FROM PLACE TO PLACE

The Works of

IRVIN S. COBB

[Illustration: Emblem]

The Review of Reviews CorporationPublishers New YorkPublished by Arrangement with George H. Doran Company

Copyright, 1920, by George H. Doran CompanyCopyright, 1918, 1919, by the Curtis Publishing CompanyCopyright, 1918, by the Frank A. Munsey Co. Copyright, 1913, 1918, by the Red Book Corporation

Printed in the United States of America

TO

CHARLES R. FLINT, ESQ. 

CONTENTS

 CHAPTER PAGE

 I THE GALLOWSMITH 11

 II THE BROKEN SHOELACE 55

 III BOYS WILL BE BOYS 96

 IV THE LUCK PIECE 156

 V QUALITY FOLKS 206

 VI JOHN J. COINCIDENCE 259

 VII WHEN AUGUST THE SECOND WAS APRIL THE FIRST 302

 VIII HOODWINKED 332

 IX THE BULL CALLED EMILY 382

FROM PLACE TO PLACE

CHAPTER I

THE GALLOWSMITH

This man that I have it in mind to write about was, at the time of whichI write, an elderly man, getting well along toward sixty-five. He wastall and slightly stooped, with long arms, and big, gnarled, competent-looking hands, which smelled of yellow laundry soap, and hadhuge, tarnished nails on the fingers. He had mild, pale eyes, a lightblue as to colour, with heavy sacs under them, and whitish whiskers, spindly and thin, like some sort of second-growth, which were so cut asto enclose his lower face in a nappy fringe, extending from ear to earunder his chin. He suffered from a chronic heart affection, and thisgave to his skin a pronounced and unhealthy pallor. He was neat and primin his personal habits, kind to dumb animals, and tolerant of smallchildren. He was inclined to be miserly; certainly in money matters hewas most prudent and saving. He had the air about him of being lonely. His name was Tobias Dramm. In the town where he lived he was commonlyknown as Uncle Tobe Dramm. By profession he was a public hangman. Youmight call him a gallowsmith. He hanged men for hire. 

So far as the available records show, this Tobias Dramm was the only manof his calling on this continent. In himself he constituted a specialtyand a monopoly. The fact that he had no competition did not make himcareless in the pursuit of his calling. On the contrary, it made himprecise and painstaking. As one occupying a unique position, he realizedthat he had a reputation to sustain, and capably he sustained it. In theWestern Hemisphere he was, in the trade he followed, the nearest modernapproach to the paid executioners of olden times in France who went, each of them, by the name of the city or province wherein he wasstationed, to do torturing and maiming and killing in the gracious nameof the king. 

A generous government, committed to a belief in the efficacy of capitalpunishment, paid Tobias Dramm at the rate of seventy-five dollars a headfor hanging offenders convicted of the hanging crime, which was murder. He averaged about four hangings every three months or, say, about ninehundred dollars a year--all clear money. 

The manner of Mr. Dramm's having entered upon the practise of thissomewhat grisly trade makes in itself a little tale. He was a lifelongcitizen of the town of Chickaloosa, down in the Southwest, where therestood a State penitentiary, and where, during the period of which I amspeaking, the Federal authorities sent for confinement and punishmentthe criminal sweepings of half a score of States and Territories. Thiswas before the government put up prisons of its own, and while still itparcelled out its human liabilities among State-owned institutions, paying so much apiece for their keep. When the government first beganshipping a share of its felons to Chickaloosa, there came along, in oneclanking caravan of shackled malefactors, a half-breed, part Mexican andthe rest of him Indian, who had robbed a territorial post-office andincidentally murdered the postmaster thereof. Wherefore this half-breedwas under sentence to expiate his greater misdeed on a given date, between the hours of sunrise and sunset, and after a duly prescribedmanner, namely: by being hanged by the neck until he was dead. 

At once a difficulty and a complication arose. The warden of thepenitentiary at Chickaloosa was perfectly agreeable to the idea ofkeeping and caring for those felonious wards of the government who wereput in his custody to serve terms of imprisonment, holding that suchdisciplinary measures fell within the scope of his sworn duty. But whenit came to the issue of hanging any one of them, he drew the line mostfirmly. As he pointed out, he was not a government agent. He derivedhis authority and drew his salary not from Washington, D. C. , but from aState capital several hundreds of miles removed from Washington. Moreover, he was a zealous believer in the principle of Statesovereignty. As a soldier of the late Southern Confederacy, he hadfought four years to establish that doctrine. Conceded, that the causefor which he fought had been defeated; nevertheless his views upon thesubject remained fixed and permanent. He had plenty of disagreeable jobsto do without stringing up bad men for Uncle Sam; such was the attitudethe warden took. The sheriff of the county of which Chickaloosa was thecounty-seat, likewise refused to have a hand in the impending affair, holding it--and perhaps very properly--to be no direct concern of his, either officially or personally. 

Now the government very much wanted the hybrid hanged. The governmenthad been put to considerable trouble and no small expense to catch himand try him and convict him and transport him to the place where he wasat present confined. Day and date for the execution of the law'sjudgment having been fixed, a scandal and possibly a legal tangle wouldensue were there delay in the premises. It was reported that a fullpardon had been offered to a long-term convict on condition that hecarry out the court's mandate upon the body of the condemned mongrel, and that he had refused, even though the price were freedom forhimself. 

In this serious emergency, a volunteer in the person of Tobias Drammcame forward. Until then he had been an inconspicuous unit in the lifeof the community. He was a live-stock dealer on a small scale, makinghis headquarters at one of the town livery stables. He was a person ofsteady habits, with a reputation for sobriety and frugality among hisneighbours. The government, so to speak, jumped at the chance. Withoutdelay, his offer was accepted. There was no prolonged haggling overterms, either. He himself fixed the cost of the job at seventy-fivedollars; this figure to include supervision of the erection of thegallows, testing of the apparatus, and the actual operation itself. 

So, on the appointed day, at a certain hour, to wit, a quarter past sixo'clock in the morning, just outside the prison walls, and in thepresence of the proper and ordained number of witnesses, Uncle Tobe, with a grave, untroubled face, and hands which neither fumbled nortrembled, tied up the doomed felon and hooded his head in a black-clothbag, and fitted a noose about his neck. The drop fell at eighteenminutes past the hour. Fourteen minutes later, following brief tests ofheart and pulse, the two attending physicians agreed that the half-breedwas quite satisfactorily defunct. They likewise coincided in theopinion that the hanging had been conducted with neatness, and withswiftness, and with the least possible amount of physical suffering forthe deceased. One of the doctors went so far as to congratulate Mr. Dramm upon the tidiness of his handicraft. He told him that in all hisexperience he had never seen a hanging pass off more smoothly, and thatfor an amateur, Dramm had done splendidly. To this compliment Uncle Tobereplied, in his quiet and drawling mode of speech, that he had studiedthe whole thing out in advance. 

"Ef I should keep on with this way of makin' a livin' I don't 'low everto let no slip-ups occur, " he added with simple directness. There was nosuggestion of the morbid in his voice or manner as he said this, butinstead merely a deep personal satisfaction. 

Others present, having been made sick and faint by the shock of seeing ahuman being summarily jerked into the hereafter, went away hurriedlywithout saying anything at all. But afterward thinking it over when theywere more composed, they decided among themselves that Uncle Tobe hadcarried it off with an assurance and a skill which qualified him mostaptly for future undertakings along the same line; that he was a bornhangman, if ever there was one. 

This was the common verdict. So, thereafter, by a tacit understanding, the ex-cattle-buyer became the regular government hangman. He had noofficial title nor any warrant in writing for the place he filled. Heworked by the piece, as one might say, and not by the week or month. Some years he hanged more men than in other years, but the average perannum was about twelve. He had been hanging them now for going on tenyears. 

It was as though he had been designed and created for the work. Hehanged villainous men singly, sometimes by pairs, and rarely in groupsof threes, always without a fumble or a hitch. Once, on a singlemorning, he hanged an even half-dozen, these being the chief fruitage ofa busy term of the Federal court down in the Indian country where thecombination of a crowded docket, an energetic young district attorneywith political ambitions, and a businesslike presiding judge hadproduced what all unprejudiced and fair-minded persons agreed weremarvellous results, highly beneficial to the moral atmosphere of theterritory and calculated to make potential evil-doers stop and think. Four of the six had been members of an especially desperate gang oftrain and bank robbers. The remaining two had forfeited their right tokeep on living by slaying deputy marshals. Each, with maliceaforethought and with his own hands, had actually killed some one or hadaided and abetted in killing some one. 

This sextuple hanging made a lot of talk, naturally. The size of italone commanded the popular interest. Besides, the personnel of thegroup of villains was such as to lend an aspect of picturesqueness tothe final proceedings. The sextet included a full-blooded Cherokee; aconsumptive ex-dentist out of Kansas, who from killing nerves in teethhad progressed to killing men in cold premeditation; a lank WestVirginia mountaineer whose family name was the name of a clan prominentin one of the long-drawn-out hill-feuds of his native State; a plain badman, whose chief claim to distinction was that he hailed originally fromthe Bowery in New York City; and one, the worst of them all, who wassaid to be the son of a pastor in a New England town. One by one, unerringly and swiftly, Uncle Tobe launched them through his scaffoldfloor to get whatever deserts await those who violate the laws of Godand man by the violent shedding of innocent blood. When the sixth andlast gunman came out of the prison proper into the prison enclosure--itwas the former dentist, and being set, as the phrase runs, upon dyinggame, he wore a twisted grin upon his bleached face--there were sixblack boxes under the platform, five of them occupied, with their lidsall in place, and one of them yet empty and open. In the act of mountingthe steps the condemned craned his head sidewise, and at the sight ofthose coffins stretching along six in a row on the gravelled courtyard, he made a cheap and sorry gibe. But when he stood beneath the cross-armto be pinioned, his legs played him traitor. Those craven knees of hisgave way under him, so that trusties had to hold the weakening ruffianupright while the executioner snugged the halter about his throat. 

On this occasion Uncle Tobe elucidated the creed and the code of hisprofession for a reporter who had come all the way down from St. Louisto report the big hanging for his paper. Having covered the hanging atlength, the reporter stayed over one more day at the Palace Hotel inChickaloosa to do a special article, which would be in part a charactersketch and in part a straight interview, on the subject of the hangman. The article made a full page spread in the Sunday edition of the youngman's paper, and thereby a reputation, which until this time had beenmore or less local, was given what approximated a national notoriety. Through a somewhat general reprinting of what the young man had written, and what his paper had published, the country at large eventually becameacquainted with an ethical view-point which was already fairly familiarto nearly every resident in and about Chickaloosa. Reading thenarrative, one living at a distance got an accurate picture of apersonality elevated above the commonplace solely by the rôle which itsowner filled; a picture of an old man thoroughly sincere and thoroughlyconscientious; a man dull, earnest, and capable to his limits; a man whowas neither morbid nor imaginative, but filled with rather a stupidgravity; a man canny about the pennies and affectionately inclinedtoward the dollars; a man honestly imbued with the idea that he was apublic servant performing a necessary public service; a man withoutnerves, but in all other essentials a small-town man with a small-townmind; in short, saw Uncle Tobe as he really was. The reporter didsomething else which marked him as a craftsman. Without stating the factin words, he nevertheless contrived to create in the lines which hewrote an atmosphere of self-defence enveloping the old man--or perhapsthe better phrase would be self-extenuation. The reader was made toperceive that Dramm, being cognizant and mildly resentful of theattitude in which his own little world held him, by reason of the fatalwork of his hands, sought after a semiapologetic fashion to offer a pleain abatement of public judgment, to set up a weight of moral evidence inhis own behalf, and behind this in turn, and showing through it, mightbe sensed the shy pride of a shy man for labour undertaken with goodmotives and creditably performed. With no more than a pardonablebroadening and exaggeration of the other's mode of speech, the reportersucceeded likewise in reproducing not only the language, but the wistfulintent of what Uncle Tobe said to him. From this interview I propose nowto quote to the extent of a few paragraphs. This is Uncle Tobeaddressing the visiting correspondent:

 "It stands to reason--don't it?--that these here sinful men have got to be hung, an' that somebody has got to hang 'em. The Good Book says an eye fur an eye an' a tooth fur a tooth an' a life fur a life. That's perzactly whut it says, an' I'm one whut believes the Bible frum kiver to kiver. These here boys that they bring in here have broke the law of Gawd an' the law of the land, an' they jest natchelly got to pay fur their devilment. That's so, ain't it? Well, then, that bein' so, I step forward an' do the job. Ef they was free men, walkin' around like you an' me, I wouldn't lay the weight of my little finger on 'em to harm a single hair in their haids. Ef they hadn't done nothin' ag'in' the law, I'd be the last one to do 'em a hurt. I wisht you could make that p'int plain in the piece you aim to write, so's folks would understand jest how I feel--so's they'd understand that I don't bear no gredge ag'inst any livin' creature. 

 "Ef the job was left to some greenhawn he'd mebbe botch it up an' make them boys suffer more'n there's any call fur. Sech things have happened, a plenty times before now ez you yourself doubtless know full well. But I don't botch it up. I ain't braggin' none whilst I'm sayin' this to you; I'm jest tellin' you. I kin take an oath that I ain't never botched up one of these jobs yit, not frum the very fust. The warden or Dr. Slattery, the prison physician, or anybody round this town that knows the full circumstances kin tell you the same, ef you ast 'em. You see, son, I ain't never nervoused up like some men would be in my place. I'm always jest ez ca'm like ez whut you are this minute. The way I look at it, I'm jest a chosen instrument of the law. I regard it ez a trust that I'm called on to perform, on account of me havin' a natchel knack in that 'special direction. Some men have gifts fur one thing an' some men have gifts fur another thing. It would seem this is the perticular thing--hangin' men--that I've got a gift fur. So, sech bein' the case, I don't worry none about it beforehand, nor I don't worry none after it's all over with, neither. With me handlin' the details the whole thing is over an' done with accordin' to the law an' the statutes an' the jedgment of the high court in less time than some people would take fussin' round, gittin' ready. The way I look at it, it's a mercy an' a blessin' to all concerned to have somebody in charge that knows how to hang a man. 

 "Why, it's come to sech a pass that when there's a hangin' comin' off anywhere in this part of the country they send fur me to be present ez a kind of an expert. I've been to hangin's all over this State, an' down into Louisiana, an' wunst over into Texas in order to give the sheriffs the benefit of my experience an' my advice. I make it a rule not never to take no money fur doin' sech ez that--only my travelin' expenses an' my tavern bills; that's all I ever charge 'em. But here in Chickaloosa the conditions is different, an' the gover'mint pays me seventy-five dollars a hangin'. I figger that it's wuth it, too. The Bible says the labourer is worthy of his hire. I try to be worthy of the hire I git. I certainly aim to earn it--an' I reckin I do earn it, takin' everything into consideration--the responsibility an' all. Ef there's any folks that think I earn my money easy--seventy-five dollars fur whut looks like jest a few minutes' work--I'd like fur 'em to stop an' think ef they'd consider themselves qualified to hang ez many men ez I have without never botchin' up a single job. "

That was his chief boast, if boasting it might be called--that he neverbotched the job. It is the common history of common hangmen, so I'vebeen told, that they come after a while to be possessed of the devils ofcruelty, and to take pleasure in the exercise of their most grimcalling. If this be true, then surely Uncle Tobe was to all outwardappearances an exception to the rule. Never by word or look or act washe caught gloating over his victims; always he exhibited a mercifulswiftness in the dread preliminaries and in the act of execution itself. At the outset he had shown deftness. With frequent practise he grewdefter still. He contrived various devices for expediting theproceeding. For instance, after prolonged experiments, conducted inprivacy, he evolved a harnesslike arrangement of leather belts andstraps, made all in one piece, and fitted with buckles and snaffles. With this, in a marvellously brief space, he could bind his man atelbows and wrists, at knees and ankles, so that in less time almost thanit would take to describe the process, the latter stood upon the trap, as a shape deprived of motion, fully caparisoned for the end. He fittedthe inner side of the crosspiece of the gallows with pegs upon which therope rested, entirely out of sight of him upon whom it was presently tobe used, until the moment when Uncle Tobe, stretching a long arm upward, brought it down, all reeved and ready. He hit upon the expedient ofslickening the noose parts with yellow bar soap so that it would runsmoothly in the loop and tighten smartly, without undue tugging. Hemight have used grease or lard, but soap was tidier, and Uncle Tobe, ashas been set forth, was a tidy man. 

After the first few hangings his system began to follow a regularroutine. From somewhere to the west or southwest of Chickaloosa thedeputy marshals would bring in a man consigned to die. The prisonpeople, taking their charge over from them, would house him in a cell ofa row of cells made doubly tight and doubly strong for such as he; indue season the warden would notify Uncle Tobe of the date fixed for theinflicting of the penalty. Four or five days preceding the day, UncleTobe would pay a visit to the prison, timing his arrival so that hereached there just before the exercise hour for the inmates of a certaincell-tier. Being admitted, he would climb sundry flights of narrow ironstairs and pause just outside a crisscrossed door of iron slats while aturnkey, entering that door and locking it behind him, would open asmaller door set flat in the wall of damp-looking grey stones and invitethe man caged up inside to come forth for his daily walk. Then, whilethe captive paced the length and breadth of the narrow corridor back andacross, to and fro, up and down, with the futile restlessness of a catanimal in a zoo, his feet clumping on the flagged flooring, and thewatchful turnkey standing by, Uncle Tobe, having flattened his lean formin a niche behind the outer lattice, with an appraising eye wouldconsider the shifting figure through a convenient cranny of the wattledmetal strips. He took care to keep himself well back out of view, butsince he stood in shadow while the one he marked so keenly moved in aflood of daylight filtering down through a skylight in the ceiling ofthe cell block, the chances were the prisoner could not have made outthe indistinct form of the stranger anyhow. Five or ten minutes of suchscrutiny of his man was all Uncle Tobe ever desired. In his earlier daysbefore he took up this present employment, he had been an adept atguessing the hoof-weight of the beeves and swine in which he dealt. That early experience stood him in good stead now; he took no credit tohimself for his accuracy in estimating the bulk of a living human being. 

Downstairs, on the way out of the place, if by chance he encountered thewarden in his office, the warden, in all likelihood, would say: "Well, how about it this time, Uncle Tobe?"

And Uncle Tobe would make some such answer as this:

"Well, suh, accordin' to my reckonin' this here one will heft about ahund'ed an' sixty-five pound, ez he stands now. How's he takin' it, warden?"

"Oh, so-so. "

"He looks to me like he was broodin' a right smart, " the expert mightsay. "I jedge he ain't relishin' his vittles much, neither. Likely he'llworry three or four pound more off'n his bones 'twixt now an' Fridaymornin'. He oughter run about one hund'ed an' sixty or mebbeone-sixty-one by then. "

"How much drop do you allow to give him?"

"Don't worry about that, suh, " would be the answer given with acontemplative squint of the placid, pale eye. "I reckin my calculationswon't be very fur out of the way, ef any. "

They never were, either. 

On the day before the day, he would be a busy man, what withsuperintending the fitting together and setting up of the paintedlumber pieces upon which tomorrow's capital tragedy would be played;and, when this was done to his liking, trying the drop to see that theboards had not warped, and trying the rope for possible flaws in itsfabric or weave, and proving to his own satisfaction that the mechanismof the wooden lever which operated to spring the trap worked with aninstantaneous smoothness. To every detail he gave a painstakingsupervision, guarding against all possible contingencies. Regarding thetrustworthiness of the rope he was especially careful. When thisparticular hanging was concluded, the scaffold would be taken apart andstored away for subsequent use, but for each hanging the governmentfurnished a brand new rope, especially made at a factory in New Orleansat a cost of eight dollars. The spectators generally cut the rope upinto short lengths after it had fulfilled its ordained purpose, andcarried the pieces away for souvenirs. So always there was a new ropeprovided, and its dependability must be ascertained by prolonged andexhaustive tests before Uncle Tobe would approve of it. Seeing him athis task, with his coat and waistcoat off, his sleeves rolled back, andhis intent mien, one realised why, as a hangman, he had been a success. He left absolutely nothing to chance. When he was through with hisexperimenting, the possibility of an exhibition of the proneness ofinanimate objects to misbehave in emergencies had been reduced to aminimum. 

Before daylight next morning Uncle Tobe, dressed in sober black, like acountry undertaker, and with his mid-Victorian whiskers all cleansed andcombed, would present himself at his post of duty. He would linger inthe background, an unobtrusive bystander, until the condemned sinner hadgone through the mockery of eating his last breakfast; and, still makinghimself inconspicuous during the march to the gallows, would trail atthe very tail of the line, while the short, straggling procession waswinding out through gas-lit murky hallways into the pale dawn-lightslanting over the walls of the gravel-paved, high-fenced compound builtagainst the outer side of the prison close. He would wait on, alwaysholding himself discreetly aloof from the middle breadth of the picture, until the officiating clergyman had done with his sacred offices; wouldwait until the white-faced wretch on whose account the government wasmaking all this pother and taking all this trouble, had mumbled hisfarewell words this side of eternity; would continue to wait, verypatiently, indeed, until the warden nodded to him. Then, with histrussing harness tucked under his arm, and the black cap neatly foldedand bestowed in a handy side-pocket of his coat, Uncle Tobe wouldadvance forward, and laying a kindly, almost a paternal hand upon theshoulder of the man who must die, would steer him to a certain spot inthe centre of the platform, just beneath a heavy cross-beam. Therewould follow a quick shifting of the big, gnarled hands over theunresisting body of the doomed man, and almost instantly, so it seemedto those who watched, all was in order: the arms of the murderer drawnrearward and pressed in close against his ribs by a broad girthencircling his trunk at the elbows, his wrists caught together inbuckled leather cuffs behind his back; his knees and his ankles fast inleathern loops which joined to the rest of the apparatus by means of atransverse strap drawn tautly down the length of his legs, at the back;the black-cloth head-bag with its peaked crown in place; the noosefitted; the hobbled and hooded shape perhaps swaying a trifle this wayand that; and Uncle Tobe on his tiptoes stepping swiftly over to atilted wooden lever which projected out and upward through the plankedfloor, like the handle of a steering oar. 

It was at this point that the timorous-hearted among the witnessesturned their heads away. Those who were more resolute--or as the casemight be, more morbid--and who continued to look, were made aware of afreak of physics which in accord, I suppose, with the laws ofhorizontals and parallels decrees that a man cut off short from life byquick and violent means and fallen prone upon the earth, seems to shrinkup within himself and to grow shorter in body and in sprawling limb, whereas one hanged with a rope by the neck has the semblance ofstretching out to unseemly and unhuman lengths all the while that hedangles. 

 * * * * *

Having repossessed himself of his leather cinches, Uncle Tobe wouldpresently depart for his home, stopping _en route_ at the ChickaloosaNational Bank to deposit the greater part of the seventy-five dollarswhich the warden, as representative of a satisfied Federal government, had paid him, cash down on the spot. To his credit in the bank the oldman had a considerable sum, all earned after this mode, and all drawinginterest at the legal rate. On his arrival at his home, Mr. Dramm wouldfirst of all have his breakfast. This over, he would open the seconddrawer of an old black-walnut bureau, and from under a carefully foldedpile of spare undergarments would withdraw a small, cheap book, bound inimitation red leather, and bearing the word "Accounts" in faded scriptupon the cover. On a clean, blue-lined page of the book, in a crampedhandwriting, he would write in ink, the name, age, height, and weight ofthe man he had just despatched out of life; also the hour and minutewhen the drop fell, the time elapsing before the surgeons pronounced theman dead; the disposition which had been made of the body, and any otherdata which seemed to him pertinent to the record. Invariably heconcluded the entry thus: "Neck was broke by the fall. Everything passedoff smooth. " From his first time of service he had never failed to makesuch notations following a hanging, he being in this, as in all things, methodical and exact. 

The rest of the day, in all probabilities, would be given to smalldevices of his own. If the season suited he might work in his littletruck garden at the back of the house, or if it were the fall of theyear he might go rabbit hunting; then again he might go for a walk. Whenthe evening paper came--Chickaloosa had two papers, a morning paper andan evening paper--he would read through the account given of the eventat the prison, and would pencil any material errors which had crept intothe reporter's story, and then he would clip out the article and file itaway with a sheaf of similar clippings in the same bureau drawer wherehe kept his account-book and his underclothing. This done he would eathis supper, afterward washing and wiping the supper dishes and, presently bedtime for him having arrived, he would go to bed and sleepvery soundly and very peacefully all night. Sometimes his heart troublebrought on smothering spells which woke him up. He rarely had dreams, and never any dreams unpleasantly associated with his avocation. Probably never was there a man blessed with less of an imagination thanthis same Tobias Dramm. It seemed almost providential, considering thecalling he followed, that he altogether lacked the faculty ofintrospection, so that neither his memory nor his conscience evertroubled him. 

Thus far I have made no mention of his household, and for the very goodreason that he had none. In his youth he had not married. The forkedtongue of town slander had it that he was too stingy to support a wife, and on top of that expense, to run the risk of having children to rear. He had no close kindred excepting a distant cousin or two inChickaloosa. He kept no servant, and for this there was a double cause. First, his parsimonious instincts; second, the fact that for love ormoney no negro would minister to him, and in this community negroes werethe only household servants to be had. Among the darkies there wascurrent a belief that at dead of night he dug up the bodies of those hehad hanged and peddled the cadavers to the "student doctors. " They saidhe was in active partnership with the devil; they said the devil tookover the souls of his victims, paying therefor in red-hot dollars, afterthe hangman was done with their bodies. The belief of the negroes thatthis unholy traffic existed amounted with them to a profound conviction. They held Mr. Dramm in an awesome and horrified veneration, bowing tohim most respectfully when they met him, and then sidling off hurriedly. It would have taken strong horses to drag any black-skinned resident ofChickaloosa to the portals of the little three-roomed frame cottage inthe outskirts of the town which Uncle Tobe tenanted. Therefore he livedby himself, doing his own skimpy marketing and his own simplehousekeeping. Loneliness was a part of the penalty he paid for followingthe calling of a gallowsmith. 

