, finally, "that you know merather well--I mean you know who my people are, and what I am doinghere in New York, and who my friends are, and what my work amounts to. You have let me see a great deal of you, and I have appreciated yourdoing so very much; to so young a man as myself it has been a greatcompliment, and it has been of great benefit to me. I know that betterthan any one else. I say this because unless you had shown me thisconfidence it would have been almost impossible for me to say to youwhat I am going to say now. But you have allowed me to come herefrequently, and to see you and talk with you here in your study, andto see even more of your daughter. Of course, sir, you did not supposethat I came here only to see you. I came here because I found that ifI did not see Miss Ellen for a day, that that day was wasted, and thatI spent it uneasily and discontentedly, and the necessity of seeingher even more frequently has grown so great that I cannot come here asoften as I seem to want to come unless I am engaged to her, unless Icome as her husband that is to be. " The young man had been speakingvery slowly and picking his words, but now he raised his head and ranon quickly. 

"I have spoken to her and told her how I love her, and she has told methat she loves me, and that if you will not oppose us, will marry me. That is the news I have to tell you, sir. I don't know but that Imight have told it differently, but that is it. I need not urge on youmy position and all that, because I do not think that weighs with you;but I do tell you that I love Ellen so dearly that, though I am notworthy of her, of course, I have no other pleasure than to give herpleasure and to try to make her happy. I have the power to do it; butwhat is much more, I have the wish to do it; it is all I think of now, and all that I can ever think of. What she thinks of me you must askher; but what she is to me neither she can tell you nor do I believethat I myself could make you understand. " The young man's face wasflushed and eager, and as he finished speaking he raised his head andwatched the bishop's countenance anxiously. But the older man's facewas hidden by his hand as he leaned with his elbow on his writing-table. His other hand was playing with a pen, and when he began tospeak, which he did after a long pause, he still turned it between hisfingers and looked down at it. 

"I suppose, " he said, as softly as though he were speaking to himself, "that I should have known this; I suppose that I should have beenbetter prepared to hear it. But it is one of those things which menput off--I mean those men who have children, put off--as they domaking their wills, as something that is in the future and that may beshirked until it comes. We seem to think that our daughters will livewith us always, just as we expect to live on ourselves until deathcomes one day and startles us and finds us unprepared. " He took downhis hand and smiled gravely at the younger man with an evident effort, and said, "I did not mean to speak so gloomily, but you see my pointof view must be different from yours. And she says she loves you, doesshe?" he added, gently. 

Young Latimer bowed his head and murmured something inarticulately inreply, and then held his head erect again and waited, still watchingthe bishop's face. 

"I think she might have told me, " said the older man; "but then Isuppose this is the better way. I am young enough to understand thatthe old order changes, that the customs of my father's time differfrom those of to-day. And there is no alternative, I suppose, " hesaid, shaking his head. "I am stopped and told to deliver, and have nochoice. I will get used to it in time, " he went on, "but it seems veryhard now. Fathers are selfish, I imagine, but she is all I have. "

Young Latimer looked gravely into the fire and wondered how long itwould last. He could just hear the piano from below, and he wasanxious to return to her. And at the same time he was drawn toward theolder man before him, and felt rather guilty, as though he really wererobbing him. But at the bishop's next words he gave up any thought ofa speedy release, and settled himself in his chair. 

"We are still to have a long talk, " said the bishop. "There are manythings I must know, and of which I am sure you will inform me freely. I believe there are some who consider me hard, and even narrow ondifferent points, but I do not think you will find me so, at least letus hope not. I must confess that for a moment I almost hoped that youmight not be able to answer the questions I must ask you, but it wasonly for a moment. I am only too sure you will not be found wanting, and that the conclusion of our talk will satisfy us both. Yes, I amconfident of that. "

His manner changed, nevertheless, and Latimer saw that he was nowfacing a judge and not a plaintiff who had been robbed, and that hewas in turn the defendant. And still he was in no way frightened. 

"I like you, " the bishop said, "I like you very much. As you sayyourself, I have seen a great deal of you, because I have enjoyed yoursociety, and your views and talk were good and young and fresh, anddid me good. You have served to keep me in touch with the outsideworld, a world of which I used to know at one time a great deal. Iknow your people and I know you, I think, and many people have spokento me of you. I see why now. They, no doubt, understood what wascoming better than myself, and were meaning to reassure me concerningyou. And they said nothing but what was good of you. But there arecertain things of which no one can know but yourself, and concerningwhich no other person, save myself, has a right to question you. Youhave promised very fairly for my daughter's future; you have suggestedmore than you have said, but I understood. You can give her manypleasures which I have not been able to afford; she can get from youthe means of seeing more of this world in which she lives, of meetingmore people, and of indulging in her charities, or in herextravagances, for that matter, as she wishes. I have no fear of herbodily comfort; her life, as far as that is concerned, will be easierand broader, and with more power for good. Her future, as I say, asyou say also, is assured; but I want to ask you this, " the bishopleaned forward and watched the young man anxiously, "you can protecther in the future, but can you assure me that you can protect her fromthe past?"

Young Latimer raised his eyes calmly and said, "I don't think I quiteunderstand. "

"I have perfect confidence, I say, " returned the bishop, "in you asfar as your treatment of Ellen is concerned in the future. You loveher and you would do everything to make the life of the woman you lovea happy one; but this is it, Can you assure me that there is nothingin the past that may reach forward later and touch my daughter throughyou--no ugly story, no oats that have been sowed, and no boomerangthat you have thrown wantonly and that has not returned--but which mayreturn?"

"I think I understand you now, sir, " said the young man, quietly. "Ihave lived, " he began, "as other men of my sort have lived. You knowwhat that is, for you must have seen it about you at college, andafter that before you entered the Church. I judge so from yourfriends, who were your friends then, I understand. You know how theylived. I never went in for dissipation, if you mean that, because itnever attracted me. I am afraid I kept out of it not so much out ofrespect for others as for respect for myself. I found my self-respectwas a very good thing to keep, and I rather preferred keeping it andlosing several pleasures that other men managed to enjoy, apparentlywith free consciences. I confess I used to rather envy them. It is noparticular virtue on my part; the thing struck me as rather morevulgar than wicked, and so I have had no wild oats to speak of; and nowoman, if that is what you mean, can write an anonymous letter, and noman can tell you a story about me that he could not tell in mypresence. "

There was something in the way the young man spoke which would haveamply satisfied the outsider, had he been present; but the bishop'seyes were still unrelaxed and anxious. He made an impatient motionwith his hand. 

"I know you too well, I hope, " he said, "to think of doubting yourattitude in that particular. I know you are a gentleman, that isenough for that; but there is something beyond these more commonevils. You see, I am terribly in earnest over this--you may thinkunjustly so, considering how well I know you, but this child is myonly child. If her mother had lived, my responsibility would have beenless great; but, as it is, God has left her here alone to me in myhands. I do not think He intended my duty should end when I had fedand clothed her, and taught her to read and write. I do not think Hemeant that I should only act as her guardian until the first man shefancied fancied her. I must look to her happiness not only now whenshe is with me, but I must assure myself of it when she leaves myroof. These common sins of youth I acquit you of. Such things arebeneath you, I believe, and I did not even consider them. But thereare other toils in which men become involved, other evils ormisfortunes which exist, and which threaten all men who are young andfree and attractive in many ways to women, as well as men. You havelived the life of the young man of this day. You have reached a placein your profession when you can afford to rest and marry and assumethe responsibilities of marriage. You look forward to a life ofcontent and peace and honorable ambition--a life, with your wife atyour side, which is to last forty or fifty years. You consider whereyou will be twenty years from now, at what point of your career youmay become a judge or give up practice; your perspective is unlimited;you even think of the college to which you may send your son. It is along, quiet future that you are looking forward to, and you choose mydaughter as the companion for that future, as the one woman with whomyou could live content for that length of time. And it is in thatspirit that you come to me to-night and that you ask me for mydaughter. Now I am going to ask you one question, and as you answerthat I will tell you whether or not you can have Ellen for your wife. You look forward, as I say, to many years of life, and you have chosenher as best suited to live that period with you; but I ask you this, and I demand that you answer me truthfully, and that you remember thatyou are speaking to her father. Imagine that I had the power to tellyou, or rather that some superhuman agent could convince you, that youhad but a month to live, and that for what you did in that month youwould not be held responsible either by any moral law or any law madeby man, and that your life hereafter would not be influenced by yourconduct in that month, would you spend it, I ask you--and on youranswer depends mine--would you spend those thirty days, with death atthe end, with my daughter, or with some other woman of whom I knownothing?"

Latimer sat for some time silent, until indeed, his silence assumedsuch a significance that he raised his head impatiently and said witha motion of the hand, "I mean to answer you in a minute; I want to besure that I understand. "

The bishop bowed his head in assent, and for a still longer period themen sat motionless. The clock in the corner seemed to tick moreloudly, and the dead coals dropping in the grate had a sharp, aggressive sound. The notes of the piano that had risen from the roombelow had ceased. 

"If I understand you, " said Latimer, finally, and his voice and hisface as he raised it were hard and aggressive, "you are stating apurely hypothetical case. You wish to try me by conditions which donot exist, which cannot exist. What justice is there, what right isthere, in asking me to say how I would act under circumstances whichare impossible, which lie beyond the limit of human experience? Youcannot judge a man by what he would do if he were suddenly robbed ofall his mental and moral training and of the habit of years. I am notadmitting, understand me, that if the conditions which you suggest didexist that I would do one whit differently from what I will do if theyremain as they are. I am merely denying your right to put such aquestion to me at all. You might just as well judge the shipwreckedsailors on a raft who eat each other's flesh as you would judge asane, healthy man who did such a thing in his own home. Are you goingto condemn men who are ice-locked at the North Pole, or buried in theheart of Africa, and who have given up all thought of return and arehalf mad and wholly without hope, as you would judge ourselves? Arethey to be weighed and balanced as you and I are, sitting here withinthe sound of the cabs outside and with a bake-shop around the corner?What you propose could not exist, could never happen. I could never beplaced where I should have to make such a choice, and you have noright to ask me what I would do or how I would act under conditionsthat are super-human--you used the word yourself--where all that Ihave held to be good and just and true would be obliterated. I wouldbe unworthy of myself, I would be unworthy of your daughter, if Iconsidered such a state of things for a moment, or if I placed myhopes of marrying her on the outcome of such a test, and so, sir, "said the young man, throwing back his head, "I must refuse to answeryou. "

The bishop lowered his hand from before his eyes and sank back wearilyinto his chair. "You have answered me, " he said. 

"You have no right to say that, " cried the young man, springing to hisfeet. "You have no right to suppose anything or to draw anyconclusions. I have not answered you. " He stood with his head andshoulders thrown back, and with his hands resting on his hips and withthe fingers working nervously at his waist. 

"What you have said, " replied the bishop, in a voice that had changedstrangely, and which was inexpressibly sad and gentle, "is merely acurtain of words to cover up your true feeling. It would have been soeasy to have said, 'For thirty days or for life Ellen is the onlywoman who has the power to make me happy. ' You see that would haveanswered me and satisfied me. But you did not say that, " he added, quickly, as the young man made a movement as if to speak. 

"Well, and suppose this other woman did exist, what then?" demandedLatimer. "The conditions you suggest are impossible; you must, youwill surely, sir, admit that. "

"I do not know, " replied the bishop, sadly; "I do not know. It mayhappen that whatever obstacle there has been which has kept you fromher may be removed. It may be that she has married, it may be that shehas fallen so low that you cannot marry her. But if you have loved heronce, you may love her again; whatever it was that separated you inthe past, that separates you now, that makes you prefer my daughter toher, may come to an end when you are married, when it will be toolate, and when only trouble can come of it, and Ellen would bear thattrouble. Can I risk that?"

"But I tell you it is impossible, " cried the young man. "The woman isbeyond the love of any man, at least such a man as I am, or try tobe. "

"Do you mean, " asked the bishop, gently, and with an eager look ofhope, "that she is dead?"

Latimer faced the father for some seconds in silence. Then he raisedhis head slowly. "No, " he said, "I do not mean she is dead. No, she isnot dead. "

Again the bishop moved back wearily into his chair. "You mean then, "he said, "perhaps, that she is a married woman?" Latimer pressed hislips together at first as though he would not answer, and then raisedhis eyes coldly. "Perhaps, " he said. 

The older man had held up his hand as if to signify that what he wasabout to say should be listened to without interruption, when a sharpturning of the lock of the door caused both father and the suitor tostart. Then they turned and looked at each other with anxious inquiryand with much concern, for they recognized for the first time thattheir voices had been loud. The older man stepped quickly across thefloor, but before he reached the middle of the room the door openedfrom the outside, and his daughter stood in the door-way, with herhead held down and her eyes looking at the floor. 

"Ellen!" exclaimed the father, in a voice of pain and the deepestpity. 

The girl moved toward the place from where his voice came, withoutraising her eyes, and when she reached him put her arms about him andhid her face on his shoulder. She moved as though she were tired, asthough she were exhausted by some heavy work. 

"My child, " said the bishop, gently, "were you listening?" There wasno reproach in his voice; it was simply full of pity and concern. 

"I thought, " whispered the girl, brokenly, "that he would befrightened; I wanted to hear what he would say. I thought I couldlaugh at him for it afterward. I did it for a joke. I thought--" shestopped with a little gasping sob that she tried to hide, and for amoment held herself erect and then sank back again into her father'sarms with her head upon his breast. 