Among members of his own race he had no close friends. For the most partthe white people did not exactly shun him, but, as the saying goes inthe Southwest, they let him be. They were well content to enshrine himas a local celebrity, and ready enough to point him out to visitors, butby an unwritten communal law the line was drawn there. He was as one setapart for certain necessary undertakings, and yet denied the intimacy ofhis kind because he performed them acceptably. If his aloof and solitarystate ever distressed him, at least he gave no outward sign of it, butwent his uncomplaining way, bearing himself with a homely, silentdignity, and enveloped in those invisible garments of superstition whichlocal prejudice and local ignorance had conjured up. 

Ready as he was when occasion suited, to justify his avocation in theterms of that same explanation which he had given to the young reporterfrom St. Louis that time, and greatly though he may have craved to gainthe good-will of his fellow citizens, he was never known openly to rebelagainst his lot. The nearest he ever came to doing this was once when hemet upon the street a woman of his acquaintance who had suffered arecent bereavement in the death of her only daughter. He approached her, offering awkward condolences, and at once was moved to a furtherexpression of his sympathy for her in her great loss by trying to shakeher hand. At the touch of his fingers to hers the woman, already in amood of grief bordering on hysteria, shrank back screaming out that hishand smelled of the soap with which he coated his gallows-nooses. Sheran away from him, crying out as she ran, that he was accursed; that hewas marked with that awful smell and could not rid himself of it. Tothose who had witnessed this scene the hangman, with rather an injuredand bewildered air, made explanation. The poor woman, he said, waswrong; although in a way of speaking she was right, too. He did, indeed, use the same yellow bar soap for washing his hands that he used foranointing his ropes. It was a good soap, and cheap; he had used the samebrand regularly for years in cleansing his hands. Since it answered thefirst purpose so well, what possible harm could there be in slicking thenoose of the rope with it when he was called upon to conduct one of hisjobs over up at the prison? Apparently he was at a loss to fathom thelooks they cast at him when he had finished with this statement and hadasked this question. He began a protest, but broke off quickly and wentaway shaking his head as though puzzled that ordinarily sane folksshould be so squeamish and so unreasonable. But he kept on using thesoap as before. 

 * * * * *

Until now this narrative has been largely preamble. The real storyfollows. It concerns itself with the birth of an imagination. 

In his day Uncle Tobe hanged all sorts and conditions of men--men whokept on vainly hoping against hope for an eleventh-hour reprieve longafter the last chance of reprieve had vanished, and who on the gallowsbegged piteously for five minutes, for two minutes, for one minute moreof precious grace; negroes gone drunk on religious exhortation who diedin a frenzy, sure of salvation, and shouting out halleluiahs; Indiansupborne and stayed by a racial stoicism; Chinamen casting stolid, slant-eyed glances over the rim of the void before them and filled withthe calmness of the fatalist who believes that whatever is to be, is tobe; white men upon whom at the last, when all prospect of interventionwas gone, a mental numbness mercifully descended with the result thatthey came to the rope's embrace like men in a walking coma, with glazed, unseeing eyes, and dragging feet; other white men who summoned up amockery of bravado and uttered poor jests from between lips drawn backin defiant sneering as they gave themselves over to the hangman, so thatonly Uncle Tobe, feeling their flesh crawling under their grave-clothesas he tied them up, knew a hideous terror berode their bodies. Atlength, in the tenth year of his career as a paid executioner he wascalled upon to visit his professional attentions upon a man differentfrom any of those who had gone down the same dread chute. 

The man in question was a train-bandit popularly known as the Lone-HandKid, because always he conducted his nefarious operations withoutconfederates. He was a squat, dark ruffian, as malignant as a moccasinsnake, and as dangerous as one. He was filthy in speech and vile inhabit, being in his person most unpicturesque and most unwholesome, andaltogether seemed a creature more viper than he was man. The sheriffs oftwo border States and the officials of a contiguous reservation soughtfor him many times, long and diligently, before a posse overcame him inthe hills by over-powering odds and took him alive at the cost of two ofits members killed outright and a third badly crippled. So soon assurgeons plugged up the holes in his hide which members of the vengefulposse shot into him after they had him surrounded and before hisammunition gave out, he was brought to bar to answer for the unprovokedmurder of a postal clerk on a transcontinental limited. No time waswasted in hurrying his trial through to its conclusion; it was felt thatthere was crying need to make an example of this red-handed desperado. Having been convicted with commendable celerity, the Lone-Hand Kid wastransferred to Chickaloosa and strongly confined there against the dayof Uncle Tobe's ministrations upon him. 

From the very hour that the prosecution was started, the Lone-Hand Kid, whose real name was the prosaic name of Smith, objected strongly to thisprocedure which in certain circles is known as "railroading. " Heinsisted that he was being legally expedited out of life on his recordand not on the evidence. There were plenty of killings for any one ofwhich he might have been tried and very probably found guilty, but hereckoned it a profound injustice that he should be indicted, tried, andcondemned for a killing he had not committed. By his code he would nothave rebelled strongly against being punished for the evil things hehimself had done; he did dislike, though, being hanged for somethingsome rival hold-up man had done. Such was his contention, and hereiterated it with a persistence which went far toward convincing somepeople that after all there might be something in what he said, althoughamong honest men there was no doubt whatsoever that the world would be asweeter and a healthier place to live in with the Lone-Hand Kid entirelytranslated out of it. 

Having been dealt with, as he viewed the matter, most unfairly, thecondemned killer sullenly refused to make submission to his appointeddestiny. On the car journey up to Chickaloosa, although still weak fromhis wounds and securely ironed besides, he made two separate efforts toassault his guards. In his cell, a few days later, he attacked a turnkeyin pure wantonness seemingly, since even with the turnkey eliminated, there still was no earthly prospect for him to escape from the steelstrong-box which enclosed him. That was what it truly was, too, astrong-box, for the storing of many living pledges held as surety forthe peace and good order of the land. Of all these human collaterals whowere penned up there with him, he, for the time being, was most preciousin the eyes of the law. Therefore the law took no chance of losing him, and this he must have known when he maimed his keeper. 

After this outbreak he was treated as a vicious wild beast, which, undoubtedly, was exactly what he was. He was chained by his ankles tohis bed, and his food was shoved in to him through the bars by a man whokept himself at all times well out of reach of the tethered prisoner. Having been rendered helpless, he swore then that when finally theyunbarred his cell door and sought to fetch him forth to garb him for hisjourney to the gallows, he would fight them with his teeth and his barehands for so long as he had left an ounce of strength with which tofight. Bodily force would then be the only argument remaining to him bymeans of which he might express his protest, and he told all who caredto listen that most certainly he meant to invoke it. 

There was a code of decorum which governed the hangings at Chickaloosa, and the resident authorities dreaded mightily the prospect of having itprofaned by spiteful and unmannerly behaviour on the part of theLone-Hand Kid. There was said to be in all the world just one livingcreature for whom the rebellious captive entertained love and respect, and this person was his half-sister. With the good name of his prison atheart, the warden put up the money that paid her fare from her home downin the Indian Territory. Two days before the execution she arrived, aslab-sided, shabby drudge of a woman. Having first been primed andprompted for her part, she was sent to him, and in his cell she weptover the fettered prisoner, and with him she pleaded until he promisedher, reluctantly, he would make no physical struggle on being led out todie. 

He kept his word, too; but it was to develop that the pledge ofnon-resistance, making his body passive to the will of his jailers, didnot, according to the Lone-Hand Kid's sense of honour, include themuscles of his tongue. His hour came at sunup of a clear, crisp, Octobermorning, when a rime of frost made a silver carpet upon the boardedfloor of the scaffold, and in the east the heavens glowed an irate red, like the reflections of a distant bale-fire. From his cell door beforethe head warder summoned him forth, he drove away with terrible oathsthe clergyman who had come to offer him religious consolation. Atdaylight, when the first beams of young sunlight were stealing in at theslitted windows to streak the whitewashed wall behind him with a barredpattern of red, like brush strokes of fresh paint, he ate his lastbreakfast with foul words between bites, and outside, a little later, inthe shadow of the crosstree from which shortly he would dangle in thearticle of death, a stark offence before the sight of mortal eyes, hehalted and stood reviling all who had a hand in furthering andcompassing his condemnation. Profaning the name of his Maker with everybreath, he cursed the President of the United States who had declined toreprieve him, the justices of the high court who had denied his appealfrom the verdict of the lower, the judge who had tried him, the districtattorney who had prosecuted him, the grand jurors who had indicted him, the petit jurors who had voted to convict him, the witnesses who hadtestified against him, the posse men who had trapped him, consigningthem all and singly to everlasting damnation. Before this pouring floodof blasphemy the minister, who had followed him up the gallows steps inthe vain hope that when the end came some faint sign of contrition mightbe vouchsafed by this poor lost soul, hid his face in his hands asthough fearing an offended Deity would send a bolt from on high toblast all who had been witnesses to such impiety and such impenitence. 

The indignant warden moved to cut short this lamentable spectacle. Hesigned with his hand for Uncle Tobe to make haste, and Uncle Tobe, obeying, stepped forward from where he had been waiting in the rear rankof the shocked spectators. Upon him the defiant ruffian turned theforces of his sulfurous hate, full-gush. First over one shoulder andthen over the other as the executioner worked with swift fingers to bindhim into a rigid parcel of a man, he uttered what was both a dreadfulthreat and a yet more dreadful promise. 

"I ain't blamin' these other folks here, " he proclaimed. "Some of 'emare here because it's their duty to be here, an' ef these others kin gitpleasure out of seem' a man croaked that ain't afeared of bein' croaked, they're welcome to enjoy the free show, so fur ez I'm concerned. Butyou--you stingy, white-whiskered old snake!--you're doin' this fur thelittle piece of dirty money that's in it fur you. 

"Listen to me, you dog: I know I'm headin' straight fur hell, an' Iain't skeered to go, neither. But I ain't goin' to stay there. I'mcomin' back fur you! I'm comin' back this very night to git you an' takeyour old, withered, black soul back down to hell with me. No need furyou to try to hide. Wharever you hide I'll seek you out. You can't gitaway frum me. You kin lock your door an' you kin lock your winder, an'you kin hide your head under the bedclothes, but I'll find you whareveryou are, remember that! An' you're goin' back down there with me!

"Now go ahead an' hang me--I'm all set fur it ef you are!"

Through this harangue Uncle Tobe worked on, outwardly composed. Whateverhis innermost emotions may have been, his expression gave no hint thatthe mouthings of the Lone-Hand Kid had sunk in. He drew the peaked blacksack down across the swollen face, hiding the glaring eyes and the lipsthat snarled. He brought the rope forward over the cloaked head and drewthe noose in tautly, with the knot adjusted to fit snugly just under theleft ear, so that the hood took on the semblance of a well-filled, inverted bag with its puckered end fluting out in the effect of a darkruff upon the hunched shoulders of its wearer. Stepping back, he grippedthe handle of the lever-bar, and with all his strength jerked it towardhim. A square in the floor opened as the trap was flapped back upon itshinges, and through the opening the haltered form shot straight downwardto bring up with a great jerk, and after that to dangle like a plumb-bobon a string. Under the quick strain the gallows-arm creaked and whined;in the silence which followed the hangman was heard to exhale his breathin a vast puff of relief. His hand went up to his forehead to wipebeads of sweat which for all that the morning was cool almost tocoldness, had suddenly popped out through his skin. He for one wasmighty glad the thing was done, and, as he in this moment figured, welldone. 

But for once and once only as those saw who had the hardihood to look, Uncle Tobe had botched up a job. Perhaps it was because of his greathaste to make an end of a scandalous scene; perhaps because the tiradeof the bound malefactor had discomfited him and made his fingers fumblethis one time at their familiar task. Whatever the cause, it was plainlyenough to be seen that the heavy knot had not cracked the Lone-HandKid's spine. The noose, as was ascertained later, had caught on the edgeof the broad jawbone, and the man, instead of dying instantly, wasstrangling to death by degrees and with much struggling. 

In the next half minute a thing even more grievous befell. The broadstrap which girthed the murderer's trunk just above the bend of theelbows, held fast, but the rest of the harness, having been improperlysnaffled on, loosened and fell away from the twitching limbs so that asthe elongated body twisted to and fro in half circles, the lower armswinnowed the air in foreshortened and contorted flappings, and the freedlegs drew up and down convulsively. 

Very naturally, Uncle Tobe was chagrined; perhaps he had hidden withinhim emotions deeper than those bred of a personal mortification. At anyrate, after a quick, distressed glance through the trap at the writhingshape of agony below, he turned his eyes from it and looked steadfastlyat the high wall facing him. It chanced to be the western wall, whichwas bathed in a ruddy glare where the shafts of the upcoming sun, lifting over the panels at the opposite side of the fenced enclosure, began to fall diagonally upon the whitewashed surface just across. Andnow, against that glowing plane of background opposite him, thereappeared as he looked the slanted shadow of a swaying rope framed in atright and at left by two broader, deeper lines which were the shadowsmarking the timber uprights that supported the scaffold at its nearercorners; and also there appeared, midway between the framing shadows, down at the lower end of the slender line of the cord, an exaggerated, wriggling manifestation like the reflection of a huge and misshapenjumping-jack, which first would lengthen itself grotesquely, and thenabruptly would shorten up, as the tremors running through the dyingman's frame altered the silhouette cast by the oblique sunbeams; andalong with this stencilled vision, as a part of it, occurred shiftingshadow movements of two legs dancing busily on nothing, and of twoforeshortened arms, flapping up and down. It was no pretty picture tolook upon, yet Uncle Tobe, plucking with a tremulous hand at the ends ofhis beard, continued to stare at the apparition, daunted andfascinated. To him it must have seemed as though the Lone-Hand Kid, witha malignant pertinacity which lingered on in him after by rights thelast breath should have been squeezed out of his wretched carcass, waspainting upon those tall planks the picture and the presentiment of hisfarewell threat. 

 * * * * *

Nearly half an hour passed before the surgeons consented that the bodyshould be taken down and boxed. His harness which had failed him havingbeen returned to its owner, he made it up into a compact bundle andcollected his regular fee and went away very quietly. Ordinarily, following his habitual routine, he would have gone across town to hislittle house; would have washed his hands with a bar of the yellowlaundry soap; would have cooked and eaten his breakfast, and then, aftertidying up the kitchen, would have made the customary entry in hisred-backed account-book. But this morning he seemed to have no appetite, and besides, he felt an unaccountable distaste for his home, with itssilence and its emptiness. Somehow he much preferred the open air, withthe skies over him and wide reaches of space about him; which was doublystrange, seeing that he was no lover of nature, but always theretoforehad accepted sky and grass and trees as matters of course--things asinevitable and commonplace as the weathers and the winds. 

Throughout the day and until well on toward night he was beset by acurious, uncommon restlessness which made it hard for him to linger longin any one spot. He idled about the streets of the town; twice hewandered aimlessly miles out along roads beyond the town. All the while, without cessation, there was a tugging and nagging at his nerve-ends, aconstant inward irritation which laid a hold on his thoughts, twitchingthem off into unpleasant channels. It kept him from centering hisinterest upon the casual things about him; inevitably it turned his mindback to inner contemplations. The sensation was mental largely, but itseemed so nearly akin to the physical that to himself Uncle Tobediagnosed it as the after-result of a wrench for his weak heart. Yousee, never before having experienced the reactions of a suddenlyquickened imagination, he, naturally, was at a loss to account for it onany other ground. 

Also he was weighted down by an intense depression that his clean recordof ten years should have been marred by a mishap; this regret, constantly recurring in his thoughts, served to make him undulysensitive. He had a feeling that people stared hard at him as theypassed and, after he had gone by, that they turned to stare at him somemore. Under this scrutiny he gave no sign of displeasure, but inwardlyhe resented it. Of course these folks had heard of what had happened upat the prison, and no doubt among themselves would be commenting uponthe tragedy and gossiping about it. Well, any man was liable to make aslip once; nobody was perfect. It would never happen again; he was sureof that much. 

All day he mooned about, a brooding, uneasy figure, speaking to scarcelyany one at all, but followed wherever he went by curious eyes. It waslate in the afternoon before it occurred to him that he had eatennothing all day, and that he had failed to deposit the money he hadearned that morning. It would be too late now to get into the bank; thebank, which opened early, closed at three o'clock. To-morrow would do aswell. Although he had no zest for food despite his fast, he figuredmaybe it was the long abstinence which was filling his head with suchflighty notions, so he entered a small, smelly lunch-room near therailroad station, and made a pretense of eating an order of ham andeggs. He tried not to notice that the black waiter who served him shrankaway from his proximity, shying off like a breechy colt, from the tablewhere Uncle Tobe sat, whenever his business brought him into that partof the place. What difference did a fool darky's fears make, anyway?

Dusk impended when he found himself approaching his three-room house, looming up as a black oblong, where it stood aloof from its neighbours, with vacant lands about it. The house faced north and south. On thenearer edge of the unfenced common, which extended up to it on theeastern side, he noted as he drew close that somebody--perhaps a boy, ormore probably a group of boys--had made a bonfire of fallen autumnleaves and brushwood. Going away as evening came, they had left theirbonfire to burn itself out. The smouldering pile was almost under hisbedroom window. He regretted rather that the boys had gone; an urgentlonging for human companionship of some sort, however remote--a yearninghe had never before felt with such acuteness--was upon him. Tormented, as he still was, by strange vagaries, he had almost to force himself tounlock the front door and cross the threshold into the gloomy interiorof his cottage. But before entering, and while he yet wrestled with avague desire to retrace his steps and go back down the street, hestooped and picked up his copy of the afternoon paper which the carrier, with true carrierlike accuracy, had flung upon the narrow front porch. 

Inside the house, the floor gave off sharp little sounds, the warpedfloor squeaking and wheezing under the weight of his tread. Subconsciously, this irritated him; a lot of causes were combining toharass him, it seemed; there was a general conspiracy on the part ofobjects animate and inanimate to make him--well, suspicious. And UncleTobe was not given to nervousness, which made it worse. He was ashamedof himself that he should be in such state. Glancing about him in afurtive, almost in an apprehensive way, he crossed the front room to themiddle room, which was his bed chamber, the kitchen being the room atthe rear. In the middle room he lit a coal-oil lamp which stood upon asmall centre table. Alongside the table he opened out the paper andglanced at a caption running half-way across the top of the front page;then, fretfully he crumpled up the printed sheet in his hand and let itfall upon the floor. He had no desire to read the account of his onefailure. Why should the editor dwell at such length and with so prodigala display of black head-line type upon this one bungled job when everyother job of all the jobs that had gone before, had been successful inevery detail? Let's see, now, how many men had he hanged with precisionand with speed and with never an accident to mar the proceedings? Along, martialed array of names came trooping into his brain, and alongwith the names the memories of the faces of all those dead men to whomthe names had belonged. The faces began to pass before him in a mentalprocession. This wouldn't do. Since there were no such things as ghostsor haunts; since, as all sensible men agreed, the dead never came backfrom the grave, it was a foolish thing for him to be creating thoseunpleasant images in his mind. He shook his head to clear it ofrecollections which were the better forgotten. He shook it again andagain. 

He would get to bed; a good night's rest would make him feel better andmore natural. It was an excellent idea--this idea of sleep. So he raisedthe bottommost half of the curtain-less side window for air, drew downthe shade by the string suspended from its lower cross breadth, untilthe lower edge of the shade came even with the window sash, andundressed himself to his undergarments. He was about to blow out thelight when he remembered he had left the money that was the price of hismorning's work in his trousers which hung, neatly folded, across theback of a chair by the centre table. He was in the act of withdrawingthe bills from the bottom of one of the trouser-pockets when right athis feet there was a quick, queer sound of rustling. As he glared down, startled, out from under the crumpled newspaper came timorously creepinga half-grown, sickly looking rat, minus its tail, having lost its tailin a trap, perhaps, or possibly in a battle with other rats. 

At best a rat is no pleasant bedroom companion, and besides, Uncle Tobehad been seriously annoyed. He kicked out with one of his bare feet, taking the rat squarely in its side as it scurried for its hole in thewainscoting. He hurt it badly. It landed with a thump ten feet away andsprawled out on the floor kicking and squealing feebly. Holding the wadof bills in his left hand, with his right Uncle Tobe deftly plucked upthe crushed vermin by the loose fold of skin at the nape of its neck, and with a quick flirt of his arm tossed it sidewise from him to cast itout of the half-opened window. He returned to the table and bent overand blew down the lamp chimney, and in the darkness felt his way acrossthe room to his bed. He stretched himself full length upon it, drew thecotton comforter up to cover him, and shoved the money under the pillow. 

His fingers were relaxing their grip on the bills when he sawsomething--something which instantly turned him stiff and rigid anddeathly cold all over, leaving him without will-power or strength tomove his head or shift his gaze. Over the white, plastered wallalongside his bed an unearthly red glow sprang up, turning a deeper, angrier red as it spread and widened. Against this background next stoodout two perpendicular masses like the broad shadows of uprights--likethe supporting uprights of a gallows, say--and in the squared space ofbrightness thus marked off, depending midway from the shadow crossing itat right angles at the top, appeared a filmy, fine line, whichundoubtedly was the shadow of a cord, and at the end of the cord dangleda veritable jumping-jack of a silhouette, turning and writhing andjerking, with a shape which in one breath grotesquely lengthened and inthe next shrank up to half its former dimensions, which kicked out withindistinct movements of its lower extremities, which flapped withforeshortened strokes of the shadowy upper limbs, which altogether socontorted itself as to form the likeness of a thing all out ofperspective, all out of proportion, and all most horribly reminiscent. 

 * * * * *

A heart with valves already weakened by a chronic affection can standjust so many shocks in a given time and no more. 

 * * * * *

A short time later in this same night, at about eight-forty-fiveo'clock, to be exact, a man who lived on the opposite side of theunfenced common gave the alarm of fire over the telephone. TheChickaloosa fire engine and hose reels came at once, and with themachines numerous citizens. 

In a way of speaking, it turned out to be a false alarm. A bonfire ofleaves and brush, abandoned at dusk by the boys who kindled it, had, after smouldering a while, sprung up briskly and, flaming high, was nowscorching the clap-boarded side of the Dramm house. 

There was no need for the firemen to uncouple a line of hose from thereel. While two of them made shift to get retorts of a patentextinguisher from the truck, two more, wondering why Uncle Tobe, even ifin bed and asleep at so early an hour, had not been aroused by thenoise of the crowd's coming, knocked at his front door. There being noresponse from within at once, they suspected something must be amiss. With heaves of their shoulders they forced the door off its hinges, andentering in company, they groped their passage through the empty frontroom into the bedroom behind it, which was lighted after a fashion bythe reflection from the mounting flames without. 

The tenant was in bed; he lay on his side with his face turned to thewall; he made no answer to their hails. When they bent over him theyknew why. No need to touch him, then, with that look on his face andthat stare out of his popped eyes. He was dead, all right enough; butplainly had not been dead long; not more than a few minutes, apparently. One of his hands was shoved up under his pillow with the fingerstouching a small roll containing seven ten-dollar bills and onefive-dollar bill; the other hand still gripped a fold of the coverlet asthough the fatal stroke had come upon the old man as he lifted thebedclothing to draw it up over his face. These incidental facts werenoted down later after the coroner had been called to take charge; theywere the subject of considerable comment next day when the inquest tookplace. The coroner was of the opinion that the old man had been killedby a heart seizure, and that he had died on the instant the attack came. 

However, this speculation had no part in the thoughts of the twostartled firemen at the moment of the finding of the body. What mostinterested them, next only to the discovery of the presence of the deadman there in the same room with them, was a queer combination of shadowswhich played up and down against the wall beyond the bed, it beingplainly visible in the glare of the small conflagration just outside. 

With one accord they turned about, and then they saw the cause of thephenomenon, and realised that it was not very much of a phenomenon afterall, although unusual enough to constitute a rather curiouscircumstance. A crippled, tailless rat had somehow entangled its neck ina loop at the end of the dangling cord of the half-drawn shade at theside window on the opposite side of the room and, being too weak towriggle free, was still hanging there, jerking and kicking, midway ofthe window opening. The glow of the pile of burning leaves and brushbehind and beyond it, brought out its black outlines with remarkableclearness. 

The patterned shadow upon the wall, though, disappeared in the sameinstant that the men outside began spraying their chemical compound fromthe two extinguishers upon the ambitious bonfire to douse it out, andone of the firemen slapped the rat down to the floor and killed it witha stamp of his foot. 

CHAPTER II

THE BROKEN SHOELACE

I

In the aching, baking middle of a sizzling New York's summer, therebefell New York's regular "crime wave. " When the city is a brazenskillet, whereon mankind, assailed by the sun from above and by thestored-up heat from below, fries on both sides like an egg; when nervesare worn to frazzle-ends; when men and women, suffocating by tediousdegrees in the packed and steaming tenements, lie there and curse theday they were born--then comes the annual "crime wave, " as the paperslove to name it. In truth the papers make it first and then they nameit. Misdeeds of great and small degree are ranged together and displayedin parallel columns as common symptoms of a high tide of violence, aperfect ground swell of lawlessness. To a city editor the scope of acrime wave is as elastic a thing as a hot weather "story, " when underthe heading of Heat Prostrations are listed all who fall in the streets, stricken by whatsoever cause. This is done as a sop to local pride, proving New York to be a deadlier spot in summer than Chicago or St. Louis. 

True enough, in such a season, people do have shorter tempers than atother times; they come to blows on small provocation and come to wordson still less. So maybe there was a real "crime wave, " making menbloody-minded and homicidal. Be that as it may, the thing reached itsapogee in the murder of old Steinway, the so-called millionnaire miserof Murray Hill, he being called a millionnaire because he had money, anda miser because he saved it. 

It was in mid-August that the aged Steinway was choked to death in hisrubbishy old house in East Thirty-ninth Street, where by the currentrumour of the neighbourhood, he kept large sums in cash. Suspicion fellupon the recluse's nephew, one Maxwell, who vanished with the discoveryof the murder. 

The police compiled and widely circulated a description of the suspect, his looks, manners, habits and peculiarities; and certain distantrelatives and presumptive heirs of the dead man came forward promptly, offering a lump sum in cash for his capture, living; but all this labourwas without reward. The fugitive went uncaptured, while the summerdragged on to its end, burning up in the fiery furnace of its own heat. 

For one dweller of the city--and he, I may tell you, is the centralfigure in this story--it dragged on with particular slowness. JudsonGreen, the hero of our tale--if it has any hero--was a young man of somewealth and more leisure. Also he was a young man of theories. Forexample, he had a theory that around every corner of every great cityromance lurked, ready for some one to come and find it. True, he neverhad found it, but that, he insisted, was because he hadn't looked forit; it was there all right, waiting to be flushed, like a quail from acovert. 

Voicing this belief over a drink at a club, on an evening in June, hehad been challenged promptly by one of those argumentative persons whoinvariably disagree with every proposition as a matter of principle, andfor the sake of the debate. 

"All rot, Green, " the other man had said. "Just plain rot. Adventure'snot a thing that you find yourself. It's something that comes and findsyou--once in a life-time. I'll bet that in three months of trying youcouldn't, to save your life, have a real adventure in this town--I meanan adventure out of the ordinary. Elopements and automobile smash-upsare barred. "

"How much will you bet?" asked Judson Green. 

"A hundred, " said the other man, whose name was Wainwright. 

Reaching with one hand for his fountain pen, Judson Green beckoned awaiter with the other and told him to bring a couple of blank checks. 

II

So that was how it had started, and that was why Judson Green had spentthe summer in New York instead of running away to the north woods or theNew England shore, as nearly everybody he knew did. Diligently had hesought to win that hundred dollars of the contentious Wainwright;diligently had he ranged from one end of New York to the other, seekingqueer people and queer things--seeking anything that might properly besaid to constitute adventure. Sometimes a mildly interested and mildlysatirical friend accompanied him; oftener he went alone, an earnest anddetermined young man. Yet, whether with company or without it, his luckuniformly was poor. The founts of casual adventure had, it seemed, runstone dry; such weather was enough to dry up anything. 

Yet he had faithfully tried all those formulas which in the past weresupposed to have served the turns of those seeking adventure in a greatcity. There was the trick of bestowing a thousand-dollar bill upon achance vagrant and then trailing after the recipient to note whathappened to him, in his efforts to change the bill. Heretofore, infiction at least, the following of this plan had invariably broughtforth most beautiful results. Accordingly, Judson Green tried it. 

He tried it at Coney Island one July evening. He chose Coney Islanddeliberately, because of all the places under the sun, Coney Island ispre-eminently the home and haunt of the North American dime. At Coney, adime will buy almost anything except what a half-dime will buy. On SurfAvenue, then, which is Coney's Greatest Common Divisor, he strolled backand forth, looking for one of an aspect suitable for this experiment. Mountain gorges of painted canvas and sheet-tin towered above him;palace pinnacles of lath and plaster speared the sky; the moist saltair, blowing in from the adjacent sea, was enriched with dust and withsmells of hot sausages and fried crabs, and was shattered by the bray ofbagpipes, the exact and mechanical melodies of steam organs, and theinsistent, compelling, never-dying blat of the spieler, the barker andthe ballyhoo. Also there were perhaps a hundred thousand other smellsand noises, did one care to take the time and trouble to classify them. And here the very man he sought to find, found him. 

There came to him, seeking alms, one who was a thing of shreds andpatches and broken shoes. His rags seemed to adhere to him by the powerof cohesive friction rather than by any visible attachments; it mighthave been years since he had a hat that had a brim. It was in the faintand hungered whine of the professional that he asked for the money tobuy one cup of coffee; yet as he spoke, his breath had the richalcoholic fragrance of a hot plum pudding with brandy sauce. 

The beggar made his plea and, with a dirty palm outstretched, waited inpatient suppliance. He sustained the surprise of his whole panhandlinglife. He was handed a new, uncreased one-thousand-dollar bill. He wastold that he must undertake to change the bill and spend smallfractional parts of it. Succeeding here, he should have five per cent ofit for his own. As Judson Green impressed these details upon the raggedvagrant's dazed understanding, he edged closer and closer to his man, ready to cut off any sudden attempt at flight. 

The precaution was entirely unnecessary. Perhaps it was because thisparticular panhandler had the honour of his profession--in moments ofconfidence he might have told you, with some pride, that he was nothief. Or possibly the possession of such unheard-of wealth crippled hispowers of imagination. There are people who are made financiallyembarrassed by having no money at all, but more who are made so byhaving too much. Our most expensive hotels are full of whole familieswho, having become unexpectedly and abruptly wealthy, are now sufferingfrom this painful form of financial embarrassment; they wish to disburselarge sums freely and gracefully, and they don't know how. They lack therequisite training. In a way of speaking, this mendicant of Coney Islandwas perhaps of this class. With his jaw lolling, he looked at thestranger dubiously, uncertainly, suspiciously, meanwhile studying thestranger's yellow-back. 

"You want me to git this here bill changed?" he said dully. 

"That is the idea, " said Judson Green, patiently. "You are to take itand change it--and I will trail behind you to see what happens. I'mmerely making an experiment, with your help, and I'm willing to pay forit. "

"This money ain't counterfeit?" inquired the raggedy one. "This ain't nogame to git me in bad?"

"Well, isn't it worth taking a chance on?" cross-fired Green. Thepimpled expanse of face lost some of its doubt, and the owner of theface fetched a deep breath. 

"You're on, " he decided. "Where'bouts'll I start?"

"Anywhere you please, " Judson Green told him. "You said you werehungry--that for two days you hadn't eaten a bite?"

"Aw, boss, that was part of the spiel, " he confessed frankly. "Right nowI'm that full of beef stew I couldn't hold another bite. "

"Well, how about a drink? A long, cool glass of beer, say? Or anythingyou please. "

The temporary custodian of the one-thousand-dollar bill mentallyconsidered this pleasing project; his bleared eye glinted brighter. 

"Naw, " he said, "not jist yit. If it's all the same to you, boss, I'llwait until I gits a good thirst on me. I think I'll go into that showyonder, to start on. " He pointed a finger towards a near-by amusemententerprise. This institution had opened years before as "The GalvestonFlood. " Then, with some small scenic changes, it had become "The MountPelee Disaster, " warranted historically correct in all details; now itwas "The Messina Earthquake, " no less. Its red and gold gullet of anentrance yawned hungrily, not twenty yards from where they stood. 

"Go ahead, " ordered Judson Green, confirming the choice with a nod. "Andremember, my friend, I will be right behind you. "

Nothing, however, seemed further from the panhandler's thoughts thanflight. His rags fluttered freely in the evening air and his sole-lessshoes flopped up and down upon his feet, rasping his bare toes, as heapproached the nearest ticket booth. 

Behind the wicket sat a young woman of much self-possession. By all theoutward signs she was a born and bred metropolitan and therefore onesteeled against surprise and armed mentally against trick and device. Even before she spoke you felt sure she would say _oily_ if she meant_early_, and _early_ if she meant _oily_--sure linguistic marks of thenative-born New York cockney. 

To match the environment of her employment she wore a costume that wasfondly presumed to be the correct garbing of a Sicilian peasant maid, including a brilliant bodice that laced in front and buttoned behind, animposing headdress, and on both her arms, bracelets of the better knownsemi-precious metals. 

Coming boldly up to her, the ragged man laid upon the shelf of thewicket his precious bill--it was now wadded into a greenish-yellow wisplike a sprig of celery top--and said simply, "One!"

With a jangle of her wrist jewelry, the young woman drew the bill inunder the bars and straightened it out in front of her. She considered, with widening gaze, the numeral 1 and the three naughts following it. Then through the bars she considered carefully him who had brought it. From one to the other and back again she looked. 

"Woit one minute, " she said. It is impossible to reproduce in cold typethe manner in which this young woman uttered the word _minute_. Butthere was an "o" in it and a labial hint of an extra "u. "

"Woit, please, " she said again, and holding the bill down flat with onehand she turned and beckoned to some one at her left. 

A pace behind the panhandler, Judson Green watched. Now the big comedyscene was coming, just as it always came in the books. Either thetattered possessor of the one-thousand-dollar bill would be made welcomeby a gratified proprietor and would be given the liberty of the entireisland and would have columns written about him by a hundred gratifiedpress-agents, or else there would be a call for the police and for thefirst time in the history of New York a man would be locked up, not forthe common crime of having no money, but for having too much money. 

Obedient to the young woman's request, the panhandler waited. At herbeck there came a stout person in a green coat and red trousers--Italiansoldiers wear these colours, or at least they often do at ConeyIsland--and behind her free hand the young woman whispered in his ear. He nodded understandingly, cast a sharp look at the opulent individualin the brimless hat, and then hurried away toward the inner recesses ofthe entrance. In a minute he was back, but not with determined policeofficers behind him. He came alone and he carried in one hand a heavycanvas bag that gave off a muffled jingling sound, and in the other, aflat green packet. 

The young woman riffled through the packet and drove a hand into thejingling bag. Briskly she counted down before her the following items incurrency and specie:

Four one-hundred-dollar bills, six fifty-dollar bills, twelvetwenty-dollar bills, five ten-dollar bills, one five-dollar bill, fourone-dollar bills, one fifty-cent piece, one quarter, two dimes and onenickel. Lifting one of the dimes off the top of this pleasing structure, she dropped it in a drawer; then she shoved the remaining mound ofmoney under the wicket, accompanying it by a flat blue ticket ofadmission, whisked the one-thousand-dollar bill out of sight and calmlyawaited the pleasure of the next comer. 

All downcast and disappointed, Green drew his still bewilderedaccomplice aside, relieved him of the bulk of his double handful ofchange, endowed him liberally with cash for his trouble, and making hisway to where his car waited, departed in haste and silence forManhattan. A plan that was recommended by several of the leading fictionauthorities as infallible, had, absolutely failed him. 

III

Other schemes proved equally disappointing. Choosing mainly the cool ofthe evening, he travelled the town from the primeval forests of theFarther Bronx to the sandy beaches of Ultimate Staten Island, which isin the city, and yet not of it. He roamed through queer streets andaround quaint by-corners, and he learned much strange geography of hiscity and yet had no delectable adventures. 

Once, acting on the inspiration of the plot of a popular novel that hehad read at a sitting, he bought at an East Side pawnshop a strangebadge, or token, of gold and black enamel, all mysteriously embossedover with intertwined Oriental signs and characters. Transferring thisornament from the pawnshop window to the lapel of his coat, he wentwalking first through the Syrian quarter, where the laces and therevolutionary plots come from, and then through the Armenian quarter, where the rugs come from, and finally in desperation through the Greekquarter, where the plaster statues and the ripe bananas come from. 

By rights, --by all the rights of fiction, --he, wearing this jewelledemblem in plain sight, should have been hailed by a bearded foreignerand welcomed to the inner councils of some secret _Bund_, cabal, councilor propaganda, as one coming from afar, bearing important messages. Itshould have turned out so, certainly. In this case, however, the sequelwas very different and in a great measure disappointing. 

A trifle foot-weary and decidedly overheated, young Mr. Green came outof the East Side by way of Nassau Street, and at Fulton turned northinto Broadway. Just across from the old Astor House, a man wearing astringy beard and a dusty black suit stood at the curbing, apparentlywaiting for a car. He carried an umbrella under one arm and at his feetrested a brown wicker suit-case with the initials "G. W. T. " and theaddress, "Enid, Oklahoma, " stencilled on its side in black letters. Plainly he was a stranger in the city. Between glances down the streetto see whether his car was nearing him, he counted the upper stories ofthe near-by skyscrapers and gazed at the faces of those who streamedpast him. 

His roving eye fell upon a splendid badge of gold enamel gleamingagainst a background of blue serge, and his face lighted with the joy ofone meeting a most dear friend in a distant land. Shifting his umbrellafrom the right hand to the left, he gave three successive and carefultugs at his right coat lapel, all the while facing Judson Green. Following this he made a military salute and then, stepping two pacesforward, he undertook to engage Green's hand in a peculiar and difficultcross-fingered clasp. And he uttered cabalistic words of greeting insome strange tongue, all the while beaming gladly. 

In less than no time, though, his warmth all changed to indignation; andas Green backed away, retreating in poor order and some embarrassment, he gathered from certain remarks thrown after him, that the outragedbrother from Enid was threatening him with arrest and prosecution as arank impostor--for wearing, without authority, the sacred insignia of anImperial Past Potentate of the Supreme Order of Knightly Somethings orOther--he didn't catch the last words, being then in full flight. So theadventure-seeker counted that day lost too and buried the Orientalemblem at the bottom of a bureau drawer to keep it out of mischief. 

He read the papers closely, seeking there the seeds of adventure. In oneof them, a pathetic story appeared, telling of a once famous soldier offortune starving in a tenement on Rivington Street, a man who in hisday--so the papers said--had made rulers and unmade them, had helped toalter the map of more than one continent. Green investigated personally. The tale turned out to be nine-tenths reporter's imagination, andone-tenth, a garrulous, unreliable old man. 

In another paper was an advertisement richly laden with veiled pleadingsfor immediate aid from a young woman who described herself as being ingreat danger. He looked into this too, but stopped looking, when he raninto an affable and accommodating press-agent. The imperilled younglady was connected with the drama, it seemed, and she sought freeadvertisement and was willing to go pretty far to get it. 

Coming away from a roof garden show one steaming night, aslinky-looking, slightly lame person asked Green for the time, and asGreen reached for his watch he endeavoured to pick Green's pocket. Beingthwarted in this, the slinky person made slowly off. A _Van Bibber_would have hired vigilant aides to dog the footsteps of the disappointedthief and by harrying him forth with threats from wherever he stopped, would speedily have driven him desperate from lack of sleep and lack offood. Green had read somewhere of this very thing having been donesuccessfully. He patterned after the plan. He trailed the gimpy one towhere he mainly abided and drove him out of one lunchroom, anddispossessed him from one lodging house; and at that, giving his pursuermalevolent looks, the "dip" went limping to the Grand Central and caughtthe first train leaving for the West. 

And then, at the fag end of the summer, when all his well-laid plans hadone by one gone agley, chance brought to Green an adventure--sheerchance and a real adventure. The circumstance of a deranged automobilewas largely responsible--that and the added incident of a brokenshoe-string. 

IV

It was in the first week in September and Judson Green, a tired, badlysunburned young man, disappointed and fagged, looked forward ten days tothe expiration of the three months, when confessing himself beaten, andwhat was worse, wrong, he must pay over one hundred dollars to thejubilant Wainright. With him it wasn't the money--he had already spentthe amount of the wager several times over in the prosecution of hisvain campaigning after adventure--it was the upsetting of his pettheory; that was the worst part of it. 

I believe I stated a little earlier in this narrative that Judson Greenwas a young man of profoundly professed theories. It came to pass, therefore, that on the Saturday before Labour Day, Judson Green, beingvery much out of sorts, found himself very much alone and didn't knowwhat to do with himself. He thought of the beaches, but dismissed thethought. Of a Saturday afternoon in the season, the sea beaches that liewithin the city bounds are a-crawl with humans. There is small pleasurein surf-bathing where you must share every wave with from one to a dozentotal strangers. 

Mr. Green climbed into his car and told his driver to take him to VanCortlandt Park, which, lying at the northernmost boundaries of New YorkCity, had come, with successive northerly shifts of the centre ofpopulation, to be the city's chief playground. 

When, by reason of a confusion of tongues, work was knocked off on theTower of Babel, if then all hands had turned to outdoor sports, theresultant scene would have been, I imagine, much like the picture thatis presented on most Saturdays on the sixty-acre stretch of turf knownas Indian Field, up in Van Cortlandt Park. Here there are baseball gamesby the hundred and football games by the score--all the known varietiesof football games too, Gaelic, Soccer, Rugby and others; and coal blackWest Indian negroes in white flannels, with their legs buskined like thelegs of comic opera brigands, play at cricket, meanwhile shouting in thebroadest of British accents; and there is tennis on the tennis courtsand boating on the lake near-by and golf on the links that lie beyondthe lake. Also, in odd corners, there are all manners of queerScandinavian and Latin games, for which no one seems to know the name;and on occasion, there are polo matches. 

Accordingly, when his car drew up at the edge of the parking space, ouryoung man beheld a wide assortment of sporting events spread before hiseyes. The players disported themselves with enthusiasm, for there wasnow a soft coolness in the air. But the scars of a brutal summer stillshowed, in the turf that was burnt brown and crisp, and in the witheredleaves on the elms, and in white dust inches deep on the roadways. 

Young Mr. Green sat at his ease and looked until he was tired oflooking, and then he gave the order for a home-bound spin. Right herewas where chanced stepped in and diverted him from his appointed paths. For the car, now turned cityward, had rolled but a few rods when a smellof overheated metals assailed the air, and with a tired wheezingsomewhere down in its vital organs, the automobile halted itself. Thechauffeur spent some time tinkering among its innermost works before hestood up, hot and sweaty and disgusted, to announce that the breakdownwas serious in character. He undertook to explain in highly technicalterms the exact nature of the trouble, but his master had no turn formechanics and small patience for listening. He gathered that it wouldtake at least an hour to mend the mishap, perhaps even longer, and hewas not minded to wait. 

"I'll walk across yonder and catch the subway, " he said. "You mend thecar and bring it downtown when you get it mended. "

At its farthest point north, the Broadway subway, belying its name, emerges from the earth and becomes an elevated structure, rearing highabove the ground. Its northernmost station stands aloft, butt-ended andpierced with many windows, like a ferry-boat cabin set up on stilts. Through a long aisle of sun-dried trees, Judson Green made for thisnewly risen landmark. A year or two years before, all this district hadbeen well wooded and sparsely inhabited. But wherever a transit linegoes in New York it works changes in the immediate surroundings, andhere at this particular spot, the subway was working them, and many ofthem. Through truck patches and strips of woodland, cross-streets werebeing cut, and on the hills to the westward, tall apartment houses weregoing up. On the raw edge of a cut, half of an old wooden mansion stood, showing tattered strips of an ancient flowered wallpaper and afireplace, clinging like a chimney-swift's nest to a wall, where therest of the room had been sheared away bodily. Along Broadway, beyond ahuddle of merry-go-rounds and peanut stands, a row of shops had sprungup, as it were, overnight; they were shiny, trim, citified shops, looking a trifle strange now in this half-transformed setting, but sureto have plenty of neighbours before long. There was even a barber shop, glittering inside and out with the neatness of newness, and complete, even to a manicuring table and a shoe-shining stand. The door of theshop was open; within, electric fans whirred in little blurs of rapidmovement. 

See now how chance still served our young man: Crossing to the station, Judson Green took note of this barber shop and took note also that hisrusset shoes had suffered from his trudge through the dusty park. Likewise one of the silken strings had frayed through; the broken endstood up through the top eyelet in an untidy fringed effect. So heturned off short and went into the little place and mounted the new tallchair that stood just inside the door. The only other customer in theplace was in the act of leaving. This customer got up from the manicuretable opposite the shoe-shining stand, slipped a coin into the palm ofthe manicure girl and passed out, giving Green a brief profile view of athin, bearded face. Behind the back of her departing patron, themanicure girl shrugged her shoulders inside of an ornate bodice andscrewed up her nose derisively. It was plainly to be seen that she didnot care greatly for him she had just served. 

From where he was languidly honing a razor, the head barber, he whopresided over the first of the row of three chairs, spoke:

"You ought'nter be making faces at your regular steadies, Sadie. If youwas to ask me, I think you've got a mash on that there gent. "

The young person thus addressed shook her head with a sprightly motion. 

"Not on your life, " she answered. "There's certainly something aboutthat man I don't like. "

"It don't never pay to knock a stand-by, " opined the head barber, banteringly. 

As though seeking sympathy from these gibes, the young lady denominatedas Sadie turned toward the well-dressed, alert-looking young man who hadjust come in. Apparently he impressed her as a person in whom she mightconfide. 

"Speaking about the fella that just went out, " she said. "August yonderis all the time trying to guy me about him. I should worry! He ain't mystyle. Honest, I think he's nutty. "

Politely Green uttered one of those noncommittal sounds that may betaken to mean almost anything. But the manicure lady was of atemperament needing no prompting. She went on, blithe to be talking to anew listener. 

"Yes, sir, I think he's plumb dippy. He first came in here about twoweeks ago to have his nails did, and I don't know whether you'll believeit or not--but August'll tell you it's the truth--he's been back hereevery day since. And the funniest part of it is I'm certain sure henever had his nails done in his life before then--they was certainly ina untidy state the first time he came. And there's another peculiarthing about him. He always makes me scrape away down under his nails, right to the quick. Sometimes they bleed and it must hurt him. "

"Apparently the gentleman has the manicuring habit in a serious form, "said Green, seeing that Miss Sadie had paused, in expectation of ananswer from him. 

"He sure has--in the most vi'lent form, " she agreed. "He's got otherhabits too. He's sure badly stuck on the movies. "

"I beg your pardon--on the what?"

"On the movies--the moving pictures, " she explained. "Well, oncet in awhile I enjoy a good fillum myself, but I'm no bigot on the subject--Ican take my movies or I can let 'em be. But not that man that just nowwent out. All the time I'm doing his nails he don't talk about nothingelse hardly, except the moving pictures, he's seen that day or the daybefore. It's right ridiculous, him being a grown-up man and everything. I actually believe he never misses a new fillum at that new movingpicture place three doors above here, or at that other one, that'sopened up down by Two Hundred an' Thirtieth Street. He seems topatronise just those two. I guess he lives 'round here somewhere. Yet hedon't seem to be very well acquainted in this part of town neither. Well, it sure takes all kind of people to make a world, don't it?"

Temporarily Miss Sadie lapsed into silence, never noticing that what shesaid had caused her chief auditor to bend forward in absorbed interest. He sat with his eyes on the Greek youth who worked over his shoes, buthis mind was busy with certain most interesting speculations. 

When the bootblack had given his restored and resplendent russets afinal loving rub, and had deftly inserted a new lace where the old onehad been, Mr. Green decided that he needed a manicure and he movedacross the shop, and as the manicure lady worked upon his nails hesiphoned the shallow reservoir of her little mind as dry as a bone. Thejob required no great amount of pump-work either, for this Miss Sadiedearly loved the sound of her own voice and was gratefully glad to tellhim all she knew of the stranger who favoured such painful manicuringprocesses and who so enjoyed a moving picture show. For his part, Greenhad seen only the man's side face, and that casually and at a fleetingglance; but before the young lady was through with her description, heknew the other's deportment and contour as though he had passed him ahundred times and each time had closely studied him. 

To begin with, the man was sallow and dark, and his age was perhapsthirty, or at most thirty-two or three. His beard was newly grown; itwas a young beard, through which his chin and chops still showed. Hesmoked cigarettes constantly--the thumb and forefinger of his right handwere stained almost black, and Miss Sadie, having the pride of hercraft, had several times tried unsuccessfully to bleach them of theirnicotine disfigurements. 

He had a manner about him which the girl described as "kind ofsuspicious and scary, "--by which Green took her to mean that he was shyand perhaps furtive in his bearing. His teeth, his eyes, his expression, his mode of dress--Mr. Green knew them all before Miss Sadie gave hisleft hand a gentle pat as a sign that the job was concluded. He tippedher generously and caught the next subway train going south. 

V

Southbound subway trains run fast, especially when the rush of trafficis northward. Within the hour Judson Green sat in the reading room ofhis club, industriously turning the pages of the club's file of the_World_ for the past month. Presently he found what he was seeking. Heread a while, and for a while then he took notes. Pocketing his notes, he ate dinner alone and in due season thereafter he went home and tobed. But before this, he sent off a night lettergram to the Byrnesprivate detective agency down in Park Row. He wanted--so in effect themessage ran--the best man in the employ of that concern to call upon himat his bachelor apartments in the Hotel Sedgwick, in the morning at teno'clock. The matter was urgent, important--and confidential. 

If the man who knocked at Green's sitting-room door that next morning atten was not the best man of the Byrnes staff he looked the part. He wassquare-jawed, with an appraising eye and a good pair of shoulders. Hehad the right kind of a name for a detective, too. The name wasCassidy--Michael J. 

"Mr. Cassidy, " said Judson Green, when the preliminaries of introductionwere over, "you remember, don't you, what the papers said at the time ofthe Steinway murder about the suspect Maxwell, the old man'snephew--the description they printed of him, and all?"

"I ought to, " said Cassidy. "Our people had that case from the start--Iworked on it myself off and on, up until three days ago. " From memory hequoted: "Medium height, slender, dark-complected, smooth-faced and aboutthirty-one years old; a good dresser and well educated; smokescigarettes constantly; has one upper front tooth crowned with gold--" Hehesitated, searching his memory for more details. 

"Remember anything else about him that was striking?" prompted Green. 

"Let's see?" pondered Mr. Cassidy. Then after a little pause, "No, that's all I seem to recall right now. "

"How about his being a patron of moving pictures?"