Latimer started forward, holding out his arms to her. "Ellen, " hesaid, "surely, Ellen, you are not against me. You see how preposterousit is, how unjust it is to me. You cannot mean--"

The girl raised her head and shrugged her shoulders slightly as thoughshe were cold. "Father, " she said, wearily, "ask him to go away, Whydoes he stay? Ask him to go away. "

Latimer stopped and took a step back as though some one had struckhim, and then stood silent with his face flushed and his eyesflashing. It was not in answer to anything that they said that hespoke, but to their attitude and what it suggested. "You stand there, "he began, "you two stand there as though I were something unclean, asthough I had committed some crime. You look at me as though I were ontrial for murder or worse. Both of you together against me. What haveI done? What difference is there? You loved me a half-hour ago, Ellen;you said you did. I know you loved me; and you, sir, " he added, morequietly, "treated me like a friend. Has anything come since then tochange me or you? Be fair to me, be sensible. What is the use of this?It is a silly, needless, horrible mistake. You know I love you, Ellen;love you better than all the world. I don't have to tell you that; youknow it, you can see and feel it. It does not need to be said; wordscan't make it any truer. You have confused yourselves and stultifiedyourselves with this trick, this test by hypothetical conditions, byconsidering what is not real or possible. It is simple enough; it isplain enough. You know I love you, Ellen, and you only, and that isall there is to it, and all that there is of any consequence in theworld to me. The matter stops there; that is all there is for you toconsider. Answer me, Ellen, speak to me. Tell me that you believe me. "

He stopped and moved a step toward her, but as he did so, the girl, still without looking up, drew herself nearer to her father and shrankmore closely into his arms; but the father's face was troubled anddoubtful, and he regarded the younger man with a look of the mostanxious scrutiny. Latimer did not regard this. Their hands were raisedagainst him as far as he could understand, and he broke forth againproudly, and with a defiant indignation:

"What right have you to judge me?" he began; "what do you know of whatI have suffered, and endured, and overcome? How can you know what Ihave had to give up and put away from me? It's easy enough for you todraw your skirts around you, but what can a woman bred as you havebeen bred know of what I've had to fight against and keep under andcut away? It was an easy, beautiful idyl to you; your love came to youonly when it should have come, and for a man who was good and worthy, and distinctly eligible--I don't mean that; forgive me, Ellen, but youdrive me beside myself. But he is good and he believes himself worthy, and I say that myself before you both. But I am only worthy and onlygood because of that other love that I put away when it became acrime, when it became impossible. Do you know what it cost me? Do youknow what it meant to me, and what I went through, and how I suffered?Do you know who this other woman is whom you are insulting with yourdoubts and guesses in the dark? Can't you spare her? Am I not enough?Perhaps it was easy for her, too; perhaps her silence cost hernothing; perhaps she did not suffer and has nothing but happiness andcontent to look forward to for the rest of her life; and I tell youthat it is because we did put it away, and kill it, and not give wayto it that I am whatever I am to-day; whatever good there is in me isdue to that temptation and to the fact that I beat it and overcame itand kept myself honest and clean. And when I met you and learned toknow you I believed in my heart that God had sent you to me that Imight know what it was to love a woman whom I could marry and whocould be my wife; that you were the reward for my having overcometemptation and the sign that I had done well. And now you throw meover and put me aside as though I were something low and unworthy, because of this temptation, because of this very thing that has mademe know myself and my own strength and that has kept me up for you. "

As the young man had been speaking, the bishop's eyes had never lefthis face, and as he finished, the face of the priest grew clearer anddecided, and calmly exultant. And as Latimer ceased he bent his headabove his daughter's, and said in a voice that seemed to speak withmore than human inspiration. "My child, " he said, "if God had given mea son I should have been proud if he could have spoken as this youngman has done. "

But the woman only said, "Let him go to her. "

"Ellen, oh, Ellen!" cried the father. 

He drew back from the girl in his arms and looked anxiously andfeelingly at her lover. "How could you, Ellen, " he said, "how couldyou?" He was watching the young man's face with eyes full of sympathyand concern. "How little you know him, " he said, "how little youunderstand. He will not do that, " he added quickly, but lookingquestioningly at Latimer and speaking in a tone almost of command. "Hewill not undo all that he has done; I know him better than that. " ButLatimer made no answer, and for a moment the two men stood watchingeach other and questioning each other with their eyes. Then Latimerturned, and without again so much as glancing at the girl walkedsteadily to the door and left the room. He passed on slowly down thestairs and out into the night, and paused upon the top of the stepsleading to the street. Below him lay the avenue with its double lineof lights stretching off in two long perspectives. The lamps ofhundreds of cabs and carriages flashed as they advanced toward him andshone for a moment at the turnings of the cross-streets, and fromeither side came the ceaseless rush and murmur, and over all hung thestrange mystery that covers a great city at night. Latimer's rooms layto the south, but he stood looking toward a spot to the north with areckless, harassed look in his face that had not been there for manymonths. He stood so for a minute, and then gave a short shrug ofdisgust at his momentary doubt and ran quickly down the steps. "No, "he said, "if it were for a month, yes; but it is to be for many years, many more long years. " And turning his back resolutely to the north hewent slowly home. 

THE TRAILER FOR ROOM NO. 8

The "trailer" for the green-goods men who rented room No. 8 in Case'stenement had had no work to do for the last few days, and was cursinghis luck in consequence. 

He was entirely too young to curse, but he had never been told so, and, indeed, so imperfect had his training been that he had never beentold not to do anything as long as it pleased him to do it and madeexistence any more bearable. 

He had been told when he was very young, before the man and woman whohad brought him into the world had separated, not to crawl out on thefire-escape, because he might break his neck, and later, after hisfather had walked off Hegelman's Slip into the East River while verydrunk, and his mother had been sent to the penitentiary for grandlarceny, he had been told not to let the police catch him sleepingunder the bridge. 

With these two exceptions he had been told to do as he pleased, whichwas the very mockery of advice, as he was just about as well able todo as he pleased as is any one who has to beg or steal what he eatsand has to sleep in hall-ways or over the iron gratings of warmcellars and has the officers of the children's societies always afterhim to put him in a "Home" and make him be "good. "

"Snipes, " as the trailer was called, was determined no one should everforce him to be good if he could possibly prevent it. And he certainlydid do a great deal to prevent it. He knew what having to be goodmeant. Some of the boys who had escaped from the Home had told him allabout that. It meant wearing shoes and a blue and white checkeredapron, and making cane-bottomed chairs all day, and having to washyourself in a big iron tub twice a week, not to speak of having tomove about like machines whenever the lady teacher hit a bell. So whenthe green-goods men, of whom the genial Mr. Alf Wolfe was the chief, asked Snipes to act as "trailer" for them at a quarter of a dollar forevery victim he shadowed, he jumped at the offer and was proud of theposition. 

If you should happen to keep a grocery store in the country, or to runthe village post-office, it is not unlikely that you know what agreen-goods man is; but in case you don't, and have only a vague ideaas to how he lives, a paragraph of explanation must be inserted herefor your particular benefit. Green goods is the technical name forcounterfeit bills, and the green-goods men send out circulars tocountrymen all over the United States, offering to sell them $5, 000worth of counterfeit money for $500, and ease their conscience byexplaining to them that by purchasing these green goods they arehurting no one but the Government, which is quite able, with its bigsurplus, to stand the loss. They enclose a letter which is to servetheir victim as a mark of identification or credential when he comeson to purchase. 

The address they give him is in one of the many drug-store and cigar-store post-offices which are scattered all over New York, and whichcontribute to make vice and crime so easy that the evil they do cannotbe reckoned in souls lost or dollars stolen. If the letter from thecountryman strikes the dealers in green goods as sincere, they appointan interview with him by mail in rooms they rent for the purpose, andif they, on meeting him there, think he is still in earnest and not adetective or officer in disguise, they appoint still anotherinterview, to be held later in the day in the back room of somesaloon. 

Then the countryman is watched throughout the day from the moment heleaves the first meeting-place until he arrives at the saloon. Ifanything in his conduct during that time leads the man whose duty itis to follow him, or the "trailer, " as the profession call it, tobelieve he is a detective, he finds when he arrives at the saloon thatthere is no one to receive him. But if the trailer regards his conductas unsuspicious, he is taken to another saloon, not the one justappointed, which is, perhaps, a most respectable place, but to thethieves' own private little rendezvous, where he is robbed in any ofthe several different ways best suited to their purpose. 

Snipes was a very good trailer. He was so little that no one evernoticed him, and he could keep a man in sight no matter how big thecrowd was, or how rapidly it changed and shifted. And he was aspatient as he was quick, and would wait for hours if needful, with hiseye on a door, until his man reissued into the street again. And ifthe one he shadowed looked behind him to see if he was followed, ordodged up and down different streets, as if he were trying to throwoff pursuit, or despatched a note or telegram, or stopped to speak toa policeman or any special officer, as a detective might, who thoughthe had his men safely in hand, off Snipes would go on a run, to whereAlf Wolfe was waiting, and tell what he had seen. 

Then Wolfe would give him a quarter or more, and the trailer would goback to his post opposite Case's tenement, and wait for another victimto issue forth, and for the signal from No. 8 to follow him. It wasnot much fun, and "customers, " as Mr. Wolfe always called them, hadbeen scarce, and Mr. Wolfe, in consequence, had been cross and nastyin his temper, and had batted Snipe out of the way on more than oneoccasion. So the trailer was feeling blue and disconsolate, andwondered how it was that "Naseby" Raegen, "Rags" Raegen's youngerbrother, had had the luck to get a two weeks' visit to the countrywith the Fresh Air Fund children, while he had not. 

He supposed it was because Naseby had sold papers, and wore shoes, andwent to night school, and did many other things equally objectionable. Still, what Naseby had said about the country, and riding horseback, and the fishing, and the shooting crows with no cops to stop you, andwatermelons for nothing, had sounded wonderfully attractive and quiteimprobable, except that it was one of Naseby's peculiarly sneakingways to tell the truth. Anyway, Naseby had left Cherry Street forgood, and had gone back to the country to work there. This all helpedto make Snipes morose, and it was with a cynical smile of satisfactionthat he watched an old countryman coming slowly up the street, andasking his way timidly of the Italians to Case's tenement. 

The countryman looked up and about him in evident bewilderment andanxiety. He glanced hesitatingly across at the boy leaning against thewall of a saloon, but the boy was watching two sparrows fighting inthe dirt of the street, and did not see him. At least, it did not lookas if he saw him. Then the old man knocked on the door of Case'stenement. No one came, for the people in the house had learned toleave inquiring countrymen to the gentleman who rented room No. 8, andas that gentleman was occupied at that moment with a youngercountryman, he allowed the old man, whom he had first cautiouslyobserved from the top of the stairs, to remain where he was. 

The old man stood uncertainly on the stoop, and then removed his heavyblack felt hat and rubbed his bald head and the white shining locks ofhair around it with a red bandanna handkerchief. Then he walked veryslowly across the street toward Snipes, for the rest of the street wasempty, and there was no one else at hand. The old man was dressed inheavy black broadcloth, quaintly cut, with boot legs showing up underthe trousers, and with faultlessly clean linen of home-mademanufacture. 

"I can't make the people in that house over there hear me, " complainedthe old man, with the simple confidence that old age has in very youngboys. "Do you happen to know if they're at home?"

"Nop, " growled Snipes. 

"I'm looking for a man named Perceval, " said the stranger; "he livesin that house, and I wanter see him on most particular business. Itisn't a very pleasing place he lives in, is it--at least, " hehurriedly added, as if fearful of giving offence, "it isn't much onthe outside? Do you happen to know him?"

Perceval was Alf Wolfe's business name. 

"Nop, " said the trailer. 

"Well, I'm not looking for him, " explained the stranger, slowly, "asmuch as I'm looking for a young man that I kind of suspect is been tosee him to-day: a young man that looks like me, only younger. Haslightish hair and pretty tall and lanky, and carrying a shiny blackbag with him. Did you happen to hev noticed him going into that placeacross the way?"

"Nop, " said Snipes. 

The old man sighed and nodded his head thoughtfully at Snipes, andpuckered up the corners of his mouth, as though he were thinkingdeeply. He had wonderfully honest blue eyes, and with the white hairhanging around his sun-burned face, he looked like an old saint. Butthe trailer didn't know that: he did know, though, that this man was adifferent sort from the rest. Still, that was none of his business. 

"What is't you want to see him about?" he asked sullenly, while helooked up and down the street and everywhere but at the old man, andrubbed one bare foot slowly over the other. 

The old man looked pained, and much to Snipe's surprise, the questionbrought the tears to his eyes, and his lips trembled. Then he swervedslightly, so that he might have fallen if Snipes had not caught himand helped him across the pavement to a seat on a stoop. "Thankey, son, " said the stranger; "I'm not as strong as I was, an' the sun'smighty hot, an' these streets of yours smell mighty bad, and I've hada powerful lot of trouble these last few days. But if I could see thisman Perceval before my boy does, I know I could fix it, and it wouldall come out right. "

"What do you want to see him about?" repeated the trailer, suspiciously, while he fanned the old man with his hat. Snipes couldnot have told you why he did this or why this particular oldcountryman was any different from the many others who came to buycounterfeit money and who were thieves at heart as well as in deed. 

"I want to see him about my son, " said the old man to the little boy. "He's a bad man whoever he is. This 'ere Perceval is a bad man. Hesends down his wickedness to the country and tempts weak folks to sin. He teaches 'em ways of evil-doing they never heard of, and he's ruinedmy son with the others--ruined him. I've had nothing to do with thecity and its ways; we're strict living, simple folks, and perhapswe've been too strict, or Abraham wouldn't have run away to the city. But I thought it was best, and I doubted nothing when the fresh-airchildren came to the farm. I didn't like city children, but I let 'emcome. I took 'em in, and did what I could to make it pleasant for 'em. Poor little fellers, all as thin as corn-stalks and pale as ghosts, and as dirty as you. 

"I took 'em in and let 'em ride the horses, and swim in the river, andshoot crows in the cornfield, and eat all the cherries they couldpull, and what did the city send me in return for that? It sent methis thieving, rascally scheme of this man Perceval's, and it turnedmy boy's head, and lost him to me. I saw him poring over the note andreading it as if it were Gospel, and I suspected nothing. And when heasked me if he could keep it, I said yes he could, for I thought hewanted it for a curiosity, and then off he put with the black bag andthe $200 he's been saving up to start housekeeping with when the oldDeacon says he can marry his daughter Kate. " The old man placed bothhands on his knees and went on excitedly. 

"The old Deacon says he'll not let 'em marry till Abe has $2, 000, andthat is what the boy's come after. He wants to buy $2, 000 worth of badmoney with his $200 worth of good money, to show the Deacon, just asthough it were likely a marriage after such a crime as that would everbe a happy one. "

Snipes had stopped fanning the old man, as he ran on, and waslistening intently, with an uncomfortable feeling of sympathy andsorrow, uncomfortable because he was not used to it. 