"That's right, " agreed the other, "that's the only part of it I forgot. "He repeated pretty exactly the language of the concluding paragraph ofthe official police circular that all the papers had carried for days:"Formerly addicted to reading cheap and sensational novels, now aninveterate attendant of motion-picture theatres. " He glanced at JudsonGreen over his cigar. "What's the idea?" he asked. "Know something aboutthis case?"

"Not much, " said Green, "except that I have found the man who killed oldSteinway. "

Forgetting his professional gravity, up rose Mr. Cassidy, and his chair, which had been tilted back, brought its forelegs to the floor with athump. 

"No!" he said, half-incredulously, half-hopefully. 

"Yes, " stated Mr. Green calmly. "At least I've found Maxwell. Or anyway, I think I have. "

Long before he was through telling what he had seen and heard theafternoon before, Mr. Cassidy, surnamed Michael J. , was almost sittingin his lap. When the younger man had finished his tale the detectivefetched a deep and happy breath. 

"It sounds good to me, " he commented, "it certainly sounds to me likeyou've got the right dope on this party. But listen, Mr. Green, how doyou figure in this here party's fad for getting himself manicured as apart of the lay-out--I can see it all but that?"

"Here is how I deduced that element of the case, " stated Green. "Conceding this man to be the fugitive Maxwell, it is quite evident thathe has a highly developed imagination--his former love of trashyliterature and his present passion for moving pictures would both seemto prove that. Now then, you remember that all the accounts of thatmurder told of the deep marks of finger-nail scratches in the old man'sthroat. If this man is the murderer, I would say, from what we know ofhim, that he cannot rid himself of the feeling that the blood of hisvictim is still under his nails. And so, nursing that delusion, he goesdaily to that manicure girl----"

He got no farther along than that. Mr. Cassidy extended his large righthand in a congratulatory clasp, and admiration was writ large upon hisface. 

"Colonel, " he said, "you're immense--you oughter be in the business. Say, when are we going to nail this guy?"

"Well, " said Green, "I think we should start watching his movements atonce, but we should wait until we are pretty sure of the correctness ofour theory before acting. And of course, in the meanwhile, we mustdeport ourselves in such a way as to avoid arousing his suspicions. "

"Just leave that to me. You do the expert thinking on this here case;I'll guarantee a good job of trailing. "

Inside of forty-eight hours these two, working discreetly, knew a gooddeal of their man. For example, they knew that under the name ofMorrison he was living in a summer boarding house on a little hillrising to the west of the park; that he had been living there for alittle more than a fortnight; that his landlady didn't know hisbusiness, but thought that he must be an invalid. Among the otherlodgers the impression prevailed that he suffered from a nervoustrouble. Mornings, he kept to his room, sleeping until late. In fact, aswell as the couple occupying the room below his might judge, he did mostof his sleeping in the daytime--they heard him night after night, walking the floor until all hours. 

A maid-servant of ultra conversational tendencies gratuitously furnishedmost of these valued details, after Michael J. Cassidy had succeeded inmeeting her socially. 

Afternoons, the suspect followed a more or less regular itinerary. Hevisited the manicure girl at the new barber shop; he patronized one orboth of the moving picture places in the vicinity, but usually both, andthen he went for a solitary walk through the park, and along toward duskhe returned to the boarding house, ate his supper and went to his room. He had no friends, apparently; certainly he had no callers. He receivedno letters and seemingly wrote none. Cassidy was convinced; he burnedwith eagerness to make the arrest without further delay. For this wouldbe more than a feather in the Cassidy cap; it would be a whole warbonnet. 

"You kin stay in the background if you want to, " he said. "Believe me, I'm perfectly willing to take all the credit for pulling off thispinch. "

As he said this they were passing along Broadway just above the subwayterminal. The straggling line of new shops was on one side and the parkstretched away on the other. Green was on the inner side of thepavement. Getting no answer to his suggestion, Mr. Cassidy started torepeat it. 

"I heard you, " said Green, stopping now dead short, directly in front ofthe resplendent front of the Regal Motion Picture Palace. Hecontemplated with an apparently unwarranted interest the illuminated andlithographed announcements of the morrow's bill. 

"I'm perfectly willing to stay in the background, " he said. "But--butI've just this very minute thought of a plan that ought to make usabsolutely sure of our man--providing the plan works! Are you at allfamiliar with the tragedy of 'Macbeth'?"

"I don't know as I am, " admitted Mr. Cassidy honestly. "When did ithappen and who done it?"

Again his employer seemed not to hear him. 

"Let's go into this place, " he said, turning in towards the hospitableportals of the Regal. "I want to have a business talk with theproprietor of this establishment, if he's in. "

The manager was in, and they had their talk; but after all it wasmoney--which in New York speaks with such a clarion-loud and convincingvoice--that did most of the talking. As soon as Judson Green hadproduced a bill-roll of august proportions, the proprietor, doubtfuluntil that moment, showed himself to be a man open to all reasonablearguments. Moreover, he presently scented in this enterprise much freeadvertisement for his place. 

VI

On the following afternoon, the weather being rainy, the Regal openedits doors for the three-o'clock performance to an audience that wassmaller than common and mostly made up of dependable neighbourhoodpatrons. However, there were at least two newcomers present. They satside by side, next to central aisle, in the rearmost row ofchairs--Judson Green and Michael J. Cassidy. Their man was almostdirectly in front of them, perhaps halfway down toward the stage. Abovea scattering line of heads of women and children they could see, in thehalf light of the darkened house, his head and shoulders as he bent hisbody forward at an interested angle. 

Promptly on the hour, a big bull's-eye of light flashed on, making ashimmering white target in the middle of the screen. The music startedup, and a moving-picture soloist with a moving-picture soloist's voice, appeared in the edge of the illuminated space and rendered amoving-picture ballad, having reference to the joys of life down in OldAlabam', where the birds are forever singing in the trees and thecotton-blossoms bloom practically without cessation. This, mercifully, being soon over, a film entitled "The Sheriff's Sweetheart" was offered, and for a time, in shifting pictures, horse-thieves in leather "chaps, "and heroes in open-necked shirts, and dashing cow-girls in dividedskirts, played out a thrilling drama of the West, while behind themdanced and quivered a background labelled Arizona, but suggesting NewJersey. When the dashing and intrepid sheriff had, after many trials, won his lady love, the ballad singer again obliged throatily, and thenfrom his coop in the little gallery the lantern man made anannouncement, in large, flickering letters, of a film depicting WilliamShakespeare's play, "Macbeth. "

Thereupon scene succeeded scene, unfolding the tragic tale. Theill-fated Duncan was slain; the Witches of Endor capered fearsomelyabout their fearsome cauldron of snaky, froggy horrors; and then--takingsome liberties with the theme as set down by the original author--theoperator presented a picture wherein Macbeth, tortured by sleeplessnessand hag-ridden with remorse, saw, in imagination, the dripping bloodupon his hands and vainly sought to scour it off. 

Right here, too, came another innovation which might or might not havepleased the Bard of Avon. For as Macbeth wrestled with his fears, thephantom of the murdered Duncan, a cloaked, shadowy shape, crossed slowlyby him from right to left, traversing the breadth of the screen, whilethe orchestra rendered shivery music in appropriate accompaniment. 

Midway of the lighted space the ghost raised its averted head andlooked out full, not at the quivering Macbeth, but, with steady eyes andset, impassive face, into the body of the darkened little theatre. In aninstant the sheeted form was gone--gone so quickly that perhaps nokeen-eyed juvenile in the audience detected the artifice by which, through a skilful scissoring and grafting and doctoring of the originalfilm, the face of the actor who played the dead and walking Duncan hadbeen replaced by the photographed face, printed so often in thenewspapers, of murdered Old Man Steinway!

There was a man near the centre of the house who got instantly upon hislegs and stumbling, indeed almost running in his haste, made up thecentre aisle for the door; and in the daylight which strengthened as heneared the open, it might be seen that he wore the look of one stunnedby a sudden blighting shock. And at once Green and Cassidy were noisilyup too, and following close behind him, their nerves a-tingle. 

All unconscious of surveillance, the suspect was out of the door, on thepavement, when they closed on him. At the touch of Cassidy's big handupon his shoulder he spun round, staring at them with wide-open, startled eyes. Above his scraggy beard his face was dappled white andred in patches, and under the mottled skin little muscles twitchedvisibly. 

"What--what do you want?" he demanded in a shaken, quick voice. Agold-capped tooth showed in his upper jaw between his lips. 

"We want a word or two with you, " said Cassidy, with a sort ofthreatening emphasis. 

"Are you--are you officers?" He got the question out with a separategulp for each separate word. 

"Not exactly, " answered Cassidy, and tightened his grip on the other'sshoulder the least bit more firmly. "But we can call one mighty easy ifyou ain't satisfied to talk to us a minute or two. There's one yonder. "

He ducked his head toward where, forty yards distant, a middle-aged andsomewhat pursy patrolman was shepherding the traffic that eddied insmall whirls about the steps of the subway terminal. 

"All right, all right, " assented the captive eagerly. "I'll talk to you. Let's go over there--where it's quiet. " He pointed a wavering finger, with a glistening, highly polished nail on it, toward the opposite sideof the street; there the park came right up to the sidewalk and ended. They went, and in a minute all three of them were grouped close up tothe shrub-lined boundary. The mottled-faced man was in the middle. Greenstood on one side of him and Cassidy on the other, shouldering up soclose that they blocked him off, flank and front. 

"Now, then, we're all nice and cozy, " said Cassidy with a touch of thatirony which a cat often displays, in different form, upon capturing alive mouse. "And we want to ask you a few questions. What's yourname--your real name?" he demanded roughly. 

"Morrison, " said the man, licking with his tongue to moisten his lips. 

"Did you say Maxwell?" asked Cassidy, shooting out his syllables hardand straight. 

"No, no--I said Morrison. " The man looked as though he were going tocollapse then and there. 

"One name's as good as another, I guess, ain't it?" went on thedetective. "Well, what's your business?"

"My business?" He was parrying as though seeking time to collect hisscattered wits. "Oh, I haven't any business--I've been sick lately. "

"Oh, you've been sick lately--well, you look sick right now. " Cassidyshoved his hands in his pockets and with a bullying, hectoring airpushed his face, with the lower jaw undershot, into the suspect's face. "Say, was it because you felt sick that you came out of that theremoving-picture show so sudden?"

Just as he had calculated, the other jumped at the suggestion. 

"Yes--yes, " he nodded nervously. "That was it--the heat in there made mefaint. " He braced himself tauter. "Say, " he said, and tried to putforce into his tones, "what business have you men got spying on me andasking me these things? I'm a free American citizen----"

"Well now, young fellow, that all depends, " broke in Cassidy, "that alldepends. " He sank his voice almost to a whisper, speaking deliberately. "Now tell us why you didn't feel real sick until you seen your deaduncle's face looking at you----"

"Look out!" screamed the prisoner. He flinched back, pointing with onearm wildly, and flinging up the other across his face as though to shutout a sight of danger. There was a rattle of wheels behind them. 

Judson Green pivoted on his heel, with the thought of runaways springingup to his mind. But Mr. Cassidy, wiser in the tricks of the hunter andthe hunted, made a darting grab with both hands for the shoulder whichhe had released. His greedy fingers closed on space. The suspect, with adesperate and unexpected agility, had given his body a backward nimblefling that carried him sprawling through a gap between the ornamentalbushes fringing the park sward. Instantly he was up and, with never abackward glance, was running across the lower, narrower verge of IndianField, making for the trees which edged it thickly upon the east. Hecould run fast, too. Nor were there men in front to hinder him, sincebecause of the rain, coming down in a thin drizzle, the wide, slopedstretch of turf was for this once bare of ball-players and cricketteams. 

Upon the second, Cassidy was through the hedge gap and hot-foot afterhim, with Green coming along only a pace or two behind. Over hisshoulder Cassidy whooped a call for aid to the traffic policeman in theroadway. But that stout person, who had been exiled to these farawayprecincts by reason of his increasing girth and a tendency toward fallenarches, only took one or two steps upon his flat feet and then halted, being in doubt as to what it was all about. Before he could make up hismind whether or not to join the chase, it was too late to join it. Thefugitive, travelling a straight course, had crossed the field at itsnarrowest point and had bounded into the fringe of greenery borderingthe little lake, heading apparently for the thick swampy place lyingbetween the ball ground and the golf links. The two pursuers, leggingalong behind, did their best to keep him in sight, but, one thing sure, they were not gaining on him. 

As a matter of truth, they were losing. Twice they lost him and twicethey spied him again--once crossing a bit of open glade, once weaving inand out among the tree trunks farther on. Then they lost him altogether. Cassidy had shown the better pair of legs at the start of the race, butnow his wind began to fail. Panting and blowing fit to shame porpoises, he slackened his speed, falling back inch by inch, while the slighterand younger man took the lead. Green settled to a steady, space-eatingjog-trot, all the time watching this way and that. There were singularlyfew people in sight--only a chronic golfer here and there up on thelinks--and these incurables merely stared through the rain-drops at himas he forced his way among the thickets below them. 

Cassidy, falling farther and farther behind, presently met a mountedpoliceman ambling his horse along a tree-shaded roadway that crossed thepark from east to west, and between gulps for breath told what he knew. Leaning half out of his saddle, the mounted man listened, believed--andacted. Leaving Cassidy behind, he spurred his bay to a walloping gallop, aiming for the northern confines of the park, and as he travelled, hespread the alarm, gathering up for the man-chase such recruits as twopark labourers and a park woodchopper and an automobile party of youngmen, so that presently there was quite a good-sized search party abroadin the woodland. 

As for Judson Green, he played his hand out alone. Dripping wet withrain and his own sweat, he emerged from a mile-long thicket upon anasphalted drive that wound interminably under the shouldering ledges ofbig gray rocks and among tall elms and oaks. Already he had lost hissense of direction, but he ran along the deserted road doggedly, pausingoccasionally to peer among the tree trunks for a sight of his man. Hethought, once, he heard a shot, but couldn't be sure, the sound seemedso muffled and so far away. 

On a venture he left the road, taking to the woods again. He was workingthrough a small green tangle when something caught at his right foot andhe was spun about so that he faced the opposite direction from the onein which he had been travelling, and went down upon his hands and knees, almost touching with his head a big licheny boulder, half buried invines and grass. Glancing back, he saw what had twisted him off hiscourse and thrown him down--it was an upward-aimed tree-root, stubby andpointed, which had thrust itself through his right shoe lacing. The lowshoe had been pulled half-way off his foot, and, under the strain, thesilken lace had broken short off. 

In the act of raising himself upright, he had straightened to ahalf-crouch when, just beyond the big green-masked boulder, he saw thatwhich held him petrified in his pose. There, in a huddle among theshrubs, where he would never have seen it except for the chanceshifting-about of his gaze, was the body of a man lying face downwardthe head hidden under the upturned skirts of the coat. 

He went to it and turned it over. It was the body of the man hesought--Maxwell--and there was a revolver in Maxwell's right hand and ahole in Maxwell's right temple, and Maxwell was dead. 

Judson Green stood up and waited for the other pursuers. He had won ahundred-dollar bet and Cassidy had lost a thousand-dollar reward. 

CHAPTER III

BOYS WILL BE BOYS

When Judge Priest, on this particular morning, came puffing into hischambers at the courthouse, looking, with his broad beam and in hiscostume of flappy, loose white ducks, a good deal like an old-fashionedfull-rigger with all sails set, his black shadow, Jeff Poindexter, hadalready finished the job of putting the quarters to rights for the day. The cedar water bucket had been properly replenished; the upper flangeof a fifteen-cent chunk of ice protruded above the rim of the bucket;and alongside, on the appointed nail, hung the gourd dipper that themaster always used. The floor had been swept, except, of course, in thecorners and underneath things; there were evidences, in streaky scrollsof fine grit particles upon various flat surfaces, that a dusting brushhad been more or less sparingly employed. A spray of trumpet flowers, plucked from the vine that grew outside the window, had been draped overthe framed steel engraving of President Davis and his Cabinet upon thewall; and on the top of the big square desk in the middle of the room, where a small section of cleared green-blotter space formed an oasis ina dry and arid desert of cluttered law journals and dusty documents, themorning's mail rested in a little heap. 

Having placed his old cotton umbrella in a corner, having removed hiscoat and hung it upon a peg behind the hall door, and having seen to itthat a palm-leaf fan was in arm's reach should he require it, the Judge, in his billowy white shirt, sat down at his desk and gave his attentionto his letters. There was an invitation from the Hylan B. Gracey Camp ofConfederate Veterans of Eddyburg, asking him to deliver the chieforation at the annual reunion, to be held at Mineral Springs on thetwelfth day of the following month; an official notice from the clerk ofthe Court of Appeals concerning the affirmation of a judgment that hadbeen handed down by Judge Priest at the preceding term of his own court;a bill for five pounds of a special brand of smoking tobacco; a noticeof a lodge meeting--altogether quite a sizable batch of mail. 

At the bottom of the pile he came upon a long envelope addressed to himby his title, instead of by his name, and bearing on its upperright-hand corner several foreign-looking stamps; they were Britishstamps, he saw, on closer examination. 

To the best of his recollection it had been a good long time since JudgePriest had had a communication by post from overseas. He adjusted hissteel-bowed spectacles, ripped the wrapper with care and shook out thecontents. There appeared to be several inclosures; in fact, there wereseveral--a sheaf of printed forms, a document with seals attached, and aletter that covered two sheets of paper with typewritten lines. To theletter the recipient gave consideration first. Before he reached the endof the opening paragraph he uttered a profound grunt of surprise; hisreading of the rest was frequently punctuated by small exclamations, hisface meantime puckering up in interested lines. At the conclusion, whenhe came to the signature, he indulged himself in a soft low whistle. Heread the letter all through again, and after that he examined the formsand the document which had accompanied it. 

Chuckling under his breath, he wriggled himself free from the snugembrace of his chair arms and waddled out of his own office and down thelong bare empty hall to the office of Sheriff Giles Birdsong. Within, that competent functionary, Deputy Sheriff Breck Quarles, sat at ease inhis shirt sleeves, engaged, with the smaller blade of his pocketknife, in performing upon his finger nails an operation that combined the finedeftness of the manicure with the less delicate art of the farrier. Atthe sight of the Judge in the open doorway he hastily withdrew from atabletop, where they rested, a pair of long thin legs, and rose. 

"Mornin', Breck, " said Judge Priest to the other's salutation. "No, thank you, son, I won't come in; but I've got a little job fur you. Iwisht, ef you ain't too busy, that you'd step down the street and see efyou can't find Peep O'Day fur me and fetch him back here with you. Itwon't take you long, will it?"

"No, suh--not very. " Mr. Quarles reached for his hat and snuggled hisshoulder holster back inside his unbuttoned waistcoat. "He'll mostlikely be down round Gafford's stable. Whut's Old Peep been doin', Judge--gettin' himself in contempt of court or somethin'?" He grinned, asking the question with the air of one making a little joke. 

"No, " vouchsafed the Judge; "he ain't done nothin'. But he's about tohave somethin' of a highly onusual nature done to him. You jest tell himI'm wishful to see him right away--that'll be sufficient, I reckin. "

Without making further explanation, Judge Priest returned to hischambers and for the third time read the letter from foreign parts. Court was not in session, and the hour was early and the weather washot; nobody interrupted him. Perhaps fifteen minutes passed. Mr. Quarlespoked his head in at the door. 

"I found him, suh, " the deputy stated. "He's outside here in the hall. "

"Much obliged to you, son, " said Judge Priest. "Send him on in, willyou, please?"

The head was withdrawn; its owner lingered out of sight of His Honour, but within earshot. It was hard to figure the presiding judge of theFirst Judicial District of the state of Kentucky as having business withPeep O'Day; and, though Mr. Quarles was no eavesdropper, still he felt apardonable curiosity in whatsoever might transpire. As he feigned anabsorbed interest in a tax notice, which was pasted on a blackboard justoutside the office door, there entered the presence of the Judge a manwho seemingly was but a few years younger than the Judge himself--a manwho looked to be somewhere between sixty-five and seventy. There is alook that you may have seen in the eyes of ownerless butwell-intentioned dogs--dogs that, expecting kicks as their dailyportion, are humbly grateful for kind words and stray bones; dogs thatare fairly yearning to be adopted by somebody--by anybody--beingprepared to give to such a benefactor a most faithful doglike devotionin return. 

This look, which is fairly common among masterless and homeless dogs, israre among humans; still, once in a while you do find it there too. Theman who now timidly shuffled himself across the threshold of JudgePriest's office had such a look out of his eyes. He had a long, simpleface, partly inclosed in grey whiskers. Four dollars would have been asufficient price to pay for the garments he stood in, including thewrecked hat he held in his hands and the broken, misshaped shoes on hisfeet. A purchaser who gave more than four dollars for the whole in itspresent state of decrepitude would have been but a poor hand atbargaining. 

The man who wore this outfit coughed in an embarrassed fashion andhalted, fumbling his ruinous hat in his hands. 

"Howdy do?" said Judge Priest heartily. "Come in!"

The other diffidently advanced himself a yard or two. 

"Excuse me, suh, " he said apologetically; "but this here Breck Quarleshe come after me and he said ez how you wanted to see me. 'Twas him ezbrung me here, suh. "

Faintly underlying the drawl of the speaker was just a suspicion--a meretrace, as you might say--of a labial softness that belongs solely andexclusively to the children, and in a diminishing degree to thegrandchildren, of native-born sons and daughters of a certain smallgreen isle in the sea. It was not so much a suggestion of a brogue as itwas the suggestion of the ghost of a brogue; a brogue almostextinguished, almost obliterated, and yet persisting through thegenerations--South of Ireland struggling beneath south of Mason andDixon's Line. 

"Yes, " said the Judge; "that's right. I do want to see you. " The tonewas one that he might employ in addressing a bashful child. "Set downthere and make yourself at home. "

The newcomer obeyed to the extent of perching himself on the extremeforward edge of a chair. His feet shuffled uneasily where they weredrawn up against the cross rung of the chair. 

The Judge reared well back, studying his visitor over the tops of hisglasses with rather a quizzical look. In one hand he balanced the largeenvelope which had come to him that morning. 

"Seems to me I heared somewheres, years back, that your regularChristian name was Paul--is that right?" he asked. 

"Shorely is, suh, " assented the ragged man, surprised and plainlygrateful that one holding a supremely high position in the communityshould vouchsafe to remember a fact relating to so inconsequent an atomas himself. "But I ain't heared it fur so long I come mighty nighfurgittin' it sometimes, myself. You see, Judge Priest, when I wasn'tnothin' but jest a shaver folks started in to callin' me Peep--onaccount of my last name bein' O'Day, I reckin. They been callin' me soever since. 'Fust off, 'twas Little Peep, and then jest plain Peep; andnow it's got to be Old Peep. But my real entitled name is Paul, jestlike you said, Judge--Paul Felix O'Day. "

"Uh-huh! And wasn't your father's name Philip and your mother's nameKatherine Dwyer O'Day?"

"To the best of my recollection that's partly so, too, suh. They both of'em up and died when I was a baby, long before I could remember anythinga-tall. But they always told me my paw's name was Phil, or Philip. Onlymy maw's name wasn't Kath--Kath--wasn't whut you jest now called it, Judge. It was plain Kate. "

"Kate or Katherine--it makes no great difference, " explained JudgePriest. "I reckin the record is straight this fur. And now think hardand see ef you kin ever remember hearin' of an uncle named DanielO'Day--your father's brother. "

The answer was a shake of the tousled head. 

"I don't know nothin' about my people. I only jest know they come overfrom some place with a funny name in the Old Country before I was born. The onliest kin I ever had over here was that there no-'count triflin'nephew of mine--Perce Dwyer--him that uster hang round this town. Ireckin you call him to mind, Judge?"

The old Judge nodded before continuing:

"All the same, I reckin there ain't no manner of doubt but whut you hadan uncle of the name of Daniel. All the evidences would seem to p'intthat way. Accordin' to the proofs, this here Uncle Daniel of yourslived in a little town called Kilmare, in Ireland. " He glanced at one ofthe papers that lay on his desktop; then added in a casual tone: "Tellme, Peep, whut are you doin' now fur a livin'?"

The object of this examination grinned a faint grin of extenuation. 

"Well, suh, I'm knockin' about, doin' the best I kin--which ain't much. I help out round Gafford's liver' stable, and Pete Gafford he lets mesleep in a little room behind the feed room, and his wife she gives memy vittles. Oncet in a while I git a chancet to do odd jobs fur folksround town--cuttin' weeds and splittin' stove wood and packin' in coal, and sech ez that. "

"Not much money in it, is there?"

"No, suh; not much. Folks is more prone to offer me old clothes thanthey are to pay me in cash. Still, I manage to git along. I don't livevery fancy; but, then, I don't starve, and that's more'n some kin say. "

"Peep, whut was the most money you ever had in your life--at one time?"

Peep scratched with a freckled hand at his thatch of faded whitish hairto stimulate recollection. 

"I reckin not more'n six bits at any one time, suh. Seems like I'vesorter got the knack of livin' without money. "

"Well, Peep, sech bein' the case, whut would you say ef I was to tellyou that you're a rich man?"

The answer came slowly. 

"I reckin, suh, ef it didn't sound disrespectful, I'd say you wasprankin' with me--makin' fun of me, suh. "

Judge Priest bent forward in his chair. 

"I'm not prankin' with you. It's my pleasant duty to inform you that atthis moment you are the rightful owner of eight thousand pounds. "

"Pounds of whut, Judge?" The tone expressed a heavy incredulity. 

"Why, pounds in money. "

Outside, in the hall, with one ear held conveniently near the crack inthe door, Deputy Sheriff Quarles gave a violent start; and then, atonce, was torn between a desire to stay and hear more and an urge tohurry forth and spread the unbelievable tidings. After the briefest ofstruggles the latter inclination won; this news was too marvellouslygood to keep; surely a harbinger and a herald was needed to spread itbroadcast. 

Mr. Quarles tiptoed rapidly down the hall. When he reached the sidewalkthe volunteer bearer of a miraculous tale fairly ran. As for the man whosat facing the Judge, he merely stared in a dull bewilderment. 

"Judge, " he said at length, "eight thousand pounds of money oughter makea powerful big pile, oughten it?"

"It wouldn't weigh quite that much ef you put it on the scales, "explained His Honour painstakingly. "I mean pounds sterlin'--Englishmoney. Near ez I kin figger offhand, it comes in our money to somewheresbetween thirty-five and forty thousand dollars--nearer forty thanthirty-five. And it's all yours, Peep--every red cent of it. "

"Excuse me, suh, and not meanin' to contradict you, or nothin' likethat; but I reckin there must be some mistake. Why, Judge, I don'tscursely know anybody that's ez wealthy ez all that, let alone anybodythat'd give me sech a lot of money. "

"Listen, Peep: This here letter I'm holdin' in my hand came to me byto-day's mail--jest a little spell ago. It's frum Ireland--frum the townof Kilmare, where your people came frum. It was sent to me by a firm ofbarristers in that town--lawyers we'd call 'em. In this letter they askme to find you and to tell you whut's happened. It seems, frum whut theywrite, that your uncle, by name Daniel O'Day, died not very long agowithout issue--that is to say, without leavin' any children of his own, and without makin' any will. 

"It appears he had eight thousand pounds saved up. Ever since he diedthose lawyers and some other folks over there in Ireland have beentryin' to find out who that money should go to. They learnt in some waythat your father and your mother settled in this town a mighty longtime ago, and that they died here and left one son, which is you. Allthe rest of the family over there in Ireland have already died out, itseems; that natchelly makes you the next of kin and the heir at law, which means that all your uncle's money comes direct to you. 

"So, Peep, you're a wealthy man in your own name. That's the news I hadto tell you. Allow me to congratulate you on your good fortune. "

The beneficiary rose to his feet, seeming not to see the hand the oldJudge had extended across the desktop toward him. On his face, of asudden, was a queer, eager look. It was as though he foresaw the comingtrue of long-cherished and heretofore unattainable visions. 

"Have you got it here, suh?"

He glanced about him as though expecting to see a bulky bundle. JudgePriest smiled. 

"Oh, no; they didn't send it along with the letter--that wouldn't beregular. There's quite a lot of things to be done fust. There'll be someproofs to be got up and sworn to before a man called a British consul;and likely there'll be a lot of papers that you'll have to sign; andthen all the papers and the proofs and things will be sent acrost theocean. And, after some fees are paid out over there--why, then you'llgit your inheritance. "

The rapt look faded from the strained face, leaving it downcast. "I'mafeared, then, I won't be able to claim that there money, " he saidforlornly. 

"Why not?"

"Because I don't know how to sign my own name. Raised the way I was, Inever got no book learnin'. I can't neither read nor write. "

Compassion shadowed the Judge's chubby face; and compassion was in hisvoice as he made answer:

"You don't need to worry about that part of it. You can make yourmark--just a cross mark on the paper, with witnesses present--likethis. "

He took up a pen, dipped it in the ink-well and illustrated his meaning. 

"Yes, suh; I'm glad it kin be done thataway. I always wisht I knowed howto read big print and spell my own name out. I ast a feller oncet towrite my name out fur me in plain letters on a piece of paper. I wasaimin' to learn to copy it off; but I showed it to one of the hands atthe liver' stable and he busted out laughin'. And then I come to findout this here feller had tricked me fur to make game of me. He hadn'twrote my name out a-tall--he'd wrote some dirty words instid. So afterthat I give up tryin' to educate myself. That was several years back andI ain't tried sence. Now I reckin I'm too old to learn. . . . I wonder, suh--I wonder ef it'll be very long before that there money gits hereand I begin to have the spendin' of it?"

"Makin' plans already?"

"Yes, suh, " O'Day answered truthfully; "I am. " He was silent for amoment, his eyes on the floor; then timidly he advanced the thought thathad come to him: "I reckin, suh, it wouldn't be no more'n fair andproper ef I divided my money with you to pay you back fur all thistrouble you're fixin' to take on my account. Would--would half of it beenough? The other half oughter last me fur whut uses I'll make of it. "

"I know you mean well and I'm much obliged to you fur your offer, "stated Judge Priest, smiling a little; "but it wouldn't be fittin' orproper fur me to tech a cent of your money. There'll be some court duesand some lawyers' fees, and sech, to pay over there in Ireland; butafter that's settled up everything comes direct to you. It's goin' to bea pleasure to me to help you arrange these here details that you don'tunderstand--a pleasure and not a burden. "

He considered the figure before him. 

"Now here's another thing, Peep: I judge it's hardly fittin' fur a manof substance to go on livin' the way you've had to live durin' yourlife. Ef you don't mind my offerin' you a little advice I would suggestthat you go right down to Felsburg Brothers when you leave here and gityourself fitted out with some suitable clothin'. And you'd better go toMax Biederman's, too, and order a better pair of shoes fur yourselfthan them you've got on. Tell 'em I sent you and that I guarantee thepayment of your bills. Though I reckin that'll hardly be necessary--whenthe news of your good luck gits noised round I misdoubt whether there'sany firm in our entire city that wouldn't be glad to have you on theirbooks fur a stiddy customer. 

"And, also, ef I was you I'd arrange to git me regular board andlodgin's somewheres round town. You see, Peep, comin' into a propertyentails consider'ble many responsibilities right frum the start. "

"Yes, suh, " assented the legatee obediently. "I'll do jest ez you say, Judge Priest, about the clothes and the shoes, and all that; but--but, ef you don't mind, I'd like to go on livin' at Gafford's. Pete Gafford'sbeen mighty good to me--him and his wife both; and I wouldn't like fur'em to think I was gittin' stuck up jest because I've had this herestreak of luck come to me. Mebbe, seein' ez how things has changed withme, they'd be willin' to take me in fur a table boarder at their house;but I shorely would hate to give up livin' in that there little roombehind the feed room at the liver' stable. I don't know ez I could everfind any place that would seem ez homelike to me ez whut it is. "

"Suit yourself about that, " said Judge Priest heartily. "I don't knowbut whut you've got the proper notion about it after all. "

"Yes, suh. Them Gaffords have been purty nigh the only real truefriends I ever had that I could count on. " He hesitated a moment. "Ireckin--I reckin, suh, it'll be a right smart while, won't it, beforethat money gits here frum all the way acrost the ocean?"

"Why, yes; I imagine it will. Was you figurin' on investin' a little ofit now?"

"Yes, suh; I was. "

"About how much did you think of spendin' fur a beginnin'?"

O'Day squinted his eyes, his lips moving in silent calculation. 

"Well, suh, " he said at length, "I could use ez much ez a silver dollar. But, of course, sence----"

"That sounds kind of moderate to me, " broke in Judge Priest. He shoved apudgy hand into a pocket of his white trousers. "I reckin this detailkin be arranged. Here, Peep"--he extended his hand--"here's yourdollar. " Then, as the other drew back, stammering a refusal, he hastilyadded: "No, no, no; go ahead and take it--it's yours. I'm jest advancin'it to you out of whut'll be comin' to you shortly. 

"I'll tell you whut: Until sech time ez you are in position to draw onyour own funds you jest drap in here to see me when you're in need ofcash, and I'll try to let you have whut you require--in reason. I'llkeep a proper reckinin' of whut you git and you kin pay me back ez soonez your inheritance is put into your hands. 

"One thing more, " he added as the heir, having thanked him, was makinghis grateful adieu at the threshold: "Now that you're wealthy, or aboutto be so, I kind of imagine quite a passel of fellers will suddenlydiscover themselves strangely and affectionately drawed toward you. You're liable to find out you've always had more true and devotedfriends in this community than whut you ever imagined to be the casebefore. 

"Now friendship is a mighty fine thing, takin' it by and large; but itkin be overdone. It's barely possible that some of this here new crop ofyour well-wishers and admirers will be makin' little businesspropositions to you--desirin' to have you go partners with 'em inbusiness, or to sell you desirable pieces of real estate; or even to letyou loan 'em various sums of money. I wouldn't be surprised but whut anumber of sech chances will be comin' your way durin' the next few days, and frum then on. Ef sech should be the case I would suggest to youthat, before committin' yourself to anybody or anything, you tell 'emthat I'm sort of actin' as your unofficial adviser in money matters, andthat they should come to me and outline their little schemes in person. Do you git my general drift?"

"Yes, suh, " said Peep. "I won't furgit; and thank you ag'in, Judge, specially fur lettin' me have this dollar ahead of time. "

He shambled out with the coin in his hand; and on his face was againthe look of one who sees before him the immediate fulfillment of adelectable dream. 

With lines of sympathy and amusement crisscrossing at the outer cornersof his eyelids, Judge Priest, rising and stepping to his door, watchedthe retreating figure of the town's newest and strangest capitalistdisappear down the wide front steps of the courthouse. 

Presently he went back to his chair and sat down, tugging at his shortchin beard. 

"I wonder, now, " said he, meditatively addressing the emptiness of theroom, "I wonder whut a man sixty-odd-year old is goin' to do with thefust whole dollar he ever had in his life!"

It was characteristic of our circuit judge that he should have voicedhis curiosity aloud. Talking to himself when he was alone was one of hishabits. Also, it was characteristic of him that he had refrained frombetraying his inquisitiveness to his late caller. Similar motives ofdelicacy had kept him from following the other man to watch thesequence. 

However, at secondhand, the details very shortly reached him. They werebrought by no less a person than Deputy Sheriff Quarles, who, sometwenty minutes or possibly half an hour later, obtruded himself uponJudge Priest's presence. 

"Judge, " began Mr. Quarles, "you'd never in the world guess whut OldPeep O'Day done with the first piece of money he got his hands on outof that there forty thousand pounds of silver dollars he's come intofrum his uncle's estate. "

The old man slanted a keen glance in Mr. Quarles' direction. 

"Tell me, son, " he asked softly, "how did you come to hear the gladtidin's so promptly?"

"Me?" said Mr. Quarles innocently. "Why, Judge Priest, the word is allover this part of town by this time. Why, I reckin twenty-five or fiftypeople must 'a' been watchin' Old Peep to see how he was goin' to actwhen he come out of this courthouse. "

"Well, well, well!" murmured the Judge blandly. "Good news travelsalmost ez fast sometimes ez whut bad news does--don't it, now? Well, son, I give up the riddle. Tell me jest whut our elderly friend did dowith the first installment of his inheritance. "

"Well, suh, he turned south here at the gate and went down the street, a-lookin' neither to the right nor the left. He looked to me like a manin a trance, almost. He keeps right on through Legal Row till he comesto Franklin Street, and then he goes up Franklin to B. Weil & Son'sconfectionary store; and there he turns in. I happened to be followin''long behind him, with a few others--with several others, in fact--andwe-all sort of slowed up in passin' and looked in at the door; andthat's how I come to be in a position to see whut happened. 

"Old Peep, he marches in jest like I'm tellin' it to you, suh; and Mr. B. Weil comes to wait on him, and he starts in buyin'. He buys hisself afive-cent bag of gumdrops; and a five-cent bag of jelly beans; and aten-cent bag of mixed candies--kisses and candy mottoes, and sech ezthem, you know; and a sack of fresh roasted peanuts--a big sack, it was, fifteen-cent size; and two prize boxes; and some gingersnaps--ten cents'worth; and a coconut; and half a dozen red bananas; and half a dozenmore of the plain yaller ones. Altogether I figger he spent a evendollar; in fact, I seen him hand Mr. Weil a dollar, and I didn't see himgittin' no change back out of it. 

"Then he comes on out of the store, with all these things stuck in hispockets and stacked up in his arms till he looks sort of like some newkind of a summertime Santy Klaws; and he sets down on a goods box at theedge of the pavement, with his feet in the gutter, and starts in eatin'all them things. 

"First, he takes a bite off a yaller banana and then off a red banana, and then a mouthful of peanuts; and then maybe some mixed candies--notsayin' a word to nobody, but jest natchelly eatin' his fool head off. Ayoung chap that's clerkin' in Bagby's grocery, next door, steps up tohim and speaks to him, meanin', I suppose, to ast him is it true he'swealthy. And Old Peep says to him, 'Please don't come botherin' me now, sonny--I'm busy ketchin' up, ' he says; and keeps right on a-munchin'and a-chewin' like all possessed. 

"That ain't all of it, neither, Judge--not by a long shot it ain't!Purty soon Old Peep looks round him at the little crowd that's gathered. He didn't seem to pay no heed to the grown-up people standin' there; buthe sees a couple of boys about ten years old in the crowd, and hebeckons to them to come to him, and he makes room fur them alongside himon the box and divides up his knick-knacks with them. 

"When I left there to come on back here he had no less'n six kidssquatted round him, includin' one little nigger boy; and between 'em allthey'd jest finished up the last of the bananas and peanuts and thecandy and the gingersnaps, and was fixin' to take turns drinkin' themilk out of the coconut. I s'pose they've got it all cracked out of theshell and et up by now--the coconut, I mean. Judge, you oughter steppeddown into Franklin Street and taken a look at the picture whilst therewas still time. You never seen sech a funny sight in all your days, I'llbet!"

"I reckin 'twould be too late to be startin' now, " said Judge Priest. "I'm right sorry I missed it. . . . Busy ketchin' up, huh? Yes; I reckin heis. . . . Tell me, son, whut did you make out of the way Peep O'Day acted?"

"Why, suh, " stated Mr. Quarles, "to my mind, Judge, there ain't nomanner of doubt but whut prosperity has went to his head and turned it. He acted to me like a plum' distracted idiot. A grown man with fortythousand pounds of solid money settin' on the side of a gutter eatin'jimcracks with a passel of dirty little boys! Kin you figure it out anyother way, Judge--except that his mind is gone?"

"I don't set myself up to be a specialist in mental disorders, son, "said Judge Priest softly; "but, sence you ask me the question, I shouldsay, speakin' offhand, that it looks to me more ez ef the heart was theorgan that was mainly affected. And possibly"--he added this last with adry little smile--"and possibly, by now, the stomach also. "

 * * * * *

Whether or not Mr. Quarles was correct in his psychopathic diagnosis, hecertainly had been right when he told Judge Priest that the word wasalready all over the business district. It had spread fast and was stillspreading; it spread to beat the wireless, travelling as it did by thatmouth-to-ear method of communication which is so amazingly swift andgenerally as tremendously incorrect. Persons who could not credit thetale at all, nevertheless lost no time in giving to it a yet widercirculation; so that, as though borne on the wind, it moved in everydirection, like ripples on a pond; and with each time of retelling thesize of the legacy grew. 

The _Daily Evening News_, appearing on the streets at 5 P. M. , confirmedthe tale; though by its account the fortune was reduced to a sum farbelow the gorgeously exaggerated estimates of most of the earliernarrators. Between breakfast and supper-time Peep O'Day's position inthe common estimation of his fellow citizens underwent a radical andrevolutionary change. He ceased--automatically, as it were--to be a towncharacter; he became, by universal consent, a town notable, whose everyact and every word would thereafter be subjected to close scrutiny andcloser analysis. 

The next morning the nation at large had opportunity to know of thegreat good fortune that had befallen Paul Felix O'Day, for the story hadbeen wired to the city papers by the local correspondents of the same;and the press associations had picked up a stickful of the story andsped it broadcast over leased wires. Many who until that day had neverheard of the fortunate man, or, indeed, of the place where he lived, atonce manifested a concern in his well-being. 

Certain firms of investment brokers in New York and Chicago promptlyadded a new name to what vulgarly they called their "sucker" lists. Dealers in mining stocks, in oil stocks, in all kinds of attractivestocks, showed interest; in circular form samples of the most optimisticand alluring literature the world has ever known were consigned to thepost, addressed to Mr. P. F. O'Day, such-and-such a town, such-and-sucha state, care of general delivery. 

Various lonesome ladies in various lonesome places lost no time insitting themselves down and inditing congratulatory letters; objectmatrimony. Some of these were single ladies; others had been widowed, either by death or request. Various other persons of both sexes, residing here, there and elsewhere in our country, suddenly rememberedthat they, too, were descended from the O'Days of Ireland, and wrote onforthwith to claim proud and fond relationship with the particular O'Daywho had come into money. 

It was a remarkable circumstance, which instantly developed, that oneman should have so many distant cousins scattered over the Union, and athing equally noteworthy that practically all these kinspeople, throughno fault of their own, should at the present moment be in suchstraitened circumstances and in such dire need of temporary assistanceof a financial nature. Ticker and printer's ink, operating inconjunction, certainly did their work mighty well; even so, several dayswere to elapse before the news reached one who, of all those who readit, had most cause to feel a profound personal sensation in theintelligence. 

This delay, however, was nowise to be blamed upon the tardiness of thenewspapers; it was occasioned by the fact that the person referred towas for the moment well out of touch with the active currents of worldaffairs, he being confined in a workhouse at Evansville, Indiana. 

As soon as he had rallied from the shock this individual set aboutmaking plans to put himself in direct touch with the inheritor. He hadample time in which to frame and shape his campaign, inasmuch as thereremained for him yet to serve nearly eight long and painfully tediousweeks of a three-months' vagrancy sentence. Unlike most of those nowmanifesting their interest, he did not write a letter; but he dreameddreams that made him forget the annoyances of a ball and chain fast onhis ankle and piles of stubborn stones to be cracked up into fine bitswith a heavy hammer. 

We are getting ahead of our narrative, though--days ahead of it. Thechronological sequence of events properly dates from the morningfollowing the morning when Peep O'Day, having been abruptly translatedfrom the masses of the penniless to the classes of the wealthy, hadforthwith embarked upon the gastronomic orgy so graphically detailed byDeputy Sheriff Quarles. 

On that next day more eyes probably than had been trained in PeepO'Day's direction in all the unremarked and unremarkable days of hislife put together were focused upon him. Persons who theretofore hadregarded his existence--if indeed they gave it a thought--as one of theutterly trivial and inconsequential incidents of the cosmic scheme, weremoved to speak to him, to clasp his hand, and, in numerous instances, toexpress a hearty satisfaction over his altered circumstances. To allthese, whether they were moved by mere neighbourly good will, orperchance were inspired by impulses of selfishness, the old manexhibited a mien of aloofness and embarrassment. 

This diffidence or this suspicion--or this whatever it was--protectedhim from those who might entertain covetous and ulterior designs uponhis inheritance even better than though he had been brusque and rude;while those who sought to question him regarding his plans for thefuture drew from him only mumbled and evasive replies, which left themas deeply in the dark as they had been before. Altogether, in hisintercourse with adults he appeared shy and very ill at ease. 

It was noted, though, that early in the forenoon he attached to himperhaps half a dozen urchins, of whom the oldest could scarcely havebeen more than twelve or thirteen years of age; and that theseyoungsters remained his companions throughout the day. Likewise theevents of that day were such as to confirm a majority of the observersin practically the same belief that had been voiced by Mr. Quarles--namely, that whatever scanty brains Peep O'Day might have everhad were now completely ruined by the stroke of luck that had befallenhim. 

In fairness to all--to O'Day and to the town critics who sat in judgmentupon his behaviour--it should be stated that his conduct at the veryoutset was not entirely devoid of evidences of sanity. With his troupeof ragged juveniles trailing behind him, he first visited FelsburgBrothers' Emporium to exchange his old and disreputable costume for awardrobe that, in accordance with Judge Priest's recommendation, he hadordered on the afternoon previous, and which had since been undergoingcertain necessary alterations. 

With his meagre frame incased in new black woollens, and wearing, as anincongruous added touch, the most brilliant of neckties, a necktie ofthe shade of a pomegranate blossom, he presently issued from FelsburgBrothers' and entered M. Biederman's shoe store, two doors below. HereMr. Biederman fitted him with shoes, and in addition noted down afurther order, which the purchaser did not give until after he hadconferred earnestly with the members of his youthful entourage. 

Those watching this scene from a distance saw--and perhaps marvelled atthe sight--that already, between these small boys, on the one part, andthis old man, on the other, a perfect understanding appeared to havebeen established. 

After leaving Biederman's, and tagged by his small escorts, O'Day wentstraight to the courthouse and, upon knocking at the door, was admittedto Judge Priest's private chambers, the boys meantime waiting outside inthe hall. When he came forth he showed them something he held in hishand and told them something; whereupon all of them burst into excitedand joyous whoops. 

It was at that point that O'Day, by the common verdict of most grown-uponlookers, began to betray the vagaries of a disordered intellect. Notthat his reason had not been under suspicion already, as a result of hisfreakish excess in the matter of B. Weil & Son's wares on the precedingday; but the relapse that now followed, as nearly everybody agreed, waseven more pronounced, even more symptomatic than the earlier attack ofaberration. 

In brief, this was what happened: To begin with, Mr. Virgil Overall, whodealt in lands and houses and sold insurance of all the commonervarieties on the side, had stalked O'Day to this point and was lying inwait for him as he came out of the courthouse into the Public Square, being anxious to describe to him some especially desirable bargains, inboth improved and unimproved realty; also, Mr. Overall was prepared tobook him for life, accident and health policies on the spot. 

So pleased was Mr. Overall at having distanced his professional rivalsin the hunt that he dribbled at the mouth. But the warmth of hisdisappointment and indignation dried up the salivary founts instantlywhen the prospective patron declined to listen to him at all and, breaking free from Mr. Overall's detaining clasp, hurried on into LegalRow, with his small convoys trotting along ahead and alongside him. 

At the door of the Blue Goose Saloon and Short Order Restaurant itsproprietor, by name Link Iserman, was lurking, as it were, in ambush. Hehailed the approaching O'Day most cordially; he inquired in a warm voiceregarding O'Day's health; and then, with a rare burst of generosity, heinvited, nay urged, O'Day to step inside and have something on thehouse--wines, ales, liquors or cigars; it was all one to Mr. Iserman. The other merely shook his head and, without a word of thanks for theoffer, passed on as though bent upon an important mission. 

Mark how the proofs were accumulating: The man had disdained the companyof men of approximately his own age or thereabout; he had refused anopportunity to partake of refreshment suitable to his years; and now hestepped into the Bon Ton toy store and bought for cash--mostinconceivable of acquisitions!--a little wagon that was painted brightred and bore on its sides, in curlicued letters, the name Comet. 

His next stop was made at Bishop & Bryan's grocery, where, with the aidof his youthful compatriots, he first discriminatingly selected, andthen purchased on credit, and finally loaded into the wagon, suchpurchases as a dozen bottles of soda pop, assorted flavours; cheese, crackers--soda and animal; sponge cakes with weather-proof pink icing onthem; fruits of the season; cove oysters; a bottle of pepper sauce; anda quantity of the extra large sized bright green cucumber pickles knownto the trade as the Fancy Jumbo Brand, Prime Selected. 

Presently the astounding spectacle was presented of two small boys, withstring bridles on their arms, drawing the wagon through our town and outof it into the country, with Peep O'Day in the rôle of teamster walkingalongside the laden wagon. He was holding the lines in his hands andshouting orders at his team, who showed a colty inclination to shy atobjects, to kick up their heels without provocation, and at intervals totry to run away. Eight or ten small boys--for by now the troupe hadgrown in number and in volume of noise--trailed along, keeping step withtheir elderly patron and advising him shrilly regarding the managementof his refractory span. 

As it turned out, the destination of this preposterous procession wasBradshaw's Grove, where the entire party spent the day picnicking in thewoods and, as reported by several reliable witnesses, playing games. Itwas not so strange that holidaying boys should play games; the amazingfeature of the performance was that Peep O'Day, a man old enough to begrandfather to any of them, played with them, being by turns an Indianchief, a robber baron, and the driver of a stagecoach attacked by WildWestern desperadoes. 

When he returned to town at dusk, drawing his little red wagon behindhim, his new suit was rumpled into many wrinkles and marked by dust andgrass stains; his flame-coloured tie was twisted under one ear; his newstraw hat was mashed quite out of shape; and in his eyes was a lightthat sundry citizens, on meeting him, could only interpret to be a sparkstruck from inner fires of madness. 

Days that came after this, on through the midsummer, were, withvariations, but repetitions of the day I have just described. Eachmorning Peep O'Day would go to either the courthouse or Judge Priest'shome to turn over to the Judge the unopened mail which had beendelivered to him at Gafford's stables; then he would secure from theJudge a loan of money against his inheritance. Generally the amount ofhis daily borrowing was a dollar; rarely was it so much as two dollars;and only once was it more than two dollars. 

By nightfall the sum would have been expended upon perfectly useless andabsolutely childish devices. It might be that he would buy toy pistolsand paper caps for himself and his following of urchins; or that hiswhim would lead him to expend all the money in tin flutes. In one casethe group he so incongruously headed would be for that one day a gang ofmake-believe banditti; in another, they would constitute themselves afife-and-drum corps--with barreltops for the drums--and would marchthrough the streets, where scandalised adults stood in their tracks towatch them go by, they all the while making weird sounds, which withthem passed for music. 

Or again, the available cash resources would be invested in provender;and then there would be an outing in the woods. Under Peep O'Day'scaptaincy his chosen band of youngsters picked dewberries; they wentswimming together in Guthrie's Gravel Pit, out by the old Fair Grounds, where his spare naked shanks contrasted strongly with their plumpfreckled legs as all of them splashed through the shallows, making fordeep water. Under his leadership they stole watermelons from Mr. DickBell's patch, afterward eating their spoils in thickets of grapevinesalong the banks of Perkins' Creek. 