He could not see why the old man should think the city should havetreated his boy better because he had taken care of the city'schildren, and he was puzzled between his allegiance to the gang andhis desire to help the gang's innocent victim, and then because he wasan innocent victim and not a "customer, " he let his sympathy get thebetter of his discretion. 

"Saay, " he began, abruptly, "I'm not sayin' nothin' to nobody, andnobody's sayin' nothin' to me--see? but I guess your son'll be aroundhere to-day, sure. He's got to come before one, for this office closessharp at one, and we goes home. Now, I've got the call whether he getshis stuff taken off him or whether the boys leave him alone. If I saythe word, they'd no more come near him than if he had the cholera--see? An' I'll say it for this oncet, just for you. Hold on, " hecommanded, as the old man raised his voice in surprised interrogation, "don't ask no questions, 'cause you won't get no answers 'except lies. You find your way back to the Grand Central Depot and wait there, andI'll steer your son down to you, sure, as soon as I can find him--see?Now get along, or you'll get me inter trouble. "

"You've been lying to me, then, " cried the old man, "and you're as badas any of them, and my boy's over in that house now. "

He scrambled up from the stoop, and before the trailer couldunderstand what he proposed to do, had dashed across the street and upthe stoop, and up the stairs, and had burst into room No. 8. 

Snipes tore after him. "Come back! come back out of that, you oldfool!" he cried. "You'll get killed in there!" Snipes was afraid toenter room No. 8, but he could hear from the outside the old manchallenging Alf Wolfe in a resonant angry voice that rang through thebuilding. 

"Whew!" said Snipes, crouching on the stairs, "there's goin' to be amuss this time, sure!"

"Where's my son? Where have you hidden my son?" demanded, the old man. He ran across the room and pulled open a door that led into anotherroom, but it was empty. He had fully expected to see his boy murderedand quartered, and with his pockets inside out. He turned on Wolfe, shaking his white hair like a mane. "Give me up my son, you rascalyou!" he cried, "or I'll get the police, and I'll tell them how youdecoy honest boys to your den and murder them. "

"Are you drunk or crazy, or just a little of both?" asked Mr. Wolfe. "For a cent I'd throw you out of that window. Get out of here! Quick, now! You're too old to get excited like that; it's not good for you. "

But this only exasperated the old man the more, and he made a lunge atthe confidence man's throat. Mr. Wolfe stepped aside and caught himaround the waist and twisted his leg around the old man's rheumaticone, and held him. "Now, " said Wolfe, as quietly as though he weregiving a lesson in wrestling, "if I wanted to, I could break yourback. "

The old man glared up at him, panting. "Your son's not here, " saidWolfe, "and this is a private gentleman's private room. I could turnyou over to the police for assault if I wanted to; but, " he added, magnanimously, "I won't. Now get out of here and go home to your wife, and when you come to see the sights again don't drink so much rawwhiskey. " He half carried the old farmer to the top of the stairs anddropped him, and went back and closed the door. Snipes came up andhelped him down and out, and the old man and the boy walked slowly andin silence out to the Bowery. Snipes helped his companion into a carand put him off at the Grand Central Depot. The heat and theexcitement had told heavily on the old man, and he seemed dazed andbeaten. 

He was leaning on the trailer's shoulder and waiting for his turn inthe line in front of the ticket window, when a tall, gawky, good-looking country lad sprang out of it and at him with an expression ofsurprise and anxiety. "Father, " he said, "father, what's wrong? Whatare you doing here? Is anybody ill at home? Are _you_ ill?"

"Abraham, " said the old man, simply, and dropped heavily on theyounger man's shoulder. Then he raised his head sternly and said: "Ithought you were murdered, but better that than a thief, Abraham. Whatbrought you here? What did you do with that rascal's letter? What didyou do with his money?"

The trailer drew cautiously away; the conversation was becomingunpleasantly personal. 

"I don't know what you're talking about, " said Abraham, calmly. "TheDeacon gave his consent the other night without the $2, 000, and I tookthe $200 I'd saved and came right on in the fust train to buy thering. It's pretty, isn't it?" he said, flushing, as he pulled out alittle velvet box and opened it. 

The old man was so happy at this that he laughed and criedalternately, and then he made a grab for the trailer and pulled himdown beside him on one of the benches. 

"You've got to come with me, " he said, with kind severity. "You're agood boy, but your folks have let you run wrong. You've been good tome, and you said you would get me back my boy and save him from thosethieves, and I believe now that you meant it. Now you're just comingback with us to the farm and the cows and the river, and you can eatall you want and live with us, and never, never see this unclean, wicked city again. "

Snipes looked up keenly from under the rim of his hat and rubbed oneof his muddy feet over the other as was his habit. The youngcountryman, greatly puzzled, and the older man smiling kindly, waitedexpectantly in silence. From outside came the sound of the car-bellsjangling, and the rattle of cabs, and the cries of drivers, and allthe varying rush and turmoil of a great metropolis. Green fields, andrunning rivers, and fruit that did not grow in wooden boxes or brownpaper cones, were myths and idle words to Snipes, but this "unclean, wicked city" he knew. 

"I guess you're too good for me, " he said, with an uneasy laugh. "Iguess little old New York's good enough for me. "

"What!" cried the old man, in the tones of greatest concern. "Youwould go back to that den of iniquity, surely not, --to that thiefPerceval?"

"Well, " said the trailer, slowly, "and he's not such a bad lot, neither. You see he could hev broke your neck that time when you waschoking him, but he didn't. There's your train, " he added hurriedlyand jumping away. "Good-by. So long, old man. I'm much 'bliged to youjus' for asking me. "

Two hours later the farmer and his son were making the family weep andlaugh over their adventures, as they all sat together on the porchwith the vines about it; and the trailer was leaning against the wallof a saloon and apparently counting his ten toes, but in realitywatching for Mr. Wolfe to give the signal from the window of room No. 8. 

"THERE WERE NINETY AND NINE"

Young Harringford, or the "Goodwood Plunger, " as he was perhaps betterknown at that time, had come to Monte Carlo in a very different spiritand in a very different state of mind from any in which he had evervisited the place before. He had come there for the same reason that awounded lion, or a poisoned rat, for that matter, crawls away into acorner, that it may be alone when it dies. He stood leaning againstone of the pillars of the Casino with his back to the moonlight, andwith his eyes blinking painfully at the flaming lamps above the greentables inside. He knew they would be put out very soon; and as he hadsomething to do then, he regarded them fixedly with painfulearnestness, as a man who is condemned to die at sunrise watchesthrough his barred windows for the first gray light of the morning. 

That queer, numb feeling in his head and the sharp line of painbetween his eyebrows which had been growing worse for the last threeweeks, was troubling him more terribly than ever before, and hisnerves had thrown off all control and rioted at the base of his headand at his wrists, and jerked and twitched as though, so it seemed tohim, they were striving to pull the tired body into pieces and to setthemselves free. He was wondering whether if he should take his handfrom his pocket and touch his head he would find that it had grownlonger, and had turned into a soft, spongy mass which would givebeneath his fingers. He considered this for some time, and even wentso far as to half withdraw one hand, but thought better of it andshoved it back again as he considered how much less terrible it was toremain in doubt than to find that this phenomenon had actually takenplace. 

The pity of the whole situation was, that the boy was only a boy withall his man's miserable knowledge of the world, and the reason of itall was, that he had entirely too much heart and not enough money tomake an unsuccessful gambler. If he had only been able to lose hisconscience instead of his money, or even if he had kept his conscienceand won, it is not likely that he would have been waiting for thelights to go out at Monte Carlo. But he had not only lost all of hismoney and more besides, which he could never make up, but he had lostother things which meant much more to him now than money, and whichcould not be made up or paid back at even usurious interest. He hadnot only lost the right to sit at his father's table, but the right tothink of the girl whose place in Surrey ran next to that of his ownpeople, and whose lighted window in the north wing he had watched onthose many dreary nights when she had been ill, from his own terraceacross the trees in the park. And all he had gained was the notorietythat made him a by-word with decent people, and the hero of the race-tracks and the music-halls. He was no longer "Young Harringford, theeldest son of the Harringfords of Surrey, " but the "Goodwood Plunger, "to whom Fortune had made desperate love and had then jilted, andmocked, and overthrown. 

As he looked back at it now and remembered himself as he was then, itseemed as though he was considering an entirely distinct and separatepersonage--a boy of whom he liked to think, who had had strong, healthy ambitions and gentle tastes. He reviewed it passionlessly ashe stood staring at the lights inside the Casino, as clearly as he wascapable of doing in his present state and with miserable interest. Howhe had laughed when young Norton told him in boyish confidence thatthere was a horse named Siren in his father's stables which would winthe Goodwood Cup; how, having gone down to see Norton's people whenthe long vacation began, he had seen Siren daily, and had talked ofher until two every morning in the smoking-room, and had then staid uptwo hours later to watch her take her trial spin over the downs. Heremembered how they used to stamp back over the long grass wet withdew, comparing watches and talking of the time in whispers, and saidgood night as the sun broke over the trees in the park. And then justat this time of all others, when the horse was the only interest ofthose around him, from Lord Norton and his whole household down to theyoungest stable-boy and oldest gaffer in the village, he had come intohis money. 

And then began the then and still inexplicable plunge into gambling, and the wagering of greater sums than the owner of Siren dared to riskhimself, the secret backing of the horse through commissioners allover England, until the boy by his single fortune had brought the oddsagainst her from 60 to 0 down to 6 to 0. He recalled, with a thrillthat seemed to settle his nerves for the moment, the little blackspecks at the starting-post and the larger specks as the horses turnedthe first corner. The rest of the people on the coach were making agreat deal of noise, he remembered, but he, who had more to lose thanany one or all of them together, had stood quite still with his feeton the wheel and his back against the box-seat, and with his handssunk into his pockets and the nails cutting through his gloves. Thespecks grew into horses with bits of color on them, and then the deepmuttering roar of the crowd merged into one great shout, and swelledand grew into sharper, quicker, impatient cries, as the horses turnedinto the stretch with only their heads showing toward the goal. Someof the people were shouting "Firefly!" and others were calling on"Vixen!" and others, who had their glasses up, cried "Trouble leads!"but he only waited until he could distinguish the Norton colors, withhis lips pressed tightly together. Then they came so close that theirhoofs echoed as loudly as when horses gallop over a bridge, and fromamong the leaders Siren's beautiful head and shoulders showed likesealskin in the sun, and the boy on her back leaned forward andtouched her gently with his hand, as they had so often seen him do onthe downs, and Siren, as though he had touched a spring, leapedforward with her head shooting back and out, like a piston-rod thathas broken loose from its fastening and beats the air, while thejockey sat motionless, with his right arm hanging at his side aslimply as though it were broken, and with his left moving forward andback in time with the desperate strokes of the horse's head. 

"Siren wins!" cried Lord Norton, with a grim smile, and "Siren!" themob shouted back with wonder and angry disappointment, and "Siren!"the hills echoed from far across the course. Young Harringford felt asif he had suddenly been lifted into heaven after three months ofpurgatory, and smiled uncertainly at the excited people on the coachabout him. It made him smile even now when he recalled young Norton'sflushed face and the awe and reproach in his voice when he climbed upand whispered, "Why, Cecil, they say in the ring you've won a fortune, and you never told us. " And how Griffith, the biggest of the book-makers, with the rest of them at his back, came up to him and touchedhis hat resentfully, and said, "You'll have to give us time, sir; I'mvery hard hit"; and how the crowd stood about him and looked at himcuriously, and the Certain Royal Personage turned and said, "Who--notthat boy, surely?" Then how, on the day following, the papers told ofthe young gentleman who of all others had won a fortune, thousands andthousands of pounds they said, getting back sixty for every one he hadventured; and pictured him in baby clothes with the cup in his arms, or in an Eton jacket; and how all of them spoke of him slightingly, oradmiringly, as the "Goodwood Plunger. "

He did not care to go on after that; to recall the mortification ofhis father, whose pride was hurt and whose hopes were dashed by thissudden, mad freak of fortune, nor how he railed at it and provoked himuntil the boy rebelled and went back to the courses, where he was acelebrity and a king. 

The rest is a very common story. Fortune and greater fortune at first;days in which he could not lose, days in which he drove back to thecrowded inns choked with dust, sunburnt and fagged with excitement, toa riotous supper and baccarat, and afterward went to sleep only to seecards and horses and moving crowds and clouds of dust; days spent in ashort covert coat, with a field-glass over his shoulder and with apasteboard ticket dangling from his buttonhole; and then came thechange that brought conscience up again, and the visits to the Jews, and the slights of the men who had never been his friends, but whom hehad thought had at least liked him for himself, even if he did notlike them; and then debts, and more debts, and the borrowing of moneyto pay here and there, and threats of executions; and, with it all, the longing for the fields and trout springs of Surrey and the walkacross the park to where she lived. 

This grew so strong that he wrote to his father, and was told brieflythat he who was to have kept up the family name had dragged it intothe dust of the race-courses, and had changed it at his own wish tothat of the Boy Plunger--and that the breach was irreconcilable. 

Then this queer feeling came on, and he wondered why he could not eat, and why he shivered even when the room was warm or the sun shining, and the fear came upon him that with all this trouble and disgrace hishead might give way, and then that it had given way. This came to himat all times, and lately more frequently and with a fresher, morecruel thrill of terror, and he began to watch himself and note how hespoke, and to repeat over what he had said to see if it were sensible, and to question himself as to why he laughed, and at what. It was nota question of whether it would or would not be cowardly; It was simplya necessity. The thing had to be stopped. He had to have rest andsleep and peace again. He had boasted in those reckless, prosperousdays that if by any possible chance he should lose his money he woulddrive a hansom, or emigrate to the colonies, or take the shilling. Hehad no patience in those days with men who could not live on inadversity, and who were found in the gun-room with a hole in theirheads, and whose family asked their polite friends to believe that aman used to firearms from his school-days had tried to load a hair-trigger revolver with the muzzle pointed at his forehead. He hadexpressed a fine contempt for those men then, but now he had forgottenall that, and thought only of the relief it would bring, and not howothers might suffer by it. If he did consider this, it was only toconclude that they would quite understand, and be glad that his painand fear were over. 