It was felt that mental befuddlement and mortal folly could reach nogreater heights--or no lower depths--than on a certain hour of a certainday, along toward the end of August, when O'Day came forth from hisquarters in Gafford's stables, wearing a pair of boots that M. Biederman's establishment had turned out to his order and hismeasure--not such boots as a sensible man might be expected to wear, butboots that were exaggerated and monstrous counterfeits of thered-topped, scroll-fronted, brass-toed, stub-heeled, squeaky-soledbootees that small boys of an earlier generation possessed. 

Very proudly and seemingly unconscious of or, at least, oblivious to thederisive remarks that the appearance of these new belongings drew frommany persons, the owner went clumping about in them, with the rumplylegs of his trousers tucked down in them, and ballooning up and out overthe tops in folds which overlapped from his knee joints halfway down hisattenuated calves. 

As Deputy Sheriff Quarles said, the combination was a sight fit to makea horse laugh. It may be that small boys have a lesser sense of humourthan horses have, for certainly the boys who were the old man'sinvariable shadows did not laugh at him, or at his boots either. 

Between the whiskered senior and his small comrades there existed afreemasonry that made them all sense a thing beyond the ken of most oftheir elders. Perhaps this was because the elders, being blind in theirsuperior wisdom, saw neither this thing nor the communion thatflourished. They saw only the farcical joke. But His Honour, JudgePriest, to cite a conspicuous exception, seemed not to see thelamentable comedy of it. 

Indeed, it seemed to some almost as if Judge Priest were aiding andabetting the befogged O'Day in his demented enterprises, his peculiarexcursions and his weird purchases. If he did not actually encourage himin these constant exhibitions of witlessness, certainly there were noevidences available to show that he sought to dissuade O'Day from hisstrange course. 

At the end of a fortnight one citizen, in whom patience had ceased to bea virtue and to whose nature long-continued silence on any public topicwas intolerable, felt it his duty to speak to the Judge upon thesubject. This gentleman--his name was S. P. Escott--held, with others, that, for the good name of the community, steps should be taken to abatethe infantile, futile activities of the besotted legatee. 

Afterward Mr. Escott, giving a partial account of the conversation withJudge Priest to certain of his friends, showed unfeigned annoyance atthe outcome. 

"I claim that old man's not fittin' to be runnin' a court any longer, "he stated bitterly. "He's too old and peevish--that's whut ails him! Furone, I'm certainly not never goin' to vote fur him again. Why, it'sgettin' to be ez much ez a man's life is worth to stop that therespiteful old crank on the street and put a civil question to him--that'swhut's the matter!"

"What happened, S. P. ?" inquired someone. 

"Why, here's whut happened!" exclaimed the aggrieved Mr. Escott. "Ihadn't any more than started in to tell him the whole town was talkin'about the way that daffy Old Peep O'Day was carryin' on, and thatsomethin' had oughter be done about it, and didn't he think it wasbeholdin' on him ez circuit judge to do somethin' right away, sech ezhavin' O'Day tuck up and tried fur a lunatic, and that I fur one wasready and willin' to testify to the crazy things I'd seen done with myown eyes--when he cut in on me and jest ez good ez told me to my ownface that ef I'd quit tendin' to other people's business I'd mebbe havemore business of my own to tend to. 

"Think of that, gentlemen! A circuit judge bemeanin' a citizen and ataxpayer"--he checked himself slightly--"anyhow, a citizen, thataway! Itshows he can't be rational his own self. Personally I claim Old Priestis failin' mentally--he must be! And ef anybody kin be found to runagainst him at the next election you gentlemen jest watch and see whogits my vote!"

Having uttered this threat with deep and significant emphasis Mr. Escott, still muttering, turned and entered the front gate of hisboarding house. It was not exactly his boarding house; his wife ran it. But Mr. Escott lived there and voted from there. 

But the apogee of Peep O'Day's carnival of weird vagaries of deportmentcame at the end of two months--two months in which each day the manfurnished cumulative and piled-up material for derisive and jocularcomment on the part of a very considerable proportion of his fellowtownsmen. 

Three occurrences of a widely dissimilar nature, yet all closelyinterrelated to the main issue, marked the climax of the man's new rôlein his new career. The first of these was the arrival of his legacy; thesecond was a one-ring circus; and the third and last was a nephew. 

In the form of certain bills of exchange the estate left by the lateDaniel O'Day, of the town of Kilmare, in the island of Ireland, was on acertain afternoon delivered over into Judge Priest's hands, and by him, in turn, handed to the rightful owner, after which sundryindebtednesses, representing the total of the old Judge's day-to-daycash advances to O'Day, were liquidated. 

The ceremony of deducting this sum took place at the Planters' Bank, whither the two had journeyed in company from the courthouse. Having, with the aid of the paying teller, instructed O'Day in the technicaldetails requisite to the drawing of personal checks, Judge Priest wenthome and had his bag packed, and left for Reelfoot Lake to spend a weekfishing. As a consequence he missed the remaining two events, followingimmediately thereafter. 

The circus was no great shakes of a circus; no grand, glittering, gorgeous, glorious pageant of education and entertainment, travellingon its own special trains; no vast tented city of world's wonders andworld's champions, heralded for weeks and weeks in advance of its comingby dead walls emblazoned with the finest examples of the lithographer'sart, and by half-page advertisements in the _Daily Evening News_. On thecontrary, it was a shabby little wagon show, which, coming overland onshort notice, rolled into town under horse power, and set up its raggedand dusty canvases on the vacant lot across from Yeiser's drug store. 

Compared with the street parade of any of its great and famous rivals, the street parade of this circus was a meagre and disappointing thing. Why, there was only one elephant, a dwarfish and debilitated-lookingcreature, worn mangy and slick on its various angles, like the cover ofan old-fashioned haircloth trunk; and obviously most of the closed cageswere weather-beaten stake wagons in disguise. Nevertheless, there was asizable turnout of people for the afternoon performance. After all, acircus was a circus. 

Moreover, this particular circus was marked at the afternoon performanceby happenings of a nature most decidedly unusual. At one o'clock thedoors were opened: at one-ten the eyes of the proprietor were made gladand his heart was uplifted within him by the sight of a strangeprocession, drawing nearer and nearer across the scuffed turf of thecommon, and heading in the direction of the red ticket wagon. 

At the head of the procession marched Peep O'Day--only, of course, theproprietor didn't know it was Peep O'Day--a queer figure in his rumpledblack clothes and his red-topped brass-toed boots, and with one handholding fast to the string of a captive toy balloon. Behind him, in anuneven jostling formation, followed many small boys and some smallgirls. A census of the ranks would have developed that here wereincluded practically all the juvenile white population who otherwise, through a lack of funds, would have been denied the opportunity topatronise this circus or, in fact, any circus. 

Each member of the joyous company was likewise the bearer of a toyballoon--red, yellow, blue, green or purple, as the case might be. Overthe line of heads the taut rubbery globes rode on their tethers, noddingand twisting like so many big iridescent bubbles; and half a block away, at the edge of the lot, a balloon vender, whose entire stock had beendisposed of in one splendid transaction, now stood, empty-handed butfull-pocketed, marvelling at the stroke of luck that enabled him to takean afternoon off and rest his voice. 

Out of a seemingly bottomless exchequer Peep O'Day bought tickets ofadmission for all. But this was only the beginning. Once inside the tenthe procured accommodations in the reserved-seat section for himself andthose who accompanied him. From such superior points of vantage thewhole crew of them witnessed the performance, from the thrilling grandentry, with spangled ladies and gentlemen riding two by two onbroad-backed steeds, to the tumbling bout introducing the full strengthof the company, which came at the end. 

They munched fresh-roasted peanuts and balls of sugar-coated pop corn, slightly rancid, until they munched no longer with zest but merelymechanically. They drank pink lemonade to an extent that threatenedabsolute depletion of the fluid contents of both barrels in therefreshment stand out in the menagerie tent. They whooped theirunbridled approval when the wild Indian chief, after shooting down astuffed coon with a bow and arrow from somewhere up near the top of thecentre pole while balancing himself jauntily erect upon the haunches ofa coursing white charger, suddenly flung off his feathered headdress, his wig and his fringed leather garments, and revealed himself in pinkfleshings as the principal bareback rider. 

They screamed in a chorus of delight when the funny old clown, who hadbeen forcibly deprived of three tin flutes in rapid succession, nowproduced yet a fourth from the seemingly inexhaustible depths of hisbaggy white pants--a flute with a string and a bent pin affixed toit--and, secretly hooking the pin in the tail of the cross ringmaster'scoat, was thereafter enabled to toot sharp shrill blasts at frequentintervals, much to the chagrin of the ringmaster, who seemed utterlyunable to discover the whereabouts of the instrument dangling behindhim. 

But no one among them whooped louder or laughed longer than theirelderly and bewhiskered friend, who sat among them, paying the bills. Ashis guests they stayed for the concert; and, following this, theypatronised the side show in a body. They had been almost the first uponthe scene; assuredly they were the last of the audience to quit it. 

Indeed, before they trailed their confrère away from the spot the sunwas nearly down; and at scores of supper tables all over town the taleof poor old Peep O'Day's latest exhibition of freakishness was beingretailed, with elaborations, to interested auditors. Estimates of thesum probably expended by him in this crowning extravagance ranged wellup into the hundreds of dollars. 

As for the object of these speculations, he was destined not to eat anysupper at all that night. Something happened that so upset him as tomake him forget the meal altogether. It began to happen when he reachedthe modest home of P. Gafford, adjoining the Gafford stables, on LocustStreet, and found sitting on the lowermost step of the porch a young manof untidy and unshaven aspect, who hailed him affectionately as UnclePaul, and who showed deep annoyance and acute distress upon beingrebuffed with chill words. 

It is possible that the strain of serving a three-months' sentence, onthe technical charge of vagrancy, in a workhouse somewhere in Indiana, had affected the young man's nerves. His ankle bones still ached wherethe ball and chain had been hitched; on his palms the blisters inducedby the uncongenial use of a sledge hammer on a rock pile had hardly asyet turned to calluses. So it is only fair to presume that his nervoussystem felt the stress of his recent confining experiences. 

Almost tearfully he pleaded with Peep O'Day to remember the ties ofblood that bound them; repeatedly he pointed out that he was the onlyknown kinsman of the other in all the world, and, therefore, had morereason than any other living being to expect kindness and generosity athis uncle's hands. He spoke socialistically of the advisability of anequal division; failing to make any impression here he mentioned thesubject of a loan--at first hopefully, but finally despairingly. 

When he was done Peep O'Day, in a perfectly colourless and unsympatheticvoice, bade him good-by--not good night but good-by! And, going insidethe house, he closed the door behind him, leaving his newly returnedrelative outside and quite alone. 

At this the young man uttered violent language; but, since there wasnobody present to hear him, it is likely he found small satisfaction inhis profanity, rich though it may have been in metaphor and variety. Sopresently he betook himself off, going straight to the office in LegalRow of H. B. Sublette, attorney at law. 

From the circumstance that he found Mr. Sublette in, though it was longpast that gentleman's office hours, and, moreover, found Mr. Sublettewaiting in an expectant and attentive attitude, it might have beenadduced by one skilled in the trick of putting two and two together thatthe pair of them had reached a prior understanding sometime during theday; and that the visit of the young man to the Gafford home and hisspeeches there had all been parts of a scheme planned out at a priorconference. 

Be this as it may, as soon as Mr. Sublette had heard his caller'sversion of the meeting upon the porch he lost no time in taking certainlegal steps. That very night, on behalf of his client, denominated inthe documents as Percival Dwyer, Esquire, he prepared a petitionaddressed to the circuit judge of the district, setting forth that, inasmuch as Paul Felix O'Day had by divers acts shown himself to be ofunsound mind, now, therefore, came his nephew and next of kin prayingthat a committee or curator be appointed to take over the estate of thesaid Paul Felix O'Day, and administer the same in accordance with theorders of the court until such time as the said Paul Felix O'Day shouldrecover his reason, or should pass from this life, and so forth and soon; not to mention whereases in great number and aforesaids aboundingthroughout the text in the utmost profusion. 

On the following morning the papers were filed with Circuit Clerk Milam. That vigilant barrister, Mr. Sublette, brought them in person to thecourthouse before nine o'clock, he having the interests of his client atheart and perhaps also visions of a large contingent fee in his mind. Noretainer had been paid. The state of Mr. Dwyer's finances--or, rather, the absence of any finances--had precluded the performance of thatcustomary detail; but to Mr. Sublette's experienced mind the prospectsof future increment seemed large. 

Accordingly he was all for prompt action. Formally he said he wished togo on record as demanding for his principal a speedy hearing of theissue, with a view to preventing the defendant named in the pleadingsfrom dissipating any more of the estate lately bequeathed to him and nowfully in his possession--or words to that effect. 

Mr. Milam felt justified in getting into communication with Judge Priestover the long-distance phone; and the Judge, cutting short his vacationand leaving uncaught vast numbers of bass and perch in Reelfoot Lake, came home, arriving late that night. 

Next morning, having issued divers orders in connection with theimpending litigation, he sent a messenger to find Peep O'Day and todirect O'Day to come to the courthouse for a personal interview. 

Shortly thereafter a scene that had occurred some two months earlier, with His Honour's private chamber for a setting, was substantiallyduplicated: There was the same cast of two, the same stage properties, the same atmosphere of untidy tidiness. And, as before, the dialogue wasin Judge Priest's hands. He led and his fellow character followed hisleads. 

"Peep, " he was saying, "you understand, don't you, that this herefragrant nephew of yours that's turned up from nowheres in particular isfixin' to git ready to try to prove that you are feeble-minded? And, ontop of that, that he's goin' to ask that a committee be app'inted furyou--in other words, that somebody or other shall be named by the court, meanin' me, to take charge of your property and control the spendin' ofit frum now on?"

"Yes, suh, " stated O'Day. "Pete Gafford he set down with me and made hitall clear to me, yestiddy evenin', after they'd done served the paperson me. "

"All right, then. Now I'm goin' to fix the hearin' fur to-morrow mornin'at ten. The other side is askin' fur a quick decision; and I ratherfigger they're entitled to it. Is that agreeable to you?"

"Whutever you say, Judge. "

"Well, have you retained a lawyer to represent your interests in court?That's the main question that I sent fur you to ast you. "

"Do I need a lawyer, Judge?"

"Well, there have been times when I regarded lawyers ez bein'superfluous, " stated Judge Priest dryly. "Still, in most cases litigantsdo have 'em round when the case is bein' heard. "

"I don't know ez I need any lawyer to he'p me say whut I've got to say, "said O'Day. "Judge, you ain't never ast me no questions about the wayI've been carryin' on sence I come into this here money; but I reckinmebbe this is ez good a time ez any to tell you jest why I've beenactin' the way I've done. You see, suh----"

"Hold on!" broke in Judge Priest. "Up till now, ez my friend, it would'a' been perfectly proper fur you to give me your confidences ef youwere minded so to do; but now I reckin you'd better not. You see, I'mthe judge that's got to decide whether you are a responsibleperson--whether you're mentally capable of handlin' your own financialaffairs, or whether you ain't. So you'd better wait and make yourstatement in your own behalf to me whilst I'm settin' on the bench. I'llsee that you git an opportunity to do so and I'll listen to it; and I'llgive it all the consideration it's deservin' of. 

"And, on second thought, p'raps it would only be a waste of time andmoney fur you to go hirin' a lawyer specially to represent you. Underthe law it's my duty, in sech a case ez this here one is, to app'int amember of the bar to serve durin' the proceedin's ez your guardian _adlitem_. 

"You don't need to be startled, " he added as O'Day flinched at the soundin his ears of these strange and fearsome words. "A guardian _ad litem_is simply a lawyer that tends to your affairs till the case is settledone way or the other. Ef you had a dozen lawyers I'd have to app'int himjest the same. So you don't need to worry about that part of it. 

"That's all. You kin go now ef you want to. Only, ef I was you, Iwouldn't draw out any more money frum the bank 'twixt now and the timewhen I make my decision. "

 * * * * *

All things considered, it was an unusual assemblage that Judge Priestregarded over the top rims of his glasses as he sat facing it in hisbroad armchair, with the flat top of the bench intervening between himand the gathering. Not often, even in the case of exciting murdertrials, had the old courtroom held a larger crowd; certainly never hadit held so many boys. Boys, and boys exclusively, filled the back rowsof benches downstairs. More boys packed the narrow shelf-like balconythat spanned the chamber across its far end--mainly small boys, barefooted, sunburned, freckled-faced, shock-headed boys. And, forboys, they were strangely silent and strangely attentive. 

The petitioner sat with his counsel, Mr. Sublette. The petitioner hadbeen newly shaved, and from some mysterious source had been equippedwith a neat wardrobe. Plainly he was endeavouring to wear a look ofvirtue, which was a difficult undertaking, as you would understand hadyou known the petitioner. 

The defending party to the action was seated across the room, touchingelbows with old Colonel Farrell, dean of the local bar and its mostflorid orator. 

"The court will designate Col. Horatio Farrell as guardian _ad litem_for the defendant during these proceedings, " Judge Priest had stated afew minutes earlier, using the formal and grammatical language hereserved exclusively for his courtroom. 

At once old Colonel Farrell had hitched his chair up alongside O'Day;had asked him several questions in a tone inaudible to those about them;had listened to the whispered answers of O'Day; and then had nodded hishuge curly white dome of a head, as though amply satisfied with theresponses. 

Let us skip the preliminaries. True, they seemed to interest theaudience; here, though, they would be tedious reading. Likewise, intouching upon the opening and outlining address of Attorney-at-LawSublette let us, for the sake of time and space, be very much brieferthan Mr. Sublette was. For our present purposes, I deem it sufficient tosay that in all his professional career Mr. Sublette was never moreeloquent, never more forceful, never more vehement in his allegations, and never more convinced--as he himself stated, not once butrepeatedly--of his ability to prove the facts he alleged by competentand unbiased testimony. These facts, he pointed out, were commonknowledge in the community; nevertheless, he stood prepared to buttressthem with the evidence of reputable witnesses, given under oath. 

Mr. Sublette, having unwound at length, now wound up. He sat down, perspiring freely and through the perspiration radiating confidence inhis contentions, confidence in the result and, most of all, unboundedconfidence in Mr. Sublette. 

Now Colonel Farrell was standing up to address the court. Under thecloak of a theatrical presence and a large orotund manner, and behind aCiceronian command of sonorous language, the colonel carried concealed ashrewd old brain. It was as though a skilled marksman lurked in ambushamid a tangle of luxuriant foliage. In this particular instance, moreover, it is barely possible that the colonel was acting on a cue, privily conveyed to him before the court opened. 

"May it please Your Honour, " he began, "I have just conferred with thedefendant here; and, acting in the capacity of his guardian _ad litem_, I have advised him to waive an opening address by counsel. Indeed, thedefendant has no counsel. Furthermore, the defendant, also acting uponmy advice, will present no witnesses in his own behalf. But, with YourHonour's permission, the defendant will now make a personal statement;and thereafter he will rest content, leaving the final arbitrament ofthe issue to Your Honour's discretion. "

"I object!" exclaimed Mr. Sublette briskly. 

"On what grounds does the learned counsel object?" inquired JudgePriest. 

"On the grounds that, since the mental competence of this man isconcerned--since it is our contention that he is patently and plainly avictim of senility, an individual prematurely in his dotage--anyutterances by him will be of no value whatsoever in aiding theconscience and intelligence of the court to arrive at a fair and justconclusion regarding the defendant's mental condition. "

Mr. Sublette excelled in the use of big words; there was no doubt aboutthat. 

"The objection is overruled, " said Judge Priest. He nodded in thedirection of O'Day and Colonel Farrell. "The court will hear thedefendant. He is not to be interrupted while making his statement. Thedefendant may proceed. "

Without further urging, O'Day stood up, a tall, slab-sided rack of aman, with his long arms dangling at his sides, half facing Judge Priestand half facing his nephew and his nephew's lawyer. Without hesitationhe began to speak. And this was what he said:

"There's mebbe some here ez knows about how I was raised and fetched up. My paw and my maw died when I was jest only a baby; so I was brung upout here at the old county porehouse ez a pauper. I can't remember thetime when I didn't have to work for my board and keep, and work hard. While other boys was goin' to school and playin' hooky, and goin' inwashin' in the creek, and playin' games, and all sech ez that, I had towork. I never done no playin' round in my whole life--not till here jestrecently, anyway. 

"But I always craved to play round some. I didn't never say nothin'about it to nobody after I growed up, 'cause I figgered it out theywouldn't understand and mebbe'd laugh at me; but all these years, eversence I left that there porehouse, I've had a hankerin' here inside ofme"--he lifted one hand and touched his breast--"I've had a hankerin' tobe a boy and to do all the things a boy does; to do the things I waschiselled out of doin' whilst I was of a suitable age to be doin' 'em. Icall to mind that I uster dream in my sleep about doin' 'em; but thedream never come true--not till jest here lately. It didn't have nochancet to come true--not till then. 

"So, when this money come to me so sudden and unbeknownstlike I said tomyself that I was goin' to make that there dream come true; and Istarted out fur to do it. And I done it! And I reckin that's the causeof my bein' here to-day, accused of bein' feeble-minded. But, even so, Idon't regret it none. Ef it was all to do over ag'in I'd do it jest thevery same way. 

"Why, I never knowed whut it was, till here two months or so ago, tohave my fill of bananas and candy and gingersnaps, and all sechknickknacks ez them. All my life I've been cravin' secretly to own apair of red-topped boots with brass toes on 'em, like I used to seeother boys wearin' in the wintertime when I was out yonder at thatporehouse wearin' an old pair of somebody else's cast-off shoes--mebbe aman's shoes, with rags wropped round my feet to keep the snow frumcomin' through the cracks in 'em, and to keep 'em frum slippin' rightspang off my feet. I got three toes frostbit oncet durin' a cold spell, wearin' them kind of shoes. But here the other week I found myself ableto buy me some red-top boots with brass toes on 'em. So I had 'em madeto order and I'm wearin' 'em now. I wear 'em reg'lar even ef it issummertime. I take a heap of pleasure out of 'em. And, also, all my lifelong I've been wantin' to go to a circus. But not till three days ago Ididn't never git no chancet to go to one. 

"That gentleman yonder--Mister Sublette--he 'lowed jest now that I wasleadin' a lot of little boys in this here town into bad habits. He saidthat I was learnin' 'em nobody knowed whut devilment. And he spoke of myhavin' egged 'em on to steal watermelons frum Mister Bell's watermelonpatch out here three miles frum town, on the Marshallville gravel road. You-all heared whut he jest now said about that. 

"I don't mean no offence and I beg his pardon fur contradictin' himright out before everybody here in the big courthouse; but, mister, you're wrong. I don't lead these here boys astray that I've been runnin'round with. They're mighty nice clean boys, all of 'em. Some of 'em aremighty near ez pore ez whut I uster be; but there ain't no real harm inany of 'em. We git along together fine--me and them. And, without nopreachin', nor nothin' like that, I've done my best these weeks we'vebeen frolickin' and projectin' round together to keep 'em frum growin'up to do mean things. 

"I use chawin' tobacco myself; but I've tole 'em, I don't know how manytimes, that ef they chaw it'll stunt 'em in their growth. And I've gotseveral of 'em that was smokin' cigarettes on the sly to promise methey'd quit. So I don't figger ez I've done them boys any real harm bygoin' round with 'em. And I believe ef you was to ast 'em they'd alltell you the same, suh. 

"Now about them watermelons: Sence this gentleman has brung themwatermelons up, I'm goin' to tell you-all the truth about that too. "

He cast a quick, furtive look, almost a guilty look, over his shouldertoward the rear of the courtroom before he went on:

"Them watermelons wasn't really stole at all. I seen Mister Dick Bellbeforehand and arranged with him to pay him in full fur whutever damagemout be done. But, you see, I knowed watermelons tasted sweeter to a boyef he thought he'd hooked 'em out of a patch; so I never let on to mylittle pardners yonder that I'd the same ez paid Mister Bell in advancefur the melons we took out of his patch and et in the woods. They've allbeen thinkin' up till now that we really hooked them watermelons. But efthat was wrong I'm sorry fur it. 

"Mister Sublette, you jest now said that I was fritterin' away myproperty on vain foolishment. Them was the words you used--'fritterin''and 'vain foolishment. ' Mebbe you're right, suh, about the fritterin'part; but ef spendin' money in a certain way gives a man ez muchpleasure ez it's give me these last two months, and ef the money ishis'n by rights, I figger it can't be so very foolish; though it may'pear so to some. 

"Excusin' these here clothes I've got on and these here boots, whichain't paid fur yet, but are charged up to me on Felsburg Brothers'books and Mister M. Biederman's books, I didn't spend only a dollar aday, or mebbe two dollars, and once three dollars in a single day out ofwhut was comin' to me. The Judge here, he let me have that out of hisown pocket; and I paid him back. And that was all I did spend till herethree days ago when that there circus come to town. I reckin I did spenda right smart then. 

"My money had come frum the old country only the day before; so I wentto the bank and they writ out one of them pieces of paper which iscalled a check, and I signed it--with my mark; and they give me themoney I wanted--an even two hundred dollars. And part of that theremoney I used to pay fur circus tickets fur all the little boys andlittle girls I could find in this town that couldn't 'a' got to thecircus no other way. Some of 'em are settin' back there behind you-allnow--some of the boys, I mean; I don't see none of the little girls. 

"There was several of 'em told me at the time they hadn't never seen acircus--not in their whole lives! Fur that matter, I hadn't, neither;but I didn't want no pore child in this town to grow up to be ez old ezI am without havin' been to at least one circus. So I taken 'em all inand paid all the bills; and when night come there wasn't but 'bout ninedollars left out of the whole two hundred that I'd started out with inthe mornin'. But I don't begredge spendin' it. It looks to me like itwas money well invested. They all seemed to enjoy it; and I know I doneso. 