Then he planned a grand _coup_ which was to pay off all his debts andgive him a second chance to present himself a supplicant at hisfather's house. If it failed, he would have to stop this queer feelingin his head at once. The Grand Prix and the English horse was thefinal _coup_. On this depended everything--the return of his fortunes, the reconciliation with his father, and the possibility of meeting heragain. It was a very hot day he remembered, and very bright; but thetall poplars on the road to the races seemed to stop growing just at alevel with his eyes. Below that it was clear enough, but all aboveseemed black--as though a cloud had fallen and was hanging just overthe people's heads. He thought of speaking of this to his man Walters, who had followed his fortunes from the first, but decided not to doso, for, as it was, he had noticed that Walters had observed himclosely of late, and had seemed to spy upon him. The race began, andhe looked through his glass for the English horse in the front andcould not find her, and the Frenchman beside him cried, "Frou Frou!"as Frou Frou passed the goal. He lowered his glasses slowly andunscrewed them very carefully before dropping them back into the case;then he buckled the strap, and turned and looked about him. TwoFrenchmen who had won a hundred francs between them were jumping anddancing at his side. He remembered wondering why they did not speak inEnglish. Then the sunlight changed to a yellow, nasty glare, as thougha calcium light had been turned on the glass and colors, and he pushedhis way back to his carriage, leaning heavily on the servant's arm, and drove slowly back to Paris, with the driver flecking his horsesfretfully with his whip, for he had wished to wait and see the end ofthe races. 

He had selected Monte Carlo as the place for it, because it was moreunlike his home than any other spot, and because one summer night, when he had crossed the lawn from the Casino to the hotel with a gayparty of young men and women, they had come across something under abush which they took to be a dog or a man asleep, and one of the menhad stepped forward and touched it with his foot, and had then turnedsharply and said, "Take those girls away"; and while some hurried thewomen back, frightened and curious, he and the others had picked upthe body and found it to be that of a young Russian whom they had justseen losing, with a very bad grace, at the tables. There was nopassion in his face now, and his evening dress was quite unruffled, and only a black spot on the shirt front showed where the powder hadburnt the linen. It had made a great impression on him then, for hewas at the height of his fortunes, with crowds of sycophantic friendsand a retinue of dependents at his heels. And now that he was quitealone and disinherited by even these sorry companions there seemed noother escape from the pain in his brain but to end it, and he soughtthis place of all others as the most fitting place in which to die. 

So, after Walters had given the proper papers and checks to thecommissioner who handled his debts for him, he left Paris and took thefirst train for Monte Carlo, sitting at the window of the carriage, and beating a nervous tattoo on the pane with his ring until the oldgentleman at the other end of the compartment scowled at him. ButHarringford did not see him, nor the trees and fields as they sweptby, and it was not until Walters came and said, "You get out here, sir, " that he recognized the yellow station and the great hotels onthe hill above. It was half-past eleven, and the lights in the Casinowere still burning brightly. He wondered whether he would have time togo over to the hotel and write a letter to his father and to her. Hedecided, after some difficult consideration, that he would not. Therewas nothing to say that they did not know already, or that they wouldfail to understand. But this suggested to him that what they hadwritten to him must be destroyed at once, before any stranger couldclaim the right to read it. He took his letters from his pocket andlooked them over carefully. They were most unpleasant reading. Theyall seemed to be about money; some begged to remind him of this orthat debt, of which he had thought continuously for the last month, while others were abusive and insolent. Each of them gave him actualpain. One was the last letter he had received from his father justbefore leaving Paris, and though he knew it by heart, he read it overagain for the last time. That it came too late, that it asked what heknew now to be impossible, made it none the less grateful to him, butthat it offered peace and a welcome home made it all the moreterrible. 

"I came to take this step through young Hargraves, the new curate, "his father wrote, "though he was but the instrument in the hands ofProvidence. He showed me the error of my conduct toward you, andproved to me that my duty and the inclination of my heart were towardthe same end. He read this morning for the second lesson the story ofthe Prodigal Son, and I heard it without recognition and with nopresent application until he came to the verse which tells how thefather came to his son 'when he was yet a great way off. ' He saw him, it says, 'when he was yet a great way off, ' and ran to meet him. Hedid not wait for the boy to knock at his gate and beg to be let in, but went out to meet him, and took him in his arms and led him back tohis home. Now, my boy, my son, it seems to me as if you had never beenso far off from me as you are at this present time, as if you hadnever been so greatly separated from me in every thought and interest;we are even worse than strangers, for you think that my hand isagainst you, that I have closed the door of your home to you anddriven you away. But what I have done I beg of you to forgive: toforget what I may have said in the past, and only to think of what Isay now. Your brothers are good boys and have been good sons to me, and God knows I am thankful for such sons, and thankful to them forbearing themselves as they have done. 

"But, my boy, my first-born, my little Cecil, they can never be to mewhat you have been. I can never feel for them as I feel for you; theyare the ninety and nine who have never wandered away upon themountains, and who have never been tempted, and have never left theirhome for either good or evil. But you, Cecil, though you have made myheart ache until I thought and even hoped it would stop beating, andthough you have given me many, many nights that I could not sleep, arestill dearer to me than anything else in the world. You are the fleshof my flesh and the bone of my bone, and I cannot bear living onwithout you. I cannot be at rest here, or look forward contentedly toa rest hereafter, unless you are by me and hear me, unless I can seeyour face and touch you and hear your laugh in the halls. Come back tome, Cecil; to Harringford and the people that know you best, and knowwhat is best in you and love you for it. I can have only a few moreyears here now when you will take my place and keep up my name. I willnot be here to trouble you much longer; but, my boy, while I am here, come to me and make me happy for the rest of my life. There are otherswho need you, Cecil. You know whom I mean. I saw her only yesterday, and she asked me of you with such splendid disregard for what theothers standing by might think, and as though she dared me or them tosay or even imagine anything against you. You cannot keep away from usboth much longer. Surely not; you will come back and make us happy forthe rest of our lives. "

The Goodwood Plunger turned his back to the lights so that the peoplepassing could not see his face, and tore the letter up slowly anddropped it piece by piece over the balcony. "If I could, " hewhispered; "if I could. " The pain was a little worse than usual justthen, but it was no longer a question of inclination. He felt onlythis desire to stop these thoughts and doubts and the physical tremorthat shook him. To rest and sleep, that was what he must have, andpeace. There was no peace at home or anywhere else while this thinglasted. He could not see why they worried him in this way. It wasquite impossible. He felt much more sorry for them than for himself, but only because they could not understand. He was quite sure that ifthey could feel what he suffered they would help him, even to end it. 

He had been standing for some time with his back to the light, but nowhe turned to face it and to take up his watch again. He felt quitesure the lights would not burn much longer. As he turned, a woman cameforward from out the lighted hall, hovered uncertainly before him, andthen made a silent salutation, which was something between a courtesyand a bow. That she was a woman and rather short and plainly dressed, and that her bobbing up and down annoyed him, was all that he realizedof her presence, and he quite failed to connect her movements withhimself in any way. "Sir, " she said in French, "I beg your pardon, butmight I speak with you?" The Goodwood Plunger possessed a somewhatvarious knowledge of Monte Carlo and its _habitues_. It was not thefirst time that women who had lost at the tables had begged a napoleonfrom him, or asked the distinguished child of fortune what color orcombination she should play. That, in his luckier days, had happenedoften and had amused him, but now he moved back irritably and wishedthat the figure in front of him would disappear as it had come. 

"I am in great trouble, sir, " the woman said. "I have no friends here, sir, to whom I may apply. I am very bold, but my anxiety is verygreat. "

The Goodwood Plunger raised his hat slightly and bowed. Then heconcentrated his eyes with what was a distinct effort on the queerlittle figure hovering in front of him, and stared very hard. She worean odd piece of red coral for a brooch, and by looking steadily atthis he brought the rest of the figure into focus and saw, withoutsurprise, --for every commonplace seemed strange to him now, andeverything peculiar quite a matter of course, --that she was distinctlynot an _habituee_ of the place, and looked more like a lady's maidthan an adventuress. She was French and pretty, --such a girl as mightwait in a Duval restaurant or sit as a cashier behind a little counternear the door. 

"We should not be here, " she said, as if in answer to his look and inapology for her presence. "But Louis, my husband, he would come. Itold him that this was not for such as we are, but Louis is so bold. He said that upon his marriage tour he would live with the best, andso here he must come to play as the others do. We have been married, sir, only since Tuesday, and we must go back to Paris to-morrow; theywould give him only the three days. He is not a gambler; he playsdominos at the cafes, it is true. But what will you? He is young andwith so much spirit, and I know that you, sir, who are so fortunateand who understand so well how to control these tables, I know thatyou will persuade him. He will not listen to me; he is so greatlyexcited and so little like himself. You will help me, sir, will younot? You will speak to him?"

The Goodwood Plunger knit his eyebrows and closed the lids once ortwice, and forced the mistiness and pain out of his eyes. It was mostannoying. The woman seemed to be talking a great deal and to say verymuch, but he could not make sense of it. He moved his shouldersslightly. "I can't understand, " he said wearily, turning away. 

"It is my husband, " the woman said anxiously: "Louis, he is playing atthe table inside, and he is only an apprentice to old Carbut thebaker, but he owns a third of the store. It was my _dot_ that paid forit, " she added proudly. "Old Carbut says he may have it all for 20, 000francs, and then old Carbut will retire, and we will be proprietors. We have saved a little, and we had counted to buy the rest in five orsix years if we were very careful. "

"I see, I see, " said the Plunger, with a little short laugh of relief;"I understand. " He was greatly comforted to think that it was not sobad as it had threatened. He saw her distinctly now and followed whatshe said quite easily, and even such a small matter as talking withthis woman seemed to help him. 

"He is gambling, " he said, "and losing the money, and you come to meto advise him what to play. I understand. Well, tell him he will losewhat little he has left; tell him I advise him to go home; tell him--"

"No, no!" the girl said excitedly; "you do not understand; he has notlost, he has won. He has won, oh, so many rolls of money, but he willnot stop. Do you not see? He has won as much as we could earn in manymonths--in many years, sir, by saving and working, oh, so very hard!And now he risks it again, and I cannot force him away. But if you, sir, if you would tell him how great the chances are against him, ifyou who know would tell him how foolish he is not to be content withwhat he has, he would listen. He says to me, 'Bah! you are a woman';and he is so red and fierce; he is imbecile with the sight of themoney, but he will listen to a grand gentleman like you. He thinks towin more and more, and he thinks to buy another third from old Carbut. Is it not foolish? It is so wicked of him. "

"Oh, yes, " said the Goodwood Plunger, nodding, "I see now. You want meto take him away so that he can keep what he has. I see; but I don'tknow him. He will not listen to me, you know; I have no right tointerfere. "

He turned away, rubbing his hand across his forehead. He wished somuch that this woman would leave him by himself. 

"Ah, but, sir, " cried the girl, desperately, and touching his coat, "you who are so fortunate, and so rich, and of the great world, youcannot feel what this is to me. To have my own little shop and to befree, and not to slave, and sew, and sew until my back and fingersburn with the pain. Speak to him, sir; ah, speak to him! It is so easya thing to do, and he will listen to you. "

The Goodwood Plunger turned again abruptly. "Where is he?" he said. "Point him out to me. "

The woman ran ahead, with a murmur of gratitude, to the open door andpointed to where her husband was standing leaning over and placingsome money on one of the tables. He was a handsome young Frenchman, as_bourgeois_ as his wife, and now terribly alive and excited. In theself-contained air of the place and in contrast with the silence ofthe great hall he seemed even more conspicuously out of place. ThePlunger touched him on the arm, and the Frenchman shoved the hand offimpatiently and without looking around. The Plunger touched him againand forced him to turn toward him. 

"Well!" said the Frenchman, quickly. "Well?"

"Madame, your wife, " said Cecil, with the grave politeness of an oldman, "has done me the honor to take me into her confidence. She tellsme that you have won a great deal of money; that you could put it togood use at home, and so save yourselves much drudgery and debt, andall that sort of trouble. You are quite right if you say it is noconcern of mine. It is not. But really, you know there is a great dealof sense in what she wants, and you have apparently already won alarge sum. "

The Frenchman was visibly surprised at this approach. He paused for asecond or two in some doubt, and even awe, for the disinherited onecarried the mark of a personage of consideration and of one whoseposition is secure. Then he gave a short, unmirthful laugh. 

"You are most kind, sir, " he said with mock politeness and with animpatient shrug. "But madame, my wife, has not done well to interest astranger in this affair, which, as you say, concerns you not. "

He turned to the table again with a defiant swagger of independenceand placed two rolls of money upon the cloth, casting at the samemoment a childish look of displeasure at his wife. "You see, " said thePlunger, with a deprecatory turning out of his hands. But there was somuch grief on the girl's face that he turned again to the gambler andtouched his arm. He could not tell why he was so interested in thesetwo. He had witnessed many such scenes before, and they had notaffected him in any way except to make him move out of hearing. Butthe same dumb numbness in his head, which made so many things seempossible that should have been terrible even to think upon, made himstubborn and unreasonable over this. He felt intuitively--it could notbe said that he thought--that the woman was right and the man wrong, and so he grasped him again by the arm, and said sharply this time:

"Come away! Do you hear? You are acting foolishly. "

But even as he spoke the red won, and the Frenchman with a boyishgurgle of pleasure raked in his winnings with his two hands, and thenturned with a happy, triumphant laugh to his wife. It is not easy toconvince a man that he is making a fool of himself when he is winningsome hundred francs every two minutes. His silent arguments to thecontrary are difficult to answer. But the Plunger did not regard thisin the least. 

"Do you hear me?" he said in the same stubborn tone and with much thesame manner with which he would have spoken to a groom. "Come away. "

Again the Frenchman tossed off his hand, this time with an execration, and again he placed the rolls of gold coin on the red; and again thered won. 

"My God!" cried the girl, running her fingers over the rolls on thetable, "he has won half of the 20, 000 francs. Oh, sir, stop him, stophim!" she cried. "Take him away. "

"Do you hear me!" cried the Plunger, excited to a degree of utterself-forgetfulness, and carried beyond himself; "you've got to comewith me. "

"Take away your hand, " whispered the young Frenchman, fiercely. "See, I shall win it all; in one grand _coup_ I shall win it all. I shallwin five years' pay in one moment. "

He swept all of the money forward on the red and threw himself overthe table to see the wheel. 

"Wait, confound you!" whispered the Plunger, excitedly. "If you willrisk it, risk it with some reason. You can't play all that money; theywon't take it. Six thousand francs is the limit, unless, " he ran onquickly, "you divide the 12, 000 francs among the three of us. Youunderstand, 6, 000 francs is all that any one person can play; but ifyou give 4, 000 to me, and 4, 000 to your wife, and keep 4, 000 yourself, we can each chance it. You can back the red if you like, your wifeshall put her money on the numbers coming up below eighteen, and Iwill back the odd. In that way you stand to win 24, 000 francs if ourcombination wins, and you lose less than if you simply back the color. Do you understand?"

"No!" cried the Frenchman, reaching for the piles of money which thePlunger had divided rapidly into three parts, "on the red; all on thered!"

"Good heavens, man!" cried the Plunger, bitterly. "I may not knowmuch, but you should allow me to understand this dirty business. " Hecaught the Frenchman by the wrists, and the young man, more impressedwith the strange look in the boy's face than by his physical force, stood still, while the ball rolled and rolled, and clicked merrily, and stopped, and balanced, and then settled into the "seven. "

"Red, odd, and below, " the croupier droned mechanically. 

"Ah! you see; what did I tell you?" said the Plunger, with suddencalmness. "You have won more than your 20, 000 francs; you areproprietors--I congratulate you!"

"Ah, my God!" cried the Frenchman, in a frenzy of delight, "I willdouble it. "

He reached toward the fresh piles of coin as if he meant to sweep themback again, but the Plunger put himself in his way and with a quickmovement caught up the rolls of money and dropped them into the skirtof the woman, which she raised like an apron to receive her treasure. 

"Now, " said young Harringford, determinedly, "you come with me. " TheFrenchman tried to argue and resist, but the Plunger pushed him onwith the silent stubbornness of a drunken man. He handed the womaninto a carriage at the door, shoved her husband in beside her, andwhile the man drove to the address she gave him, he told theFrenchman, with an air of a chief of police, that he must leave MonteCarlo at once, that very night. 

"Do you suppose I don't know?" he said. "Do you fancy I speak withoutknowledge? I've seen them come here rich and go away paupers. But youshall not; you shall keep what you have and spite them. " He sent thewoman up to her room to pack while he expostulated with and browbeatthe excited bridegroom in the carriage. When she returned with the bagpacked, and so heavy with the gold that the servants could hardly liftit up beside the driver, he ordered the coachman to go down the hillto the station. 

"The train for Paris leaves at midnight, " he said, "and you will bethere by morning. Then you must close your bargain with this oldCarbut, and never return here again. "

The Frenchman had turned during the ride from an angry, indignantprisoner to a joyful madman, and was now tearfully and effusivelyhumble in his petitions for pardon and in his thanks. Theirbenefactor, as they were pleased to call him, hurried them into thewaiting train and ran to purchase their tickets for them. 

"Now, " he said, as the guard locked the door of the compartment, "youare alone, and no one can get in, and you cannot get out. Go back toyour home, to your new home, and never come to this wretched placeagain. Promise me--you understand?--never again!"

They promised with effusive reiteration. They embraced each other likechildren, and the man, pulling off his hat, called upon the good Lordto thank the gentleman. 

"You will be in Paris, will you not?" said the woman, in an ecstasy ofpleasure, "and you will come to see us in our own shop, will you not?Ah! we should be so greatly honored, sir, if you would visit us; ifyou would come to the home you have given us. You have helped us sogreatly, sir, " she said; "and may Heaven bless you!"

She caught up his gloved hand as it rested on the door and kissed ituntil he snatched it away in great embarrassment and flushing like agirl. Her husband drew her toward him, and the young bride sat at hisside with her face close to his and wept tears of pleasure and ofexcitement. 

"Ah, look, sir!" said the young man, joyfully; "look how happy youhave made us. You have made us happy for the rest of our lives. "

The train moved out with a quick, heavy rush, and the car-wheels tookup the young stranger's last words and seemed to say, "You have madeus happy--made us happy for the rest of our lives. "

It had all come about so rapidly that the Plunger had had no time toconsider or to weigh his motives, and all that seemed real to him now, as he stood alone on the platform of the dark, deserted station, werethe words of the man echoing and re-echoing like the refrain of thesong. And then there came to him suddenly, and with all the force of agambler's superstition, the thought that the words were the same asthose which his father had used in his letter, "you can make us happyfor the rest of our lives. "

"Ah, " he said, with a quick gasp of doubt, "if I could! If I madethose poor fools happy, mayn't I live to be something to him, and toher? O God!" he cried, but so gently that one at his elbow could nothave heard him, "if I could, if I could!"

He tossed up his hands, and drew them down again and clenched them infront of him, and raised his tired, hot eyes to the calm purple skywith its millions of moving stars. "Help me!" he whispered fiercely, "help me. " And as he lowered his head the queer numb feeling seemed togo, and a calm came over his nerves and left him in peace. He did notknow what it might be, nor did he dare to question the change whichhad come to him, but turned and slowly mounted the hill, with the aweand fear still upon him of one who had passed beyond himself for onebrief moment into another world. When he reached his room he found hisservant bending with an anxious face over a letter which he tore upguiltily as his master entered. "You were writing to my father, " saidCecil, gently, "were you not? Well, you need not finish your letter;we are going home. 

"I am going away from this place, Walters, " he said as he pulled offhis coat and threw himself heavily on the bed. "I will take the firsttrain that leaves here, and I will sleep a little while you put up mythings. The first train, you understand--within an hour, if it leavesthat soon. " His head sank back on the pillows heavily, as though hehad come in from a long, weary walk, and his eyes closed and his armsfell easily at his side. The servant stood frightened and yet happy, with the tears running down his cheeks, for he loved his masterdearly. 

"We are going home, Walters, " the Plunger whispered drowsily. "We aregoing home; home to England and Harringford and the governor--and weare going to be happy for all the rest of our lives. " He paused amoment, and Walters bent forward over the bed and held his breath tolisten. 

"For he came to me, " murmured the boy, as though he was speaking inhis sleep, "when I was yet a great way off--while I was yet a greatway off, and ran to meet me--"

His voice sank until it died away into silence, and a few hours later, when Walters came to wake him, he found his master sleeping like achild and smiling in his sleep. 

THE CYNICAL MISS CATHERWAIGHT

Miss Catherwaight's collection of orders and decorations and medalswas her chief offence in the eyes of those of her dear friends whothought her clever but cynical. 

All of them were willing to admit that she was clever, but some ofthem said she was clever only to be unkind. 

Young Van Bibber had said that if Miss Catherwaight did not likedances and days and teas, she had only to stop going to them insteadof making unpleasant remarks about those who did. So many peoplerepeated this that young Van Bibber believed finally that he had saidsomething good, and was somewhat pleased in consequence, as he was notmuch given to that sort of thing. 

Mrs. Catherwaight, while she was alive, lived solely for society, and, so some people said, not only lived but died for it. She certainly didgo about a great deal, and she used to carry her husband away from hislibrary every night of every season and left him standing in thedoorways of drawing-rooms, outwardly courteous and distinguishedlooking, but inwardly somnolent and unhappy. She was a born andtrained social leader, and her daughter's coming out was to have beenthe greatest effort of her life. She regarded it as an event in thedear child's lifetime second only in importance to her birth; equallyimportant with her probable marriage and of much more poignantinterest than her possible death. But the great effort proved too muchfor the mother, and she died, fondly remembered by her peers andtenderly referred to by a great many people who could not even show acard for her Thursdays. Her husband and her daughter were not goingout, of necessity, for more than a year after her death, and then feltno inclination to begin over again, but lived very much together andshowed themselves only occasionally. 

They entertained, though, a great deal, in the way of dinners, and aninvitation to one of these dinners soon became a diploma forintellectual as well as social qualifications of a very high order. 

One was always sure of meeting some one of consideration there, whichwas pleasant in itself, and also rendered it easy to let one's friendsknow where one had been dining. It sounded so flat to boast abruptly, "I dined at the Catherwaights' last night"; while it seemed onlynatural to remark, "That reminds me of a story that novelist, what'shis name, told at Mr. Catherwaight's, " or "That English chap, who'sbeen in Africa, was at the Catherwaights' the other night, and toldme--"

After one of these dinners people always asked to be allowed to lookover Miss Catherwaight's collection, of which almost everybody hadheard. It consisted of over a hundred medals and decorations whichMiss Catherwaight had purchased while on the long tours she made withher father in all parts of the world. Each of them had been given as areward for some public service, as a recognition of some virtue of thehighest order--for personal bravery, for statesmanship, for greatgenius in the arts; and each had been pawned by the recipient or soldoutright. Miss Catherwaight referred to them as her collection ofdishonored honors, and called them variously her Orders of the Knightsof the Almighty Dollar, pledges to patriotism and the pawnshops, andhonors at second-hand. 

It was her particular fad to get as many of these together as shecould and to know the story of each. The less creditable the story, the more highly she valued the medal. People might think it was not apretty hobby for a young girl, but they could not help smiling at thestories and at the scorn with which she told them. 

"These, " she would say, "are crosses of the Legion of Honor; they areof the lowest degree, that of chevalier. I keep them in this cigar boxto show how cheaply I got them and how cheaply I hold them. I thinkyou can get them here in New York for ten dollars; they cost more thanthat--about a hundred francs--in Paris. At second-hand, of course. TheFrench government can imprison you, you know, for ten years, if youwear one without the right to do so, but they have no punishment forthose who choose to part with them for a mess of pottage. 

"All these, " she would run on, "are English war medals. See, on thisone is 'Alma, ' 'Balaclava, ' and 'Sebastopol. ' He was quite a veteran, was he not? Well, he sold this to a dealer on Wardour Street, London, for five and six. You can get any number of them on the Bowery fortheir weight in silver. I tried very hard to get a Victoria Cross whenI was in England, and I only succeeded in getting this one after agreat deal of trouble. They value the cross so highly, you know, thatit is the only other decoration in the case which holds the Order ofthe Garter in the Jewel Room at the Tower. It is made of copper, sothat its intrinsic value won't have any weight with the man who getsit, but I bought this nevertheless for five pounds. The soldier towhom it belonged had loaded and fired a cannon all alone when the restof the men about the battery had run away. He was captured by theenemy, but retaken immediately afterward by re-enforcements from hisown side, and the general in command recommended him to the Queen fordecoration. He sold his cross to the proprietor of a curiosity shopand drank himself to death. I felt rather meanly about keeping it andhunted up his widow to return it to her, but she said I could have itfor a consideration. 

"This gold medal was given, as you see, to 'Hiram J. Stillman, of thesloop _Annie Barker_, for saving the crew of the steamship _Olivia_, June 18, 1888, ' by the President of the United States and both housesof Congress. I found it on Baxter Street in a pawnshop. The gallantHiram J. Had pawned it for sixteen dollars and never came back toclaim it. "

"But, Miss Catherwaight, " some optimist would object, "these menundoubtedly did do something brave and noble once. You can't get backof that; and they didn't do it for a medal, either, but because it wastheir duty. And so the medal meant nothing to them: their consciencetold them they had done the right thing; they didn't need a stampedcoin to remind them of it, or of their wounds, either, perhaps. "

"Quite right; that's quite true, " Miss Catherwaight would say. "Buthow about this? Look at this gold medal with the diamonds: 'Presentedto Colonel James F. Placer by the men of his regiment, in camp beforeRichmond. ' Every soldier in the regiment gave something toward that, and yet the brave gentleman put it up at a game of poker one night, and the officer who won it sold it to the man who gave it to me. Canyou defend that?"

Miss Catherwaight was well known to the proprietors of the pawnshopsand loan offices on the Bowery and Park Row. They learned to look forher once a month, and saved what medals they received for her andtried to learn their stories from the people who pawned them, or elseinvented some story which they hoped would answer just as well. 

Though her brougham produced a sensation in the unfashionable streetsinto which she directed it, she was never annoyed. Her maid went withher into the shops, and one of the grooms always stood at the doorwithin call, to the intense delight of the neighborhood. And one dayshe found what, from her point of view, was a perfect gem. It was apoor, cheap-looking, tarnished silver medal, a half-dollar once, undoubtedly, beaten out roughly into the shape of a heart and engravedin script by the jeweller of some country town. On one side were twoclasped hands with a wreath around them, and on the reverse was thisinscription: "From Henry Burgoyne to his beloved friend Lewis L. Lockwood"; and below, "Through prosperity and adversity. " That wasall. And here it was among razors and pistols and family Bibles in apawnbroker's window. What a story there was in that! These two boyfriends, and their boyish friendship that was to withstand adversityand prosperity, and all that remained of it was this inscription toits memory like the wording on a tomb!

"He couldn't have got so much on it any way, " said the pawnbroker, entering into her humor. "I didn't lend him more'n a quarter of adollar at the most. "

Miss Catherwaight stood wondering if the Lewis L. Lockwood could beLewis Lockwood, the lawyer one read so much about. Then she rememberedhis middle name was Lyman, and said quickly, "I'll take it, please. "

She stepped into the carriage, and told the man to go find a directoryand look for Lewis Lyman Lockwood. The groom returned in a few minutesand said there was such a name down in the book as a lawyer, and thathis office was such a number on Broadway; it must be near Liberty. "Gothere, " said Miss Catherwaight. 

Her determination was made so quickly that they had stopped in frontof a huge pile of offices, sandwiched in, one above the other, untilthey towered mountains high, before she had quite settled in her mindwhat she wanted to know, or had appreciated how strange her errandmight appear. Mr. Lockwood was out, one of the young men in the outeroffice said, but the junior partner, Mr. Latimer, was in and would seeher. She had only time to remember that the junior partner was adancing acquaintance of hers, before young Mr. Latimer stood beforeher smiling, and with her card in his hand. 

"Mr. Lockwood is out just at present, Miss Catherwaight, " he said, "but he will be back in a moment. Won't you come into the other roomand wait? I'm sure he won't be away over five minutes. Or is itsomething I could do?"

She saw that he was surprised to see her, and a little ill at ease asto just how to take her visit. He tried to make it appear that heconsidered it the most natural thing in the world, but he overdid it, and she saw that her presence was something quite out of the common. This did not tend to set her any more at her ease. She alreadyregretted the step she had taken. What if it should prove to be thesame Lockwood, she thought, and what would they think of her?