"There may be bigger circuses'n whut that one was; but I don't see how acircus could 'a' been any better than this here one I'm tellin' about, ef it was ten times ez big. I don't regret the investment and I don'taim to lie about it now. Mister Sublette, I'd do the same thing overag'in ef the chance should come, lawsuit or no lawsuit. Ef you shouldwin this here case mebbe I wouldn't have no second chance. 

"Ef some gentleman is app'inted ez a committee to handle my money it'slikely he wouldn't look at the thing the same way I do; and it's likelyhe wouldn't let me have so much money all in one lump to spend takin' apassel of little shavers that ain't no kin to me to the circus and tothe side show, besides lettin' 'em stay fur the grand concert orafter-show, and all. But I done it once; and I've got it to rememberabout and think about in my own mind ez long ez I live. 

"I'm 'bout finished now. There's jest one thing more I'd like to say, and that is this: Mister Sublette he said a minute ago that I was in mysecond childhood. Meanin' no offence, suh, but you was wrong there too. The way I look at it, a man can't be in his second childhood withouthe's had his first childhood; and I was cheated plum' out of mine. I'mmore'n sixty years old, ez near ez I kin figger; but I'm tryin' to be aboy before it's too late. "

He paused a moment and looked round him. 

"The way I look at it, Judge Priest, suh, and you-all, every man thatgrows up, no matter how old he may git to be, is entitled to 'a' been aboy oncet in his lifetime. I--I reckin that's all. "

He sat down and dropped his eyes upon the floor, as though ashamed thathis temerity should have carried him so far. There was a strange littlehush filling the courtroom. It was Judge Priest who broke it. 

"The court, " he said, "has by the words just spoken by this man beensufficiently advised as to the sanity of the man himself. The courtcares to hear nothing more from either side on this subject. Thepetition is dismissed. "

Very probably these last words may have been as so much Greek to thejuvenile members of the audience; possibly, though, they were made awareof the meaning of them by the look upon the face of Nephew PercivalDwyer and the look upon the face of Nephew Percival Dwyer's attorney. Atany rate, His Honour hardly had uttered the last syllable of hisdecision before, from the rear of the courtroom and from the galleryabove, there arose a shrill, vehement, sincere sound ofyelling--exultant, triumphant and deafening. It continued for upward ofa minute before the small disturbers remembered where they were andreduced themselves to a state of comparative quiet. 

For reasons best known to himself, Judge Priest, who ordinarily stickledfor order and decorum in his courtroom, made no effort to quell theoutburst or to have it quelled--not even when a considerable number ofthe adults present joined in it, having first cleared their throats of aslight huskiness that had come upon them, severally and generally. 

Presently the Judge rapped for quiet--and got it. It was apparent thathe had more to say; and all there hearkened to hear what it might be. 

"I have just this to add, " quoth His Honour: "It is the officialjudgment of this court that the late defendant, being entirely sane, iscompetent to manage his own affairs after his preferences. 

"And it is the private opinion of this court that not only is the latedefendant sane but that he is the sanest man in this entirejurisdiction. Mister Clerk, court stands adjourned. "

Coming down the three short steps from the raised platform of the bench, Judge Priest beckoned to Sheriff Giles Birdsong, who, at the tail of thedeparting crowd, was shepherding its last exuberant members through thedoorway. 

"Giles, " said Judge Priest in an undertone, when the worthy sheriff haddrawn near, "the circuit clerk tells me there's an indictment furmalicious mischief ag'in this here Perce Dwyer knockin' round amongstthe records somewheres--an indictment the grand jury returned severalsessions back, but which was never pressed, owin' to the suddendeparture frum our midst of the person in question. 

"I wonder ef it would be too much trouble fur you to sort of drap a hintin the ear of the young man or his lawyer that the said indictment isapt to be revived, and that the said Dwyer is liable to be tuck intocustody by you and lodged in the county jail sometime during the ensuin'forty-eight hours--without he should see his way clear durin' themeantime to get clean out of this city, county and state! Would it?"

"Trouble? No, suh! It won't be no trouble to me, " said Mr. Birdsongpromptly. "Why, it'll be more of a pleasure, Judge. "

And so it was. 

Except for one small added and purely incidental circumstance, ournarrative is ended. That same afternoon Judge Priest sat on the frontporch of his old white house out on Clay Street, waiting for JeffPoindexter to summon him to supper. Peep O'Day opened the front gate andcame up the gravelled walk between the twin rows of silver-leaf poplars. The Judge, rising to greet his visitor, met him at the top step. 

"Come in, " bade the Judge heartily, "and set down a spell and rest yourface and hands. "

"No, suh; much obliged, but I ain't got only a minute to stay, " saidO'Day. "I jest come out here, suh, to thank you fur whut you done to-dayon my account in the big courthouse, and--and to make you a little kindof a present. "

"It's all right to thank me, " said Judge Priest; "but I couldn't acceptany reward fur renderin' a decision in accordance with the plain facts. "

"'Tain't no gift of money, or nothin' like that, " O'Day hastened toexplain. "Really, suh, it don't amount to nothin' at all, scursely. Buta little while ago I happened to be in Mr. B. Weil & Son's store, doin'a little tradin', and I run acrost a new kind of knickknack, which itseemed like to me it was about the best thing I ever tasted in my wholelife. So, on the chancet, suh, that you might have a sweet tooth, too, Itaken the liberty of bringin' you a sack of 'em and--and--and here theyare, suh; three flavors--strawberry, lemon and vanilly. "

Suddenly overcome with confusion, he dislodged a large-sized paper bagfrom his side coat pocket and thrust it into Judge Priest's hands; then, backing away, he turned and clumped down the graveled path in great andembarrassed haste. 

Judge Priest opened the bag and peered down into it. It contained asticky, sugary dozen of flattened confections, each moulded round ashort length of wooden splinter. These sirupy articles, which have sincecome into quite general use, are known, I believe, as all-day suckers. 

When Judge Priest looked up again, Peep O'Day was outside the gate, clumping down the uneven sidewalk of Clay Street with long strides ofhis booted legs. Half a dozen small boys, who, it was evident, hadremained hidden during the ceremony of presentation, now mysteriouslyappeared and were accompanying the departing donor, half trotting tokeep up with him. 

CHAPTER IV

THE LUCK PIECE

Until now Trencher--to give him the name by which of all the names heused he best was known--had kept his temper in hobbles, no matter whator how great the provocation. As one whose mode of livelihood was trickand device outside the law it had behooved him ever to restrain himselffrom violent outbreaks, to school and curb and tame his naturaltendencies as a horsebreaker might gentle a spirited colt. A man whoheld his disposition always under control could think faster than anyman who permitted his passions to jangle his nerves. Besides, he had theclass contempt of the high-grade confidence man--the same being thearistocrat of the underworld--for the crude and violent and thereforedoubly dangerous codes of the stick-up, who is a highwayman; and theprowler, who is a burglar; and the yegg, who is a safe blower of sorts. 

Until now Trencher had held fast by the self-imposed rules of hisself-imposed discipline, and so doing had lived well and lived safe. Itwas an unfortunate thing all round that this little rat of a Sonntag hadcrossed him at an hour when he was profoundly irritated by the collapseof their elaborately planned and expensive scheme to divest thatCheyenne cattleman of his bank roll at the wire game. And it was adoubly unfortunate thing for Sonntag seeing that Sonntag had just beenshot three times with his own automatic and was now dead or should be. 

It was like Sonntag--and most utterly unlike Trencher--to whine overspilt milk and seek to shift the blame for the failure of their plot toany pair of shoulders rather than his own thin pair. And to the verylife it was like Sonntag that at the climax of the quarrel he shouldhave made a gun play. As Trencher now realised, it had been his mistakein the first place that he took Sonntag on for a partner in the thwartedoperation; but it had been Sonntag's great, fatal mistake that he haddrawn a weapon against a man who could think faster and act faster inemergencies than Sonntag ever had been able to do. Having drawn itSonntag should have used it. But having drawn it he had hesitated for aspace not to be measured in computable time--and that delay had been hisundoing. 

The gun-pulling episode had taken place in Thirty-ninth Street, betweenSixth Avenue and Broadway, but nearer Broadway than Sixth Avenue, at amoment when that block of Thirty-ninth Street was as near empty as everit gets to be. The meeting in the darkened place, just where the porticoat the side entrance of the old Jollity Theatre, extending out acrossthe sidewalk, made a patch of obscurity in the half-lit street, had beena meeting by chance so far as Trencher was concerned. He had not beenlooking for Sonntag; hadn't wanted to see Sonntag. Whether Sonntag hadbeen seeking him was something which nobody probably would ever knowthis side the hereafter. 

To the best of Trencher's belief there had been but one possibleeyewitness to the actual shooting. Out of the tail of his eye, justbefore he and Sonntag came to grips, he had caught a glimpse of thissurmisable third party. He had sensed rather than seen that an elderlybearded man, perhaps the watchman of the closed theatre, passed alongthe sidewalk, going east. It was Trencher's impression that the man hadgone on by without halting. However, on that point he could not be sure. What the onlooker had seen--if indeed there were an onlooker--could havebeen only this: Two men, one fairly tall and dressed in a sprightlyfashion, one short and dark, engaged in a vehement but whispered quarrelthere in the cloaking shadow close up to the locked double doors of theJollity; a sudden hostile move on the part of the slighter man, backingaway and reaching for his flank; a quick forward jump by the taller manto close with the other; a short sharp struggle as the pair of themfought for possession of the revolver which the dark man had jerked fromhis flank pocket; then the tall man, victorious, shoving his antagonistclear of him and stepping back a pace; and on top of this the threesharp reports and the three little spurts of fire bridging the short gapbetween the sundered enemies like darting red hyphens to punctuate theenacted tragedy. 

Now the tall man, the one conspicuously dressed, had been Trencher. Theshooting accomplished he stood where he was only long enough to seeSonntag fold up and sink down in a slumped shape in the doorway. He hadseen men, mortally stricken, who folded up in that very same way;therefore he appraised Sonntag as one already dead, or at least as onewho would die very speedily. 

As he stepped out across the sidewalk into the roadway he let theautomatic fall alongside the curb. The instant he had done this the heatof his hate departed from him leaving him cool and clear-minded andalert. It was as though the hot fumes of rage had all evaporated fromhis brain in the same twentieth part of a second that he had spent indiscarding the weapon. For the reason that he was again entirelyhimself, resourceful and steady, he did not fall into the error ofrunning away. To run away in this instant was to invite pursuit. Instead he walked to the middle of the street, halted and looked abouthim--the picture of a citizen who had been startled by the sound ofshots. This artifice, he felt sure, served to disarm possible suspicionon the part of any one of the persons who came hurrying up from east andwest and from the north, across the street. Two or three of these firstarrivals almost brushed him as they lunged past, drawing in toward thespot where Sonntag's doubled-up body made a darker blot in the darkenedparallelogram beneath the portico. 

Trencher had been in close places before now--close places whensomething smacking of violence had occurred--and he knew or felt he knewwhat next would happen to give him the precious grace of seconds andperhaps of minutes. Those who came foremost upon the scene would, through caution, hesitate for a brief space of time before venturingclose up to where the hunched shape lay. Then having circled and drawnin about the victim of the shooting they would for another brief periodhuddle together, asking excited and pointless questions of one another, some of them perhaps bending down and touching the victim to see whetherhe lived, some of them looking round for a policeman, some of them doingnothing at all--except confusedly to get in the way of everybody else. This would be true of ninety-nine average individuals out of an averagehundred of city population. But the hundredth man would keep his witsabout him, seeking for the cause of the thing rather than concerninghimself with the accomplished effect. For the moment it was thishundredth man Trencher would have to fear. Nevertheless, it would neverdo for him to show undue haste. Bearing himself in the matter of adisinterested citizen who had business that was not to be interferedwith by street brawls, he turned away from the south, toward which hehad been looking, shrugged his shoulders, and moving briskly, butwithout any seeming great haste, he made for the revolving door at theThirty-ninth Street entrance to Wallinger's Hotel, diagonally acrossfrom the Jollity. With one hand on a panel of the door he stopped againand looked back. 

Already, so soon, a crowd was gathering over the way--a littlecrowd--which at once inevitably would become a dense jostling crowd. Apoliceman, not to be mistaken even at a distance of seventy feet or morefor anyone but a policeman, had turned the corner out of Broadway andwas running down the opposite pavement. The policeman's arrival was tobe expected; it would be his business to arrive at the earliest possiblemoment, and having arrived to lead the man hunt that would follow. WhatTrencher, peering over his shoulder, sought for, was the hundredthman--the man who, ignoring the lesser fact of a dead body, would strivefirst off to catch up the trail of whosoever had done this thing. 

Trencher thought he made him out. There was to be seen an elderly man, roughly dressed, possibly the same man whose proximity Trencher had feltrather than observed just before Sonntag made the gun play, and this manwas half-squatted out on the asphalt with his back to where the restcircled and swirled about the body. Moreover, this person was staringdirectly in Trencher's direction. As Trencher passed within therevolving door he saw the man pivot on his heels and start at an angletoward the policeman just as the policeman was swallowed up in the ringsof figures converging into the theatre doorway. 

If the policeman were of a common-enough type of policeman--that is tosay, if he were the sort of policeman who would waste time examiningSonntag's body for signs of life and then waste more time askingquestions of those who had preceded him to the place, and yet more timepeering about for the weapon that had been used; or if, in theexcitement with everybody shouting together, the one man who possiblyhad a real notion concerning the proper description of the vanishedslayer found difficulty in securing the policeman's attention--why then, in any one of these cases, or better still, in all of them, Trencher hada chance. With a definite and intelligently guided pursuit startingforthwith he would be lost. But with three minutes, or two even, ofdelay vouchsafed him before the alarm took shape and purpose he mightmake it. 

Accepting the latter contingency as the assured one he formed a planinstantaneously. Indeed, it sprang full-formed into his mind as the doorswung round behind him. It added to the immediate difficulties of hispresent situation that he was most notably marked--by his garb. He hadthe dramatic sense well developed, as any man must have who succeeds athis calling. When Trencher played a part he dressed the part. In thestaging of the plot for the undoing of the Cheyenne cattleman his hadbeen the rôle of the sporting ex-telegraph operator, who could get"flashes" on the result of horse races before the names of the winnerscame over an imaginary tapped wire to the make-believe pool room wherethe gull was stripped; and he had been at some pains and expense toprocure a wardrobe befitting the character. 

The worst of it was that he now wore the make-up--the shortfawn-coloured overcoat with its big showy buttons of smoked pearl, thebrown derby hat with its striking black band, and the pair of light-tanspats. Stripped of these things he would be merely a person in a costumein nowise to be distinguished from the costumes of any number of othermen in the Broadway district. But for the moment there was neitheropportunity nor time to get rid of all of them without attracting theattention that would be fatal to his prospects. Men who have nothing tohide do not remove spats in a hotel lobby, nor do they go about publicplaces bareheaded in the nighttime. Now he could do but one thing toalter his appearance. 

Midway of the cross hall which he had entered and which opened into themain lobby he slowed his gait long enough to undo the overcoat and slipout of it. The top button caught fast in its buttonhole, the coat beingnew and its buttonholes being stiff. He gave a sharp tug at therebellious cloth, and the button, which probably had been insecurelysewed on in the first place, came away from its thread fastenings andlodged in the fingers of his right hand. Mechanically he dropped it intoa side pocket of the overcoat and a moment later, with the garmentturned inside out so that only its silk lining showed, and held underhis arm, he had come out of the sideway and was in the lobby proper. 

He was prepared mentally to find signs of an alarm here--to encounterpersons hurrying toward the Thirty-ninth Street side of the building. But nothing of the sort was afoot. A darky orchestra was playing a jazztune very loudly in the café at the left of the Broadway entrance, so itwas not only possible but very likely that the sounds of the shots hadnot been heard inside the hotel at all. Certainly his eye, sweeping theplace, discovered no evidences of any unusual stir. Perhaps half adozen individuals were traversing the tiled floor, but none of them inany seeming hurry. 

With no suggestion of agitation about him anywhere and with nothingfurtive or stealthy in his movements, Trencher boldly passed the cornerof the desk, crossed the lobby, went along the front of the news stand, where a young woman stood among her wares, and through another set ofrevolving doors came out upon Broadway. It was that one hour of thenight--a quarter of eleven o'clock, while the last acts are still goingon and before the theatres give up their audiences--when Broadway'ssidewalks are not absolutely overflowing with jostling, pouring currentsof people. Numbers were abroad, for numbers always are abroad in thispart of the town, be the time of day or of night what it may, but therewas no congestion. This was as it should be; it suited this man'spurposes exactly. 

He issued forth, and a few rods north of the corner saw the person forwhom he was seeking; at least he saw a most likely candidate--a raggeddarky, in a district where ragged darkies unless they be beggars are notoften seen, who with his hands in his pockets and his coat collar turnedup was staring into the window of a small clothing shop two doors abovethe narrow-fronted hotel. Trencher made for him. Remember, allthis--from the moment of the shooting until now--had taken much lesstime than has been required for me to describe it in sequence or foryou to read about it. 

He tapped the darky on the arm. 

"Boy, " he said sharply, "want to pick up some easy money quick?"

"Yas, suh, I does!" The negro's eyes shone. 

"Listen then: I've got to catch a train--sooner than I expected. Mybag's packed and waiting for me up here at my boarding house in WestForty-fifth Street--Number 374 is the address--just west ofBroadway--tall brownstone house with a high stoop. Get me? The bag'sdownstairs in the hall. The hall boy--a coloured fellow named Fred--iswatching it for me. If I go in a cab I may not get to the station intime. If you go after it for me at a run I may catch my train. See?Here's a dollar down in advance. Tell Fred Mr. Thompson sent you--that'sme, Thompson. He'll give it to you--I told him I'd send for it. I'll bewaiting right here. If you get back with it in seven minutes I'll giveyou another dollar--and if you get back inside of seven minutes I'llmake it two dollars more. Got the number in your mind?"

"Yas, suh--three seventy-fo' Wes' Forty-fift', you said. "

"Correct. Now run like the very devil up Broadway to Forty-fifth andturn west!"

"Boss, " cried the darky, "Ise gone!"

He was, too. His splay feet in their broken shoes fairly spurned thesidewalk as he darted northward, boring his way through the lanes ofpedestrians, knocking people aside out of their stride and followed ashe went by a wake of curses and grunts and curious glances. On a streetwhere nearly everyone trots but few gallop, the sight of a running mancatches the popular interest instantly, the common theory being that therunner has done something wrong and is trying to get away, else he wouldnot run. 

The instant the negro turned his back on him, Trencher slid inside therecessed entrance of the clothing store and flattened himself againstits door. If chance had timed the occurrence just right he would win thereprieve that he required for what he meant next to undertake. And sureenough, as it turned out, chance had so timed it. 

 * * * * *

For just as he pressed his bulk into the recess the man hunt manifesteditself. Bursting headlong out of the front of Wallinger's Hotel came apoliceman--doubtlessly the one already seen by Trencher--and just behindthe policeman a roughly dressed bearded man, and with these two, attheir heels, a jostling impetuous swarm of other men, to be joinedinstantly by yet more men, who had run round the corner of the hotelfrom Thirty-ninth Street, instead of passing through its lobby. For theveriest fraction of time they all slowed down, casting about them withtheir eyes for a trail to follow. 

Trencher, looking slantwise to the south, could see them plainly. Theforemost members of the hesitating and uncertain group were not sixtyfeet from him. He forgot to breathe. 

Then, all together, half a dozen pointing arms were flung out to thenorth. 

"There he goes, officer, runnin'! See 'im yonder? See 'im?"

With a forward surge and a great clatter of feet the hunt was renewed. Past Trencher's refuge, with never a look this way or that, thepoliceman, the bearded man, all the rest of them, went pelting along thesidewalk, giving tongue like beagles. He could have put forth his handand touched some of them as they sped by him. Numbers of foot travellersjoined in the tail of the chase. Those who did not join it faced aboutto watch. Knowing that for a bit he would practically be free of thedanger of close scrutiny, Trencher stepped out upon the sidewalk andlooking north caught a glimpse of a bent fleeing figure scuttling upBroadway a block and a half beyond. 

By this trick he had broken the trail and sent the pack off on a wrongscent. So far so good. He figured the outlook after this fashion: Setupon earning the double fee promised him the deluded darky, as he couldtell, was still going at top speed, unconscious of any pursuit. If hecontinued to maintain his gait, if none tripped him, the probabilitieswere he would be round the corner in Forty-fifth Street, trying to finda mythical boarding house and a mythical hall boy named Fred, before theforemost of the runners behind overtook and seized him. Then wouldfollow shouts, yells, a babble of accusations, denials of all wrongfulintent by the frightened captive and explanations by him to thepoliceman of his reason for running so hard. 

Following on this the chase would double back on its tracks, and at oncepolicemen in numbers, along with volunteers, would be combing thedistrict for the real fugitive. Still, barring the unforeseen, a fewminutes must intervene before this neighbourhood search would be gettingunder way; and meanwhile the real fugitive, calmly enough, was movingalong in the rear of the rearmost of those who ran without knowing whythey ran. He did not go far though--he dared not go far. Any second thedarky might be tackled and thrown by someone on ahead, and besides theremight be individuals close at hand who had not joined in the hue andcry, but who in some way had learned that the man so badly wanted woresuch-and-such distinguishing garments. 

It was because of this latter contingency that Trencher had not tried toslip back into Thirty-ninth Street. That had been his first impulse, buthe discarded the thought as it came to him. His mind peopled thevicinity immediately south and east of him with potential enemies. Tothe north alone, in the wake of the chase, could he count upon a hope oftransient security, and that would last only for so long as the negrokept going. He could not get away from the spot--yet. And still it wouldbe the height of recklessness for him, dressed as he was, to lingerthere. Temporarily he must bide where he was, and in this swarming, bright-as-day place he must find a hiding place from which he could seewithout being seen, spy without being spied upon or suspected for whathe was. Even as he calculated these obstacles he figured a possible wayout of the double-ended dilemma, or at any rate he figured his next steptoward safety from detection for the moment, and, with continued luck, toward ultimate escape from a perilous spot where now no measure ofimmunity could be either long-lived or dependable. 

I have said he did not go far to reach sanctuary. To be exact he did notgo the length of the block between Thirty-ninth and Fortieth. He wentonly as far as the Clarenden, newest and smartest, and, for the timebeing, most popular of typical Broadway cafés, standing three buildingsnorth of the clothing shop, or a total distance from it, let us say, ofninety feet. It was while he traversed those ninety feet that Trenchersummed up the contingencies that hedged him in and reached hisconclusion. 

In front of the Clarenden against the curbing stood a short line ofwaiting motor vehicles. With one exception they were taxicabs. At thelower end of the queue, though, was a vast gaudy limousine, a brightblue in body colour, with heavy trimmings of brass--and it was empty. The chauffeur, muffled in furs, sat in his place under the overhang ofthe peaked roof, with the glass slide at his right hand lowered and hishead poked out as he peered up Broadway; but the car itself, Trenchersaw, contained no occupant. 

Trencher, drawing up alongside the limousine, was searching vainly for amonogram, a crest or a name on its varnished flank while he spoke. 

"Driver, " he said sharply, "whose car is this?"

"Mr. O'Gavin's, " the chauffeur answered without turning to look at theperson asking the question. 

Trencher played a blind lead and yet not such a very blind lead either. Big as New York was there was likely to be but one O'Gavin in it whowould have a car such as this one anchored in front of theClarenden--and that would be the noted bookmaker. Trencher played hiscard. 

"Jerome O'Gavin's, eh?" he inquired casually as though stating aforegone conclusion. 

"Yes, sir; it's his car. " And now the driver twisted his body andhalf-faced Trencher. "Say, boss, what's all the row about yonder?"

"Crowd chasing a pickpocket, I imagine, " said Trencher indifferently. Then putting a touch of impatience in his voice: "Where isO'Gavin--inside?"

"Yes, sir! Said he'd be ready to go uptown at eleven. Must be near thatnow. "

"Pretty near it. I was to meet him here at eleven myself and I thought Irecognised his car. "

"You'll find him in the grill, I guess, sir, " said the driver, puttinginto the remark the tone of deference due to someone who was a friend ofhis employer's. "I understood him to say he had an appointment with somegentleman there. Was it you?"

"No, but I know who the gentleman is, " said Trencher. "The other man'snot such a very good friend of mine--that's why I'd rather wait outsidefor Jerome than to go in there. " He made a feint at looking at hiswatch. "Hum, ten minutes more. Tell you what I think I'll do, driver: Ithink I'll just hop inside the car until O'Gavin comes out--better thanloafing on the sidewalk, eh?"

"Just as you say. Make yourself comfortable, sir. Shall I switch on thelights?"

"No, never mind the lights, thank you. " Trencher was already takingshelter within the limousine, making himself small on the wide back seatand hauling a thick rug up over his lap. Under the rug one knee was bentupward and the fingers of one hand were swiftly undoing the buttons ofone fawn-coloured spat. If the chauffeur had chanced to glance back hewould have seen nothing unusual going on. The chauffeur, though, neverglanced back. He was staring dead ahead again. 

"Say, boss, they've caught the pickpocket--if that's what he was, " hecried out excitedly. "They're bringing him back. "

"Glad they nailed him, " answered Trencher through the glass that wasbetween them. He had one spat off and was now unfastening its mate. 