"Perhaps you will do better than Mr. Lockwood, " she said, as shefollowed him into the inner office. "I fear I have come upon a veryfoolish errand, and one that has nothing at all to do with the law. "

"Not a breach of promise suit, then?" said young Latimer, with asmile. "Perhaps it is only an innocent subscription to a most worthycharity. I was afraid at first, " he went on lightly, "that it waslegal redress you wanted, and I was hoping that the way I led theCourdert's cotillion had made you think I could conduct you throughthe mazes of the law as well. "

"No, " returned Miss Catherwaight, with a nervous laugh; "it has to dowith my unfortunate collection. This is what brought me here, " shesaid, holding out the silver medal. "I came across it just now in theBowery. The name was the same, and I thought it just possible Mr. Lockwood would like to have it; or, to tell you the truth, that hemight tell me what had become of the Henry Burgoyne who gave it tohim. "

Young Latimer had the medal in his hand before she had finishedspeaking, and was examining it carefully. He looked up with just atouch of color in his cheeks and straightened himself visibly. 

"Please don't be offended, " said the fair collector. "I know what youthink. You've heard of my stupid collection, and I know you think Imeant to add this to it. But, indeed, now that I have had time tothink--you see I came here immediately from the pawnshop, and I was sointerested, like all collectors, you know, that I didn't stop toconsider. That's the worst of a hobby; it carries one rough-shod overother people's feelings, and runs away with one. I beg of you, if youdo know anything about the coin, just to keep it and don't tell me, and I assure you what little I know I will keep quite to myself. "

Young Latimer bowed, and stood looking at her curiously, with themedal in his hand. 

"I hardly know what to say, " he began slowly. "It really has a story. You say you found this on the Bowery, in a pawnshop. Indeed! Well, ofcourse, you know Mr. Lockwood could not have left it there. "

Miss Catherwaight shook her head vehemently and smiled in deprecation. 

"This medal was in his safe when he lived on Thirty-fifth Street atthe time he was robbed, and the burglars took this with the rest ofthe silver and pawned it, I suppose. Mr. Lockwood would have givenmore for it than any one else could have afforded to pay. " He paused amoment, and then continued more rapidly: "Henry Burgoyne is JudgeBurgoyne. Ah! you didn't guess that? Yes, Mr. Lockwood and he werefriends when they were boys. They went to school in WestchesterCounty. They were Damon and Pythias and that sort of thing. Theyroomed together at the State college and started to practise law inTuckahoe as a firm, but they made nothing of it, and came on to NewYork and began reading law again with Fuller & Mowbray. It was whilethey were at school that they had these medals made. There was a mateto this, you know; Judge Burgoyne had it. Well, they continued to liveand work together. They were both orphans and dependent on themselves. I suppose that was one of the strongest bonds between them; and theyknew no one in New York, and always spent their spare time together. They were pretty poor, I fancy, from all Mr. Lockwood has told me, butthey were very ambitious. They were--I'm telling you this, youunderstand, because it concerns you somewhat: well, more or less. Theywere great sportsmen, and whenever they could get away from the lawoffice they would go off shooting. I think they were fonder of eachother than brothers even. I've heard Mr. Lockwood tell of the daysthey lay in the rushes along the Chesapeake Bay waiting for duck. Hehas said often that they were the happiest hours of his life. That wastheir greatest pleasure, going off together after duck or snipe alongthe Maryland waters. Well, they grew rich and began to know people;and then they met a girl. It seems they both thought a great deal ofher, as half the New York men did, I am told; and she was the reigningbelle and toast, and had other admirers, and neither met with thatfavor she showed--well, the man she married, for instance. But for awhile each thought, for some reason or other, that he was especiallyfavored. I don't know anything about it. Mr. Lockwood never spoke ofit to me. But they both fell very deeply in love with her, and eachthought the other disloyal, and so they quarrelled; and--and then, though the woman married, the two men kept apart. It was the one greatpassion of their lives, and both were proud, and each thought theother in the wrong, and so they have kept apart ever since. And--well, I believe that is all. "

Miss Catherwaight had listened in silence and with one little glovedhand tightly clasping the other. 

"Indeed, Mr. Latimer, indeed, " she began, tremulously, "I am terriblyashamed of myself. I seemed to have rushed in where angels fear totread. I wouldn't meet Mr. Lockwood _now_ for worlds. Of course Imight have known there was a woman in the case, it adds so much to thestory. But I suppose I must give up my medal. I never could tell thatstory, could I?"

"No, " said young Latimer, dryly; "I wouldn't if I were you. "

Something in his tone, and something in the fact that he seemed toavoid her eyes, made her drop the lighter vein in which she had beenspeaking, and rise to go. There was much that he had not told her, shesuspected, and when she bade him good-by it was with a reserve whichshe had not shown at any other time during their interview. 

"I wonder who that woman was?" she murmured, as young Latimer turnedfrom the brougham door and said "Home, " to the groom. She thoughtabout it a great deal that afternoon; at times she repented that shehad given up the medal, and at times she blushed that she should havebeen carried in her zeal into such an unwarranted intimacy withanother's story. 

She determined finally to ask her father about it. He would be sure toknow, she thought, as he and Mr. Lockwood were contemporaries. Thenshe decided finally not to say anything about it at all, for Mr. Catherwaight did not approve of the collection of dishonored honors asit was, and she had no desire to prejudice him still further by arecital of her afternoon's adventure, of which she had no doubt but hewould also disapprove. So she was more than usually silent during thedinner, which was a tete-a-tete family dinner that night, and sheallowed her father to doze after it in the library in his great chairwithout disturbing him with either questions or confessions. 

[Illustration with caption: "What can Mr. Lockwood be calling upon meabout?"]

They had been sitting there some time, he with his hands folded on theevening paper and with his eyes closed, when the servant brought in acard and offered it to Mr. Catherwaight. Mr. Catherwaight fumbled overhis glasses, and read the name on the card aloud: "'Mr. Lewis L. Lockwood. ' Dear me!" he said; "what can Mr. Lockwood be calling uponme about?"

Miss Catherwaight sat upright, and reached out for the card with anervous, gasping little laugh. 

"Oh, I think it must be for me, " she said; "I'm quite sure it isintended for me. I was at his office to-day, you see, to return himsome keepsake of his that I found in an old curiosity shop. Somethingwith his name on it that had been stolen from him and pawned. It wasjust a trifle. You needn't go down, dear; I'll see him. It was I heasked for, I'm sure; was it not, Morris?"

Morris was not quite sure; being such an old gentleman, he thought itmust be for Mr. Catherwaight he'd come. 

Mr. Catherwaight was not greatly interested. He did not like todisturb his after-dinner nap, and he settled back in his chair againand refolded his hands. 

"I hardly thought he could have come to see me, " he murmured, drowsily; "though I used to see enough and more than enough of LewisLockwood once, my dear, " he added with a smile, as he opened his eyesand nodded before he shut them again. "That was before your mother andI were engaged, and people did say that young Lockwood's chances atthat time were as good as mine. But they weren't, it seems. He wasvery attentive, though; _very_ attentive. "

Miss Catherwaight stood startled and motionless at the door from whichshe had turned. 

"Attentive--to whom?" she asked quickly, and in a very low voice. "Tomy mother?"

Mr. Catherwaight did not deign to open his eyes this time, but movedhis head uneasily as if he wished to be let alone. 

"To your mother, of course, my child, " he answered; "of whom else wasI speaking?"

Miss Catherwaight went down the stairs to the drawing-room slowly, andpaused half-way to allow this new suggestion to settle in her mind. There was something distasteful to her, something that seemed notaltogether unblamable, in a woman's having two men quarrel about her, neither of whom was the woman's husband. And yet this girl of whomLatimer had spoken must be her mother, and she, of course, could do nowrong. It was very disquieting, and she went on down the rest of theway with one hand resting heavily on the railing and with the otherpressed against her cheeks. She was greatly troubled. It now seemed toher very sad indeed that these two one-time friends should live in thesame city and meet, as they must meet, and not recognize each other. She argued that her mother must have been very young when it happened, or she would have brought two such men together again. Her mothercould not have known, she told herself; she was not to blame. For shefelt sure that had she herself known of such an accident she wouldhave done something, said something, to make it right. And she was nothalf the woman her mother had been, she was sure of that. 

There was something very likable in the old gentleman who came forwardto greet her as she entered the drawing-room; something courtly and ofthe old school, of which she was so tired of hearing, but of which shewished she could have seen more in the men she met. Young Mr. Latimerhad accompanied his guardian, exactly why she did not see, but sherecognized his presence slightly. He seemed quite content to remain inthe background. Mr. Lockwood, as she had expected, explained that hehad called to thank her for the return of the medal. He had it in hishand as he spoke, and touched it gently with the tips of his fingersas though caressing it. 

"I knew your father very well, " said the lawyer, "and I at one timehad the honor of being one of your mother's younger friends. That wasbefore she was married, many years ago. " He stopped and regarded thegirl gravely and with a touch of tenderness. "You will pardon an oldman, old enough to be your father, if he says, " he went on, "that youare greatly like your mother, my dear young lady--greatly like. Yourmother was very kind to me, and I fear I abused her kindness; abusedit by misunderstanding it. There was a great deal of misunderstanding;and I was proud, and my friend was proud, and so the misunderstandingcontinued, until now it has become irretrievable. "

He had forgotten her presence apparently, and was speaking more tohimself than to her as he stood looking down at the medal in his hand. 

"You were very thoughtful to give me this, " he continued; "it was verygood of you. I don't know why I should keep it though, now, although Iwas distressed enough when I lost it. But now it is only a reminder ofa time that is past and put away, but which was very, very dear to me. Perhaps I should tell you that I had a misunderstanding with thefriend who gave it to me, and since then we have never met; haveceased to know each other. But I have always followed his life as ajudge and as a lawyer, and respected him for his own sake as a man. Icannot tell--I do not know how he feels toward me. "

The old lawyer turned the medal over in his hand and stood lookingdown at it wistfully. 

The cynical Miss Catherwaight could not stand it any longer. 

"Mr. Lockwood, " she said, impulsively, "Mr. Latimer has told me whyyou and your friend separated, and I cannot bear to think that it wasshe--my mother--should have been the cause. She could not haveunderstood; she must have been innocent of any knowledge of thetrouble she had brought to men who were such good friends of hers andto each other. It seems to me as though my finding that coin is morethan a coincidence. I somehow think that the daughter is to help undothe harm that her mother has caused--unwittingly caused. Keep themedal and don't give it back to me, for I am sure your friend has kepthis, and I am sure he is still your friend at heart. Don't think I amspeaking hastily or that I am thoughtless in what I am saying, but itseems to me as if friends--good, true friends--were so few that onecannot let them go without a word to bring them back. But though I amonly a girl, and a very light and unfeeling girl, some people think, Ifeel this very much, and I do wish I could bring your old friend backto you again as I brought back his pledge. "

"It has been many years since Henry Burgoyne and I have met, " said theold man, slowly, "and it would be quite absurd to think that he stillholds any trace of that foolish, boyish feeling of loyalty that weonce had for each other. Yet I will keep this, if you will let me, andI thank you, my dear young lady, for what you have said. I thank youfrom the bottom of my heart. You are as good and as kind as yourmother was, and--I can say nothing, believe me, in higher praise. "

He rose slowly and made a movement as if to leave the room, and then, as if the excitement of this sudden return into the past could not beshaken off so readily, he started forward with a move of suddendetermination. 

"I think, " he said, "I will go to Henry Burgoyne's house at once, to-night. I will act on what you have suggested. I will see if this hasor has not been one long, unprofitable mistake. If my visit should befruitless, I will send you this coin to add to your collection ofdishonored honors, but if it should result as I hope it may, it willbe your doing, Miss Catherwaight, and two old men will have much tothank you for. Good-night, " he said as he bowed above her hand, "and--God bless you!"

Miss Catherwaight flushed slightly at what he had said, and satlooking down at the floor for a moment after the door had closedbehind him. 

Young Mr. Latimer moved uneasily in his chair. The routine of theoffice had been strangely disturbed that day, and he now failed torecognize in the girl before him with reddened cheeks and tremblingeyelashes the cold, self-possessed young woman of society whom he hadformerly known. 

"You have done very well, if you will let me say so, " he began, gently. "I hope you are right in what you said, and that Mr. Lockwoodwill not meet with a rebuff or an ungracious answer. Why, " he went onquickly, "I have seen him take out his gun now every spring and everyfall for the last ten years and clean and polish it and tell whatgreat shots he and Henry, as he calls him, used to be. And then hewould say he would take a holiday and get off for a little shooting. But he never went. He would put the gun back into its case again andmope in his library for days afterward. You see, he never married, andthough he adopted me, in a manner, and is fond of me in a certain way, no one ever took the place in his heart his old friend had held. "

"You will let me know, will you not, at once, --to-night, even, --whether he succeeds or not?" said the cynical Miss Catherwaight. "Youcan understand why I am so deeply interested. I see now why you said Iwould not tell the story of that medal. But, after all, it may be theprettiest story, the only pretty story I have to tell. "

Mr. Lockwood had not returned, the man said, when young Latimerreached the home the lawyer had made for them both. He did not knowwhat to argue from this, but determined to sit up and wait, and so satsmoking before the fire and listening with his sense of hearing on astrain for the first movement at the door. 

He had not long to wait. The front door shut with a clash, and heheard Mr. Lockwood crossing the hall quickly to the library, in whichhe waited. Then the inner door was swung back, and Mr. Lockwood camein with his head high and his eyes smiling brightly. 

There was something in his step that had not been there before, something light and vigorous, and he looked ten years younger. Hecrossed the room to his writing-table without speaking and begantossing the papers about on his desk. Then he closed the rolling-toplid with a snap and looked up smiling. 

"I shall have to ask you to look after things at the office for alittle while, " he said. "Judge Burgoyne and I are going to Marylandfor a few weeks' shooting. "

VAN BIBBER AND THE SWAN-BOATS

It was very hot in the Park, and young Van Bibber, who has a goodheart and a great deal more money than good-hearted people generallyget, was cross and somnolent. He had told his groom to bring a horsehe wanted to try to the Fifty-ninth Street entrance at ten o'clock, and the groom had not appeared. Hence Van Bibber's crossness. 

He waited as long as his dignity would allow, and then turned off intoa by-lane end dropped on a bench and looked gloomily at the Lohengrinswans with the paddle-wheel attachment that circle around the lake. They struck him as the most idiotic inventions he had ever seen, andhe pitied, with the pity of a man who contemplates crossing the oceanto be measured for his fall clothes, the people who could find delightin having some one paddle them around an artificial lake. 

Two little girls from the East Side, with a lunch basket, and an oldergirl with her hair down her back, sat down on a bench beside him andgazed at the swans. 

The place was becoming too popular, and Van Bibber decided to move on. But the bench on which he sat was in the shade, and the asphalt walkleading to the street was in the sun, and his cigarette was soothing, so he ignored the near presence of the three little girls, andremained where he was. 

"I s'pose, " said one of the two little girls, in a high, public schoolvoice, "there's lots to see from those swan-boats that youse can't seefrom the banks. "

"Oh, lots, " assented the girl with long hair. 

"If you walked all round the lake, clear all the way round, you couldsee all there is to see, " said the third, "except what there's in themiddle where the island is. "

"I guess it's mighty wild on that island, " suggested the youngest. 

"Eddie Case he took a trip around the lake on a swan-boat the otherday. He said that it was grand. He said youse could see fishes andducks, and that it looked just as if there were snakes and things onthe island. "

"What sort of things?" asked the other one, in a hushed voice. 

"Well, wild things, " explained the elder, vaguely; "bears and animalslike that, that grow in wild places. "

Van Bibber lit a fresh cigarette, and settled himself comfortably andunreservedly to listen. 

"My, but I'd like to take a trip just once, " said the youngest, underher breath. Then she clasped her fingers together and looked upanxiously at the elder girl, who glanced at her with severe reproach. 

"Why, Mame!" she said; "ain't you ashamed! Ain't you having a goodtime 'nuff without wishing for everything you set your eyes on?"

Van Bibber wondered at this--why humans should want to ride around onthe swans in the first place, and why, if they had such a wild desire, they should not gratify it. 

"Why, it costs more'n it costs to come all the way up town in an opencar, " added the elder girl, as if in answer to his unspoken question. 

The younger girl sighed at this, and nodded her head in submission, but blinked longingly at the big swans and the parti-colored awningand the red seats. 

"I beg your pardon, " said Van Bibber, addressing himself uneasily tothe eldest girl with long hair, "but if the little girl would like togo around in one of those things, and--and hasn't brought the changewith her, you know, I'm sure I should be very glad if she'd allow meto send her around. "

"Oh! will you?" exclaimed the little girl, with a jump, and so sharplyand in such a shrill voice that Van Bibber shuddered. But the eldergirl objected. 

"I'm afraid maw wouldn't like our taking money from any one we didn'tknow, " she said with dignity; "but if you're going anyway and wantcompany--"

"Oh! my, no, " said Van Bibber, hurriedly. He tried to picture himselfriding around the lake behind a tin swan with three little girls fromthe East Side, and a lunch basket. 

"Then, " said the head of the trio, "we can't go. "

There was such a look of uncomplaining acceptance of this verdict onthe part of the two little girls, that Van Bibber felt uncomfortable. He looked to the right and to the left, and then said desperately, "Well, come along. " The young man in a blue flannel shirt, who did thepaddling, smiled at Van Bibber's riding-breeches, which were so veryloose at one end and so very tight at the other, and at his gloves andcrop. But Van Bibber pretended not to care. The three little girlsplaced the awful lunch basket on the front seat and sat on the middleone, and Van Bibber cowered in the back. They were hushed in silentecstasy when it started, and gave little gasps of pleasure when itcareened slightly in turning. It was shady under the awning, and themotion was pleasant enough, but Van Bibber was so afraid some onewould see him that he failed to enjoy it. 

But as soon as they passed into the narrow straits and were shut in bythe bushes and were out of sight of the people, he relaxed, and beganto play the host. He pointed out the fishes among the rocks at theedges of the pool, and the sparrows and robins bathing and rufflingtheir feathers in the shallow water, and agreed with them about thepossibility of bears, and even tigers, in the wild part of the island, although the glimpse of the gray helmet of a Park policeman made sucha supposition doubtful. 

And it really seemed as though they were enjoying it more than he everenjoyed a trip up the Sound on a yacht or across the ocean on arecord-breaking steamship. It seemed long enough before they got backto Van Bibber, but his guests were evidently but barely satisfied. Still, all the goodness in his nature would not allow him to gothrough that ordeal again. 

He stepped out of the boat eagerly and helped out the girl with longhair as though she had been a princess and tipped the rude young manwho had laughed at him, but who was perspiring now with the work hehad done; and then as he turned to leave the dock he came face to facewith A Girl He Knew and Her brother. 

Her brother said, "How're you, Van Bibber? Been taking a trip aroundthe world in eighty minutes?" And added in a low voice, "Introduce meto your young lady friends from Hester Street. "

"Ah, how're you--quite a surprise!" gasped Van Bibber, while his lateguests stared admiringly at the pretty young lady in the riding-habit, and utterly refused to move on. "Been taking ride on the lake, "stammered Van Bibber; "most exhilarating. Young friends of mine--theseyoung ladies never rode on lake, so I took 'em. Did you see me?"

"Oh, yes, we saw you, " said Her brother, dryly, while she only smiledat him, but so kindly and with such perfect understanding that VanBibber grew red with pleasure and bought three long strings of ticketsfor the swans at some absurd discount, and gave each little girl astring. 

"There, " said Her brother to the little ladies from Hester Street, "now you can take trips for a week without stopping. Don't try tosmuggle in any laces, and don't forget to fee the smoking-roomsteward. "

The Girl He Knew said they were walking over to the stables, and thathe had better go get his other horse and join her, which was to be hisreward for taking care of the young ladies. And the three little girlsproceeded to use up the yards of tickets so industriously that theywere sunburned when they reached the tenement, and went to beddreaming of a big white swan, and a beautiful young gentleman inpatent-leather riding-boots and baggy breeches. 

VAN BIBBER'S BURGLAR

There had been a dance up town, but as Van Bibber could not find Herthere, he accepted young Travers's suggestion to go over to JerseyCity and see a "go" between "Dutchy" Mack and a colored personprofessionally known as the Black Diamond. They covered up all signsof their evening dress with their great-coats, and filled theirpockets with cigars, for the smoke which surrounds a "go" is trying tosensitive nostrils, and they also fastened their watches to both key-chains. Alf Alpin, who was acting as master of ceremonies, was greatlypleased and flattered at their coming, and boisterously insisted ontheir sitting on the platform. The fact was generally circulated amongthe spectators that the "two gents in high hats" had come in acarriage, and this and their patent-leather boots made them objects ofkeen interest. It was even whispered that they were the "parties" whowere putting up the money to back the Black Diamond against the"Hester Street Jackson. " This in itself entitled them to respect. VanBibber was asked to hold the watch, but he wisely declined the honor, which was given to Andy Spielman, the sporting reporter of the_Track and Ring_, whose watch-case was covered with diamonds, and wasjust the sort of a watch a timekeeper should hold. 

It was two o'clock before "Dutchy" Mack's backer threw the sponge intothe air, and three before they reached the city. They had anotherreporter in the cab with them besides the gentleman who had bravelyheld the watch in the face of several offers to "do for" him; and asVan Bibber was ravenously hungry, and as he doubted that he could getanything at that hour at the club, they accepted Spielman's invitationand went for a porterhouse steak and onions at the Owl's Nest, GusMcGowan's all-night restaurant on Third Avenue. 

It was a very dingy, dirty place, but it was as warm as the engine-room of a steamboat, and the steak was perfectly done and tender. Itwas too late to go to bed, so they sat around the table, with theirchairs tipped back and their knees against its edge. The two club menhad thrown off their great-coats, and their wide shirt fronts and silkfacings shone grandly in the smoky light of the oil lamps and the redglow from the grill in the corner. They talked about the life thereporters led, and the Philistines asked foolish questions, which thegentleman of the press answered without showing them how foolish theywere. 

"And I suppose you have all sorts of curious adventures, " said VanBibber, tentatively. 

"Well, no, not what I would call adventures, " said one of thereporters. "I have never seen anything that could not be explained orattributed directly to some known cause, such as crime or poverty ordrink. You may think at first that you have stumbled on somethingstrange and romantic, but it comes to nothing. You would suppose thatin a great city like this one would come across something that couldnot be explained away something mysterious or out of the common, likeStevenson's Suicide Club. But I have not found it so. Dickens oncetold James Payn that the most curious thing he ever saw In his ramblesaround London was a ragged man who stood crouching under the window ofa great house where the owner was giving a ball. While the man hidbeneath a window on the ground floor, a woman wonderfully dressed andvery beautiful raised the sash from the inside and dropped her bouquetdown into the man's hand, and he nodded and stuck it under his coatand ran off with it. 

"I call that, now, a really curious thing to see. But I have nevercome across anything like it, and I have been in every part of thisbig city, and at every hour of the night and morning, and I am notlacking in imagination either, but no captured maidens have everbeckoned to me from barred windows nor 'white hands waved from apassing hansom. ' Balzac and De Musset and Stevenson suggest that theyhave had such adventures, but they never come to me. It is allcommonplace and vulgar, and always ends in a police court or with a'found drowned' in the North River. "

McGowan, who had fallen into a doze behind the bar, woke suddenly andshivered and rubbed his shirt-sleeves briskly. A woman knocked at theside door and begged for a drink "for the love of heaven, " and the manwho tended the grill told her to be off. They could hear her feelingher way against the wall and cursing as she staggered out of thealley. Three men came in with a hack driver and wanted everybody todrink with them, and became insolent when the gentlemen declined, andwere in consequence hustled out one at a time by McGowan, who went tosleep again immediately, with his head resting among the cigar boxesand pyramids of glasses at the back of the bar, and snored. 

"You see, " said the reporter, "it is all like this. Night in a greatcity is not picturesque and it is not theatrical. It is sodden, sometimes brutal, exciting enough until you get used to it, but itruns in a groove. It is dramatic, but the plot is old and the motivesand characters always the same. "

The rumble of heavy market wagons and the rattle of milk carts toldthem that it was morning, and as they opened the door the cold freshair swept into the place and made them wrap their collars around theirthroats and stamp their feet. The morning wind swept down the cross-street from the East River and the lights of the street lamps and ofthe saloon looked old and tawdry. Travers and the reporter went off toa Turkish bath, and the gentleman who held the watch, and who had beenasleep for the last hour, dropped into a nighthawk and told the man todrive home. It was almost clear now and very cold, and Van Bibberdetermined to walk. He had the strange feeling one gets when one staysup until the sun rises, of having lost a day somewhere, and the dancehe had attended a few hours before seemed to have come off long ago, and the fight in Jersey City was far back in the past. 

The houses along the cross-street through which he walked were as deadas so many blank walls, and only here and there a lace curtain wavedout of the open window where some honest citizen was sleeping. Thestreet was quite deserted; not even a cat or a policeman moved on itand Van Bibber's footsteps sounded brisk on the sidewalk. There was agreat house at the corner of the avenue and the cross-street on whichhe was walking. The house faced the avenue and a stone wall ran backto the brown stone stable which opened on the side street. There was adoor in this wall, and as Van Bibber approached it on his solitarywalk it opened cautiously, and a man's head appeared in it for aninstant and was withdrawn again like a flash, and the door snapped to. Van Bibber stopped and looked at the door and at the house and up anddown the street. The house was tightly closed, as though some one waslying inside dead, and the streets were still empty. 

Van Bibber could think of nothing in his appearance so dreadful as tofrighten an honest man, so he decided the face he had had a glimpse ofmust belong to a dishonest one. It was none of his business, heassured himself, but it was curious, and he liked adventure, and hewould have liked to prove his friend the reporter, who did not believein adventure, in the wrong. So he approached the door silently, andjumped and caught at the top of the wall and stuck one foot on thehandle of the door, and, with the other on the knocker, drew himselfup and looked cautiously down on the other side. He had done this solightly that the only noise he made was the rattle of the door-knob onwhich his foot had rested, and the man inside thought that the oneoutside was trying to open the door, and placed his shoulder to it andpressed against it heavily. Van Bibber, from his perch on the top ofthe wall, looked down directly on the other's head and shoulders. Hecould see the top of the man's head only two feet below, and he alsosaw that in one hand he held a revolver and that two bags filled withprojecting articles of different sizes lay at his feet. 

It did not need explanatory notes to tell Van Bibber that the manbelow had robbed the big house on the corner, and that if it had notbeen for his having passed when he did the burglar would have escapedwith his treasure. His first thought was that he was not a policeman, and that a fight with a burglar was not in his line of life; and thiswas followed by the thought that though the gentleman who owned theproperty in the two bags was of no interest to him, he was, as arespectable member of society, more entitled to consideration than theman with the revolver. 

The fact that he was now, whether he liked it or not, perched on thetop of the wall like Humpty Dumpty, and that the burglar might see himand shoot him the next minute, had also an immediate influence on hismovements. So he balanced himself cautiously and noiselessly anddropped upon the man's head and shoulders, bringing him down to theflagged walk with him and under him. The revolver went off once in thestruggle, but before the burglar could know how or from where hisassailant had come, Van Bibber was standing up over him and had drivenhis heel down on his hand and kicked the pistol out of his fingers. Then he stepped quickly to where it lay and picked it up and said, "Now, if you try to get up I'll shoot at you. " He felt an unwarrantedand ill-timedly humorous inclination to add, "and I'll probably missyou, " but subdued it. The burglar, much to Van Bibber's astonishment, did not attempt to rise, but sat up with his hands locked across hisknees and said: "Shoot ahead. I'd a damned sight rather you would. "

His teeth were set and his face desperate and bitter, and hopeless toa degree of utter hopelessness that Van Bibber had never imagined. 

"Go ahead, " reiterated the man, doggedly, "I won't move. Shoot me. "

It was a most unpleasant situation. Van Bibber felt the pistolloosening in his hand, and he was conscious of a strong inclination tolay it down and ask the burglar to tell him all about it. 

"You haven't got much heart, " said Van Bibber, finally. "You're apretty poor sort of a burglar, I should say. "

"What's the use?" said the man, fiercely. "I won't go back--I won't goback there alive. I've served my time forever in that hole. If I haveto go back again--s'help me if I don't do for a keeper and die for it. But I won't serve there no more. "

"Go back where?" asked Van Bibber, gently, and greatly interested; "toprison?"

"To prison, yes!" cried the man, hoarsely: "to a grave. That's where. Look at my face, " he said, "and look at my hair. That ought to tellyou where I've been. With all the color gone out of my skin, and allthe life out of my legs. You needn't be afraid of me. I couldn't hurtyou if I wanted to. I'm a skeleton and a baby, I am. I couldn't kill acat. And now you're going to send me back again for another lifetime. For twenty years, this time, into that cold, forsaken hole, and afterI done my time so well and worked so hard. " Van Bibber shifted thepistol from one hand to the other and eyed his prisoner doubtfully. 

"How long have you been out?" he asked, seating himself on the stepsof the kitchen and holding the revolver between his knees. The sun wasdriving the morning mist away, and he had forgotten the cold. 

"I got out yesterday, " said the man. 

Van Bibber glanced at the bags and lifted the revolver. "You didn'twaste much time, " he said. 

"No, " answered the man, sullenly, "no, I didn't. I knew this place andI wanted money to get West to my folks, and the Society said I'd haveto wait until I earned it, and I couldn't wait. I haven't seen my wifefor seven years, nor my daughter. Seven years, young man; think ofthat--seven years. Do you know how long that is? Seven years withoutseeing your wife or your child! And they're straight people, theyare, " he added, hastily. "My wife moved West after I was put away andtook another name, and my girl never knew nothing about me. She thinksI'm away at sea. I was to join 'em. That was the plan. I was to join'em, and I thought I could lift enough here to get the fare, and now, "he added, dropping his face in his hands, "I've got to go back. And Ihad meant to live straight after I got West, --God help me, but I did!Not that it makes much difference now. An' I don't care whether youbelieve it or not neither, " he added, fiercely. 

"I didn't say whether I believed it or not, " answered Van Bibber, withgrave consideration. 

He eyed the man for a brief space without speaking, and the burglarlooked back at him, doggedly and defiantly, and with not the faintestsuggestion of hope in his eyes, or of appeal for mercy. Perhaps it wasbecause of this fact, or perhaps it was the wife and child that movedVan Bibber, but whatever his motives were, he acted on them promptly. "I suppose, though, " he said, as though speaking to himself, "that Iought to give you up. "

"I'll never go back alive, " said the burglar, quietly. 

"Well, that's bad, too, " said Van Bibber. "Of course I don't knowwhether you're lying or not, and as to your meaning to live honestly, I very much doubt it; but I'll give you a ticket to wherever your wifeis, and I'll see you on the train. And you can get off at the nextstation and rob my house to-morrow night, if you feel that way aboutit. Throw those bags inside that door where the servant will see thembefore the milkman does, and walk on out ahead of me, and keep yourhands in your pockets, and don't try to run. I have your pistol, youknow. "

The man placed the bags inside the kitchen door; and, with a doubtfullook at his custodian, stepped out into the street, and walked, as hewas directed to do, toward the Grand Central station. Van Bibber keptjust behind him, and kept turning the question over in his mind as towhat he ought to do. He felt very guilty as he passed each policeman, but he recovered himself when he thought of the wife and child wholived in the West, and who were "straight. "

"Where to?" asked Van Bibber, as he stood at the ticket-office window. "Helena, Montana, " answered the man with, for the first time, a lookof relief. Van Bibber bought the ticket and handed it to the burglar. "I suppose you know, " he said, "that you can sell that at a place downtown for half the money. " "Yes, I know that, " said the burglar. Therewas a half-hour before the train left, and Van Bibber took his chargeinto the restaurant and watched him eat everything placed before him, with his eyes glancing all the while to the right or left. Then VanBibber gave him some money and told him to write to him, and shookhands with him. The man nodded eagerly and pulled off his hat as thecar drew out of the station; and Van Bibber came down town again withthe shop girls and clerks going to work, still wondering if he haddone the right thing. 

He went to his rooms and changed his clothes, took a cold bath, andcrossed over to Delmonico's for his breakfast, and, while the waiterlaid the cloth in the cafe, glanced at the headings in one of thepapers. He scanned first with polite interest the account of the danceon the night previous and noticed his name among those present. Withgreater interest he read of the fight between "Dutchy" Mack and the"Black Diamond, " and then he read carefully how "Abe" Hubbard, alias"Jimmie the Gent, " a burglar, had broken jail in New Jersey, and hadbeen traced to New York. There was a description of the man, and VanBibber breathed quickly as he read it. "The detectives have a clew ofhis whereabouts, " the account said; "if he is still in the city theyare confident of recapturing him. But they fear that the same friendswho helped him to break jail will probably assist him from the countryor to get out West. "

"They may do that, " murmured Van Bibber to himself, with a smile ofgrim contentment; "they probably will. "

Then he said to the waiter, "Oh, I don't know. Some bacon and eggs andgreen things and coffee. "

VAN BIBBER AS BEST MAN

Young Van Bibber came up to town in June from Newport to see hislawyer about the preparation of some papers that needed his signature. He found the city very hot and close, and as dreary and as empty as ahouse that has been shut up for some time while its usual occupantsare away in the country. 

As he had to wait over for an afternoon train, and as he was downtown, he decided to lunch at a French restaurant near WashingtonSquare, where some one had told him you could get particular thingsparticularly well cooked. The tables were set on a terrace with plantsand flowers about them, and covered with a tricolored awning. Therewere no jangling horse-car bells nor dust to disturb him, and almostall the other tables were unoccupied. The waiters leaned against thesetables and chatted in a French argot; and a cool breeze blew throughthe plants and billowed the awning, so that, on the whole, Van Bibberwas glad he had come. 

There was, beside himself, an old Frenchman scolding over his latebreakfast; two young artists with Van Dyke beards, who ordered themost remarkable things in the same French argot that the waitersspoke; and a young lady and a young gentleman at the table next to hisown. The young man's back was toward him, and he could only see thegirl when the youth moved to one side. She was very young and verypretty, and she seemed in a most excited state of mind from the tip ofher wide-brimmed, pointed French hat to the points of her patent-leather ties. She was strikingly well-bred in appearance, and VanBibber wondered why she should be dining alone with so young a man. 

"It wasn't my fault, " he heard the youth say earnestly. "How could Iknow he would be out of town? and anyway it really doesn't matter. Your cousin is not the only clergyman in the city. "

"Of course not, " said the girl, almost tearfully, "but they're not mycousins and he is, and that would have made it so much, oh, so verymuch different. I'm awfully frightened!"

"Runaway couple, " commented Van Bibber. "Most interesting. Read about'em often; never seen 'em. Most interesting. "

He bent his head over an entree, but he could not help hearing whatfollowed, for the young runaways were indifferent to all around them, and though he rattled his knife and fork in a most vulgar manner, theydid not heed him nor lower their voices. 

"Well, what are you going to do?" said the girl, severely but notunkindly. "It doesn't seem to me that you are exactly rising to theoccasion. "

"Well, I don't know, " answered the youth, easily. "We're safe hereanyway. Nobody we know ever comes here, and if they did they are outof town now. You go on and eat something, and I'll get a directory andlook up a lot of clergymen's addresses, and then we can make out alist and drive around in a cab until we find one who has not gone offon his vacation. We ought to be able to catch the Fall River boat backat five this afternoon; then we can go right on to Boston from FallRiver to-morrow morning and run down to Narragansett during the day. "

"They'll never forgive us, " said the girl. 

"Oh, well, that's all right, " exclaimed the young man, cheerfully. "Really, you're the most uncomfortable young person I ever ran awaywith. One might think you were going to a funeral. You were willingenough two days ago, and now you don't help me at all. Are you sorry?"he asked, and then added, "but please don't say so, even if you are. "

"No, not sorry, exactly, " said the girl; "but, indeed, Ted, it isgoing to make so much talk. If we only had a girl with us, or if youhad a best man, or if we had witnesses, as they do in England, and aparish registry, or something of that sort; or if Cousin Harold hadonly been at home to do the marrying. "

The young gentleman called Ted did not look, judging from theexpression of his shoulders, as if he were having a very good time. 

He picked at the food on his plate gloomily, and the girl took out herhandkerchief and then put it resolutely back again and smiled at him. The youth called the waiter and told him to bring a directory, and ashe turned to give the order Van Bibber recognized him and herecognized Van Bibber. Van Bibber knew him for a very nice boy, of avery good Boston family named Standish, and the younger of two sons. It was the elder who was Van Bibber's particular friend. The girl sawnothing of this mutual recognition, for she was looking with startledeyes at a hansom that had dashed up the side street and was turningthe corner. 

"Ted, O Ted!" she gasped. "It's your brother. There! In that hansom. Isaw him perfectly plainly. Oh, how did he find us? What shall we do?"

Ted grew very red and then very white. 

"Standish, " said Van Bibber, jumping up and reaching for his hat, "paythis chap for these things, will you, and I'll get rid of yourbrother. "

Van Bibber descended the steps lighting a cigar as the elder Standishcame up them on a jump. 

"Hello, Standish!" shouted the New Yorker. "Wait a minute; where areyou going? Why, it seems to rain Standishes to-day! First see yourbrother; then I see you. What's on?"

"You've seen him?" cried the Boston man, eagerly. "Yes, and where ishe? Was she with him? Are they married? Am I in time?"

Van Bibber answered these different questions to the effect that hehad seen young Standish and Mrs. Standish not a half an hour before, and that they were just then taking a cab for Jersey City, whence theywere to depart for Chicago. 

"The driver who brought them here, and who told me where they were, said they could not have left this place by the time I would reachit, " said the elder brother, doubtfully. 

"That's so, " said the driver of the cab, who had listened curiously. "I brought 'em here not more'n half an hour ago. Just had time to getback to the depot. They can't have gone long. "

"Yes, but they have, " said Van Bibber. "However, if you get over toJersey City in time for the 2. 30, you can reach Chicago almost as soonas they do. They are going to the Palmer House, they said. "

"Thank you, old fellow, " shouted Standish, jumping back into hishansom. "It's a terrible business. Pair of young fools. Nobodyobjected to the marriage, only too young, you know. Ever so muchobliged. "

"Don't mention it, " said Van Bibber, politely. 

"Now, then, " said that young man, as he approached the frightenedcouple trembling on the terrace, "I've sent your brother off toChicago. I do not know why I selected Chicago as a place where onewould go on a honeymoon. But I'm not used to lying and I'm not verygood at it. Now, if you will introduce me, I'll see what can be donetoward getting you two babes out of the woods. "

Standish said, "Miss Cambridge, this is Mr. Cortlandt Van Bibber, ofwhom you have heard my brother speak, " and Miss Cambridge said she wasvery glad to meet Mr. Van Bibber even under such peculiarly tryingcircumstances. 

"Now what you two want to do, " said Van Bibber, addressing them asthough they were just about fifteen years old and he were at leastforty, "is to give this thing all the publicity you can. "

"What?" chorused the two runaways, in violent protest. 

"Certainly, " said Van Bibber. "You were about to make a fatal mistake. You were about to go to some unknown clergyman of an unknown parish, who would have married you in a back room, without a certificate or awitness, just like any eloping farmer's daughter and lightning-rodagent. Now it's different with you two. Why you were not marriedrespectably in church I don't know, and I do not intend to ask, but akind Providence has sent me to you to see that there is no talk norscandal, which is such bad form, and which would have got your namesinto all the papers. I am going to arrange this wedding properly, andyou will kindly remain here until I send a carriage for you. Now justrely on me entirely and eat your luncheon in peace. It's all going tocome out right--and allow me to recommend the salad, which isespecially good. "

Van Bibber first drove madly to the Little Church Around the Corner, where he told the kind old rector all about it, and arranged to havethe church open and the assistant organist in her place, and adistrict-messenger boy to blow the bellows, punctually at threeo'clock. "And now, " he soliloquized, "I must get some names. Itdoesn't matter much whether they happen to know the high contractingparties or not, but they must be names that everybody knows. Whoeveris in town will be lunching at Delmonico's, and the men will be at theclubs. " So he first went to the big restaurant, where, as good luckwould have it, he found Mrs. "Regy" Van Arnt and Mrs. "Jack" Peabody, and the Misses Brookline, who had run up the Sound for the day on theyacht _Minerva_ of the Boston Yacht Club, and he told them how thingswere and swore them to secrecy, and told them to bring what men theycould pick up. 

At the club he pressed four men into service who knew everybody andwhom everybody knew, and when they protested that they had not beenproperly invited and that they only knew the bride and groom by sight, he told them that made no difference, as it was only their names hewanted. Then he sent a messenger boy to get the biggest suit of roomson the Fall River boat and another one for flowers, and then he putMrs. "Regy" Van Arnt into a cab and sent her after the bride, and, asbest man, he got into another cab and carried off the groom. 

"I have acted either as best man or usher forty-two times now, " saidVan Bibber, as they drove to the church, "and this is the first time Iever appeared in either capacity in russia-leather shoes and a blueserge yachting suit. But then, " he added, contentedly, "you ought tosee the other fellows. One of them is in a striped flannel. "

Mrs. "Regy" and Miss Cambridge wept a great deal on the way up town, but the bride was smiling and happy when she walked up the aisle tomeet her prospective husband, who looked exceedingly conscious beforethe eyes of the men, all of whom he knew by sight or by name, and notone of whom he had ever met before. But they all shook hands after itwas over, and the assistant organist played the Wedding March, and oneof the club men insisted in pulling a cheerful and jerky peal on thechurch bell in the absence of the janitor, and then Van Bibber hurledan old shoe and a handful of rice--which he had thoughtfully collectedfrom the chef at the club--after them as they drove off to the boat. 

"Now, " said Van Bibber, with a proud sigh of relief and satisfaction, "I will send that to the papers, and when it is printed to-morrow itwill read like one of the most orthodox and one of the smartestweddings of the season. And yet I can't help thinking--"

"Well?" said Mrs. "Regy, " as he paused doubtfully. 

"Well, I can't help thinking, " continued Van Bibber, "of Standish'solder brother racing around Chicago with the thermometer at 102 in theshade. I wish I had only sent him to Jersey City. It just shows, " headded, mournfully, "that when a man is not practised in lying, heshould leave it alone. "