"It looks like a nigger, " added the chauffeur, supplying a freshbulletin as the captive was dragged nearer. "It is a nigger! Had hisnerve with him, trying to pull off a trick in this part of town. "

Through the right-hand side window Trencher peered out as the mass movedby--in front a panting policeman with his one hand gripped fast in thecollar of Trencher's late messenger, and all about the pair and behindthem a jostling, curious crowd of men and women. 

"De gen'l'man dat sent me fur his bag is right down yere, I keepstellin' you, " Trencher heard the scared darky babbling as he was yankedpast Trencher's refuge. 

"All right then, show him to me, that's all, " the officer was sayingimpatiently. 

The chauffeur twisted about in his place, following the spectacle withhis eyes. But Trencher had quit looking that way and was looking anotherway. The centre of excitement had been moved again--instead of beingnorth of him it was now approximately ninety feet south, and he, thanksto the shift, was once more behind it. Peering through the glass hewatched the entrance to the Clarenden. 

There he saw what he wanted to see--a tall man in a wide-brimmed softdark hat and a long dark topcoat going up the short flight of steps thatled from the pavement into the building. Trencher wadded the spatstogether and rammed them down out of sight between the back cushion andthe under cushion of the car seat, and with his overcoat inside out onhis left arm he opened the door and stepped out of the car. This retreathad served his purpose admirably; it was time to abandon it. 

"Changed my mind, " he said, in explanation. "If O'Gavin doesn't hurry upwe'll be late for an engagement we've got uptown. I'm going in afterhim. "

"Yes; all right, sir, " assented the chauffeur with his attention verymuch elsewhere. 

In long steps Trencher crossed the sidewalk and ran up the steps sobriskly that he passed through the door at the top of the short flightdirectly behind and almost touching the tall man in the dark hat andblack coat. His heart beat fast; he was risking everything practicallyon the possibilities of what this other man meant to do. 

The other man did exactly what Trencher was hoping he would do. Heturned left and made for the Clarenden's famous Chinese lounging room, which in turn opened into the main restaurant. Trencher slipped nimblyby his quarry and so beat him to where two young women in glorifieduniforms of serving maids were stationed to receive wraps outside thechecking booth; a third girl was inside the booth, her job being to takeover checked articles from her sister helpers. 

It befell therefore that Trencher surrendered his brown derby and hisshort tan coat, received a pasteboard check in exchange for them and sawthem passed in over a flat shelf to be put on a hook, before the otherman had been similarly served. When the other, now revealed as wearing adinner jacket, came through the Orientalised passageway into the lounge, Trencher was quite ready for him. In his life Trencher had never pickeda pocket, but as one thoroughly versed in the professionalism of thecrime world, in which he was a distinguished figure, he knew how thetrick, which is the highest phase of the art of the pickpocket, isachieved. 

The thing was most neatly and most naturally accomplished. As the man inthe dinner coat came just opposite him Trencher, swinging inward asthough to avoid collision with the end of an upholstered couch, bumpedinto him, breast to breast. 

"I beg your pardon, " he said in contrite tones for his seemingawkwardness, and as he said it two darting fingers and the thumb of hisright hand found and invaded the little slit of the stranger's waistcoatpocket, whisking out the check which the stranger had but a momentbefore, with Trencher watching, deposited there. 

"Granted--no harm done, " said the man who had been jostled, and passedon leaving Trencher still uttering apologetic sounds. Palming theprecious pasteboard, which meant so much to him, Trencher stood where hewas until he saw the unsuspecting victim pass on through into the caféand join two other men, who got up from a table in the far corner nearone of the front windows to greet him. 

Trencher followed leisurely to where a captain of waiters stood guard atthe opening in the dividing partition between the lounge and therestaurant. Before him at his approach this functionary bowed. 

"Alone, sir?" he inquired obsequiously. 

"Yes and no, " replied Trencher; "I'm alone now but I'll be back in halfan hour with three others. I want to engage a table for four--not tooclose to the orchestra. " He slipped a dollar bill into the captain'shand. 

"Very good, sir. What name, sir?"

"Tracy is the name, " said Trencher. 

"Quite so, sir. "

The captain turned to serve a party of men and women, and Trencher fellback. He idled back through the Chinese room, vigilant to note whetherany of the persons scattered about it were regarding him with more thana casual interest or, more important still, whether any there presentknew him personally. 

Reassured on this point he stepped out of the room and along with aquarter for a tip tendered to one of the maids the check he had justpilfered, meanwhile studying her face closely for any signs that sherecalled him as one who had dealt with her within the space of a minuteor so. But nothing in her looks betrayed recognition or curiosity as shebestirred herself to reclaim the articles for which the check was avoucher of ownership, and to help him into them. 

Ten seconds later Trencher, a personality transformed, stood quite athis ease on the top step of the flight outside the entrance to theClarenden looking into Broadway. The long dark overcoat which he nowwore, a commonplace roomy garment, fitted him as though it had been hisown. With its collar turned up about his cheeks it helped admirably todisguise him. The soft black hat was a trifle large for his head. Somuch the better--it came well down over his face. 

The huge illuminated hands of a clock set in the middle of a winking, blinking electric sign a few blocks north, at the triangular gore whereSeventh Avenue crosses Broadway, told him the time--six minutes ofeleven. To Trencher it seemed almost that hours must have passed sincehe shot down Sonntag, and yet here was proof that not more than tenminutes--or at the most, twelve--had elapsed. Well, he had worked fastand with results gratifying. The spats that might have betrayed himwere safely hidden in one place--yonder between the seat cushions ofO'Gavin's car, which stood where he had left it, not thirty feetdistant. His telltale overcoat and his derby hat were safely bestowed inthe café check room behind him awaiting a claimant who meant never toreturn. Even if they should be found and identified as having been wornby the slayer of Sonntag, their presence there, he figured, would butserve to confuse the man hunt. Broadway's living tides flowed by, itscomponent atoms seemingly ignorant of the fact that just round thecorner below a man had been done to death. Only at the intersection ofThirty-ninth Street was there evidence, in the quick movement ofpedestrians out of Broadway into the cross street, that somethingunusual served to draw foot passengers off their course. 

In front of the clothing shop three doors south of him no specialcongestion of traffic revealed itself; no scrouging knot of citizens wasto be seen, and by that Trencher reasoned that the negro had been takenelsewhere by his captors--very probably to where the body would still belying, hunched up in the shadow before the Jollity's side doors. Fromthe original starting point the hunt doubtlessly was now reorganising. One thing was certain--it had not eddied back this far. The men of thelaw would be working on a confused basis yet awhile, anyhow. AndTrencher meant to twistify the clews still further, for all that hefelt safe enough already. For the first time a sense of securityexhilarated him. Almost it was a sense of exultation. 

He descended the steps and went straight to the nearest of the rank ofparked taxicabs. Its driver was nowhere in sight. A carriage starter forthe café, in gorgeous livery, understood without being told what thetall muffled-up gentleman desired and blew a shrill blast on a whistle. At that the truant driver appeared, coming at a trot from down thestreet. 

"'Scuse me, mister, " he said as he mounted to his seat at the wheel. "Been a shootin' down the street. Guy got croaked, they say, and theycan't find the guy that croaked um. "

"Never mind the shooting, " said Trencher as he climbed into the cab, whose door the starter had opened for him. 

"Where to, gent?"

"Harty's Palm Garden, " said Trencher, naming a restaurant a mile and ahalf away, straight up Broadway. His main thought now was to getentirely out of this part of town. 

Riding along uptown Trencher explored the pockets of the pilferedovercoat. The search produced a pair of heavy gloves, a waddedhandkerchief, two cigars, a box of matches, and, last of all, atriangular brass token inscribed with a number and a firm name. Withoutthe imprint of the name Trencher would have recognised it, from itsshape alone. It had come from the check room in the upper-tier waitingroom of the Grand Central Station. Discovery of it gave him a newidea--an idea involving no added risk but having in it addedpossibilities for insuring the ultimate success of his get-away. In anyevent there could be neither harm nor enhanced danger in putting it intoexecution. 

Therefore, when he had emerged from the cab at Harty's and had paid thefare and had seen the driver swing his vehicle about and start off backdowntown, he walked across Columbus Circle to the west curve of it, climbed into another taxicab and was driven by way of Fifty-ninth Streetand Fifth Avenue to the Grand Central. Here at the establishment of theluggage-checking concessionaire on the upper level of the big terminalhe tendered the brass token to a drowsy-eyed attendant, receiving inexchange a brown-leather suit case with letters stenciled on one end ofit, like this:

 M. K. P. STAMFORD, CONN. 

Waving aside a red-capped negro porter, Trencher, carrying the spoil ofhis latest coup, departed via one of the Vanderbilt Avenue exits. Diagonally across the avenue was a small drug store still open forbusiness at this hour, as the bright lights within proved. Above itsdoor showed the small blue sign that marked it as containing atelephone pay booth. For Trencher's purposes a closed booth in a smallmercantile establishment was infinitely to be preferred to the publicexchange in the terminal--less chance that the call could be traced backto its source, less chance, too, that some inquisitive operator, tryingto kill time during a dull hour, might listen in on the wire, and sodoing overhear things not meant for her ears. He crossed over andentered the drug store. 

Except for a sleepy clerk at the rear there was no one visible withinthe place. Trencher crowded his bulk into the booth, dropped therequisite coin in the slot and very promptly got back the answering hailfrom a certain number that he had called--a number at a place in thelower fringe of the old Tenderloin. 

"Is that the Three Deuces?" asked Trencher. Then: "Who's speaking--you, Monty? . . . Know who this is, at this end? . . . Yes, that's right. Say, is the Kid there--Kid Dineen? . . . Good! Call him to the phone, will you, Monty? And tell him to hurry--it's devilish important. "

A short pause followed and when Trencher spoke again he had dropped hisvoice to a cautious half-whisper, vibrant and tense with urgency. Alsonow he employed some of the argot of the underworld:

"Hello, Kid, hello! Recognise my voice, don't you? . . . Good! Now listen:I'm in a jam. . . . What? . . . Never mind what it is; you'll know when yousee the papers in the morning if you don't know sooner. I've got to lam, and lam quick. Right now I've got the bulls stalled off good and proper, but I can't tell how long they'll stay stalled off. Get me? So I don'twant to be showing my map round any ticket windows. So here's what Iwant you to do. Get some coin off of Monty, if you haven't got enough onyou. Then you beat it over to the Pennsylvania Station and buy me aticket for Pittsburgh and a section in the sleeper on the train thatleaves round one-twenty-five to-night. Then go over on Ninth Avenue toSilver's place----What? . . . Yes; sure, that's the place. Wait for methere in the little room upstairs over the bar, on the second floor. They've got to make a bluff of closing up at one, but you know how toget up into the room, don't you? . . . Good! Wait for me till I show up, orif I get there first I'll wait for you. I ought to show inside of anhour from now--maybe in less time than that if things keep on breakingright. Then I'll get the ducats off of you and beat it across throughthe Hudson Tube to the Manhattan Transfer and grab the rattler overthere in Jersey when she comes along from this side. That'll be all. Nowhustle!"

From the drug store he went, carrying the brown suit case withhim, round into Forty-second Street. He had taken a mental noteof the initials on the bag, but to make sure he was right he lookedat them again before he entered the big Bellhaven Hotel by itsForty-second-Street door. At sight of him a bell boy ran across thelobby and took from him his burden. The boy followed him, a pace inthe rear, to the desk, where a spruce young gentleman awaited theircoming. "Can I get a room with bath for the night--a quiet insideroom where I'll be able to sleep as late as I please in the morning?"inquired Trencher. 

"Certainly, sir. " The room clerk appraised Trencher with a practicedeye. "Something for about four dollars?"

"That'll do very well, " agreed Trencher, taking the pen which the clerkhad dipped in ink and handed over to him. 

Bearing in mind the letters and the address on the suit case, Trencherregistered as M. K. Potter, Stamford, Conn. Meanwhile the clerk hadtaken a key from a rack containing a vast number of similar keys. 

"I won't leave a call--and I don't want to be disturbed, " warnedTrencher. 

"Very well, sir. Front! Show the gentleman to 1734. " Five minutes laterTrencher, in an inner room on the seventeenth floor, with the doorlocked on the inside, had sprung the catch of the brown suit case andwas spreading its contents out upon the bed, smiling his satisfaction ashe did so. Plainly fortune was favouring him at each new turning. 

For here was a somewhat rumpled black suit and along with it ablue-striped shirt, showing slight signs of recent wear, a turndowncollar that was barely soiled, and a plain black four-in-hand tie. Trencher went through the pockets of the suit, finding several lettersaddressed to Marcus K. Parker at an address in Broad Street, down in thefinancial district. Sewn in the lining of the inner breast pocket of thecoat was a tailor's label also bearing the same name. At the sightTrencher grinned. He had not missed it very far. He had registered asPotter, whereas now he knew that the proper owner of the suit case mustbe named Parker. 

Parker, he figured, belonged to the race of commuters; evidently helived in Stamford and did business in New York. Accepting this as thecorrect hypothesis the rest of the riddle was easy to read. Mr. Parker, coming to town that morning, had brought with him his dinner rig in asuit case. 

Somewhere, probably at his office, he had changed from his everyday garbto the clothes he brought with him, then he had packed his streetclothes into the bag and brought it uptown with him and checked it atthe Grand Central, intending after keeping his evening engagements toreclaim the baggage before catching a late train for Stamford. 

Fine! Results from Trencher's standpoint could hardly have been morepleasing. Exulting inwardly over the present development and workingfast, he stripped off his clothing down to his shoes and hisundergarments--first, though, emptying his own pockets of the money theycontained, both bills and silver, and of sundry personal belongings, such as a small pocketknife, a fountain pen, a condensed railway guideand the slip of pasteboard that represented the hat and coat left behindat the Clarenden. Then he put on the things that had come out of theStamford man's bag--the shirt, the collar and the tie, and finally theouter garments, incidentally taking care to restore to Parker's coatpocket all of Parker's letters. 

This done he studied himself in the glass of the chiffonier and wasdeeply pleased. Mirrored there he saw a different man from the one whohad rented the room. When he quit this hotel, as presently he meant todo, he would not be Trencher, the notorious confidence man who had shota fellow crook, nor yet would he be the Thompson who had sent a darkyfor a bag, nor the Tracy who had picked a guest's pocket at afashionable restaurant, nor yet the Potter who had engaged a room withbath for a night. From overcoat and hat to shoes and undergarments hewould be Mr. Marcus K. Parker, a thoroughly respectable gentleman, residing in the godly town of Stamford and engaged in reputablemercantile pursuits in Broad Street--with opened mail in his pocket toprove it. 

The rest would be simplicity. He had merely to slip out of the hotel, carrying the key to 1734 with him. Certainly it would be as late as noonthe following day before chambermaid or clerk tried to rouse thesupposed occupant of the empty room. In all likelihood it would be laterthan noon. He would have at least twelve hours' start, even though theauthorities were nimble-witted enough to join up the smaller mystery ofan abandoned suit case belonging to one man and an abandoned outfit ofclothing belonging to another, with the greater and seeminglyunconnected mystery of the vanishment of the suspect in the Sonntaghomicide case. Long before this potential eventuality could by anychance develop, he meant, under another name and in another disguise, tobe hidden away at a quiet boarding house that he knew of in a certainobscure factory town on a certain trolley line leading out fromPittsburgh. 

Now to clear out. He bestowed in various pockets his money, his knife, his pen and his railway guide, not one of these having upon it anyidentifying marks; he pouched his small change and his roll of bills. Nothing remained to be disposed of or accounted for save the pasteboardsquare that represented the coat and hat left behind at the Clarenden. When this had been torn into fine and indistinguishable bits and when asa final precaution the fragments had been tossed out of the window, thelast possible evidence to link the pseudo Parker with the real Trencherin this night's transactions would be gone. 

He had the slip in his hands and his fingers were in the act of twistingit in halves when the thought that something had been overlooked--somethingvitally important--came to him; and he paused to cogitate. What had beenforgotten? What had he overlooked? What had he left undone that shouldhave been done? Then suddenly appreciation of the thing missing came tohim and in a quick panic of apprehension he felt through all the pocketsof Parker's suit and through the pockets of his own garments, where hehad flung them down on the bed, alongside the rifled suit case. 

His luck piece was gone--that was it! The old silver trade dollar, wornthin and smooth by years of handling and with the hole drilled throughthe centre of it--that was what was gone--his token, his talisman, hischarm against evil fortune. He had carried it for years, ever since hehad turned crook, and for nothing in this world would he have partedfrom it. 

In a mounting flurry of superstitious terror he searched the pocketsagain, with fingers that shook--this man who had lost faith in humanbeings, who had no hope and no fear for the hereafter, who had felt nostabs of regret or repentance for having killed a man, whose thoughtshad never known remorse for any misdeed of his. The second hunt and thethird and the fourth were fruitless as his first one had been;Trencher's luck piece was gone. 

Those wise men, the alienists, say that all of us are insane on certainsubjects, however sane we may be upon other subjects. Certainly in themental composition of every one of us is some quirk, some vagary, somedear senseless delusion, avowed or private. As for Trencher, the onecrotchet in his cool brain centred about that worthless trade dollar. With it in his possession he had counted himself a winner, always. Without it he felt himself to be a creature predestined and foreordainedto disaster. 

To it he gave all the credit for the fact that he had never served aprison sentence. But once, and once only, had he parted company with it, even temporarily. That was the time when Murtha, that crafty oldCentral-Office hand, had picked him up on general principles, had takenhim to headquarters, and first stripping him of all the belongings onhis person, had carried him to the Bertillon Bureau, and then and there, without shadow of legal right, since Trencher was neither formallyaccused of nor formally indicted for any offence and had no previousrecord of convictions, had forced him to undergo the ordeals, ethicallyso repugnant to the instincts of the professional thief, of beingmeasured and finger-printed and photographed, side face and full face. He had cursed and protested and pleaded when Murtha confiscated theluck piece; he had rejoiced when Murtha, seeing no harm in the thing, had restored it to him before lodging him in a cell under theall-embracing technical charge of being a suspicious person. Because hehad so speedily got it back, Trencher had gone free again with the lossof but two days of liberty--or anyway, so Trencher firmly believed. Butbecause it had left his custody for no more than an hour his pictureswere now in the Gallery, and Murtha had learned the secret of Trencher'sone temperamental weakness, one fetish. 

And now--at this time, of all times--it was gone again. But where had itgone? Where could it have gone? Mentally he reconstructed all his acts, all his movements since he had risen that morning and dressed--and thenthe solution came to him, and with the solution complete remembrance. Hehad slipped it into the right-hand pocket of the new tan-colouredtopcoat--to impregnate the garment with good luck and to enhance theprospects for a successful working-out of the scheme to despoil theWyoming cattleman; and he had left it there. And now here he was up onthe seventeenth floor of the Bellhaven Hotel and the fawn-coloured coatwith the luck piece in one of its pockets dangled on a hook in the cloakbooth of the Clarenden café, less than a block away from the spot wherehe had shot Sonntag. 

He marvelled that without his talisman he had escaped arrest up to now;it was inconceivable that he had won his way thus far. But then theanswer to that was, of course, that he had retained the pasteboardsquare that stood for possession of the coat itself. He gave thanks tothe unclean spirits of his superstition that apprehension of his losshad come to him before he destroyed the slip. Had he gone ahead and tornit up he would now count himself as doomed. But he hadn't torn it up. There it lay on the white coverlet of the bed. 

He must make a try to recover his luck piece; no other course occurredto him. Trying would be beset with hazards, accumulated and thickening. He must venture back into the dangerous territory; must dare deadfallsand pitfalls; must run the chance of possible traps and probable nets. By now the police might have definitely ascertained who it was thatkilled Sonntag; or lacking the name of the slayer they might havesecured a reasonably complete description of him; might have spread thegeneral alarm for a man of such and such a height and such and such aweight, with such a nose and such eyes and such hair and all the rest ofit. It might be that the Clarenden was being watched, along with theother public resorts in the immediate vicinity of where the homicide hadbeen committed. It might even be that back in the Clarenden he wouldencounter the real Parker face to face. Suppose Parker had finished hissupper and had discovered his loss--losses rather--and had made acomplaint to the management; and suppose as a result of Parker'sindignation that members of the uniformed force had been called in toadjudicate the wrangle; suppose through sheer coincidence Parker shouldsee Trencher and should recognise the garments that Trencher wore as hisown. Suppose any one of a half dozen things. Nevertheless, he meant togo back. He would take certain precautions--for all the need of haste, he must take them--but he would go back. 

He put the pink check into his waistcoat pocket, switched out the roomlight, locked the door of the room on the outside, took the key with himand went down in an elevator, taking care to avoid using the sameelevator that shortly before brought him up to this floor level. Presently he was outside the hotel, hurrying afoot on his return toBroadway. On the way he pitched the key into an areaway. 

Turning out of Forty-second Street into Broadway and thence going southto a point just below the intersection with Fortieth Street, heapproached the Clarenden from the opposite side of Broadway. There wasmotive in this. One coming across from the opposite side and lookingupward at a diagonal slant could see through the windows along the frontside of the Clarenden with some prospect of making out the faces of suchdiners as sat at tables near the windows. Straining his eyes as hecrossed over, Trencher thought he recognised his man. He was almostsure he made out the outlined head and shoulders of Parker sitting at acorner table alongside the last window in the row. He trusted he wasright and trusted still more fervently that Parker would bide where hewas for three or four minutes longer. 

Tucking his head well down inside his upturned collar and giving thebrim of his hat a tug to bring it still farther forward over his eyes, he took a long breath, like a man preparing for a dive in cold water, and went up the flight of stairs from the sidewalk into the building. Noone inside made as if to halt him; no one so far as he could tell gavehim in passing even an impersonal look. There was a wash room, asTrencher knew, at the back end of the ornate hall which separated theChinese lounge and the main café on one side, from the private diningrooms and tea rooms on the other. That wash room was his presentdestination. 

He reached it without mishap, to find it deserted except for a boy inbuttons. To the boy he surrendered hat and overcoat, and then in themidst of a feint at hitching up his shirt cuffs, as though meaning towash his hands, he snapped his fingers impatiently. 

"I forgot something, " he said for the boy's benefit; "left it in thecafé. Say, kid, watch my hat and coat, will you? I'll be back in aminute. "

"Yes, sir, " promised the youth. "I'll take good care of 'em. "

Bareheaded as he now was and lacking the overcoat, Trencher realised thechief elements of his disguise were missing; still there had been forhim no other course to follow than this risky one. He could not claimownership of one coat and one hat while wearing another coat and anotherhat--that was certain. As he neared his goal he noted that both themaids on the outside of the booth were for the instant engaged inhelping the members of a group of men and women on with their outdoorwraps. So much the better for him. He headed straight for the third girlof the force, the one whose station was within the open-fronted booth. In front of her on the flat shelf intervening between them he laid downthe numbered pink slip, which in the scheme of his hopes and fears stoodfor so much. 

"Never mind my hat, miss, " he said, making his tone casual; "I'm notthrough with my supper yet. But just let me have my coat for one minute, will you, please? I want to get something out of one of the pockets toshow to a friend. "

There was nothing unusual, nothing unconventional about the request. Thegirl glanced at the figures on the check, then stepped back into hercuddy, seeking among rows of burdened hooks for whatsoever articleswould be on the hook bearing corresponding figures. To Trencher, dreading the advent of the Stamford man out of the Chinese roomalongside him and yet not daring to turn his head to look, it seemed shewas a very long time finding the hook. In reality the time she took wasto be gauged by seconds rather than by minutes. 

"Is this the garment you desired, sir?" Speaking with an affectedEnglish drawl and with neither curiosity nor interest in her face, thegirl laid across her counter the tan-coloured overcoat, one of its bigsmoked-pearl buttons glinting dimly iridescent in the light as shespread it out. 

"That's it, thank you. Just one moment and I'll give it back to you. "

Trencher strove to throttle and succeeded fairly well in throttling theeager note in his voice as he took up the coat by its collar in his lefthand. 

The fingers trembled in spite of him as he thrust his right hand intothe right-hand pocket. Twitching and groping they closed on what washidden there--a slick, cool, round, flat, thin object, trade-dollarsize. At the touch of the thing he sought and for all, too, that hestood in such perilous case, Trencher's heart jumped with relief andgratification. No need for him to look to make sure that he had his luckpiece. He knew it by its feel and its heft and its size; besides the tipof one finger, sliding over its smooth rimless surface, had found in thecentre of it the depression of the worn hole, and the sensitive nerveshad flashed the news to his brain. He slid it into a trousers pocket andpassed the coat back to the girl; and almost before she had restored itto its appointed hook, Trencher had regained the shelter of the washroom and was repossessing himself of the slouch hat and the long blackovercoat. 

Back once more to the street he made the journey safely, nothinghappening on the way out into the November night to alarm him. Thewinking, blinking electrically jewelled clock in the sign up the streettold him it was just five minutes past midnight. He headed north, butfor a few rods only. At Fortieth Street he turned west for a short blockand at Seventh Avenue he hailed a south-bound trolley car. But beforeboarding the car he cast a quick backward scrutiny along the route hehad come. Cabs moved to and fro, shuttle fashion, but seemingly nopedestrians were following behind him. 

He was not particularly fearful of being pursued. Since he had clearedout from the Clarenden without mishap it was scarcely to be figured thatanyone would or could now be shadowing him. He felt quite secureagain--as secure as he had felt while in the locked room in theBellhaven, because now he had in his custody that which gave him, indouble and triple measure, the sense of assurance. One hand was thrustdeep into his trousers pocket, where it caressed and fondled the flatperforated disk that was there. It pleased him to feel the thing growwarmer under his fingers, guaranteeing him against mischance. He did notso much as twist his head to glance out of the car window as the carpassed Thirty-ninth Street. 

At Thirtieth Street he got off the car and walked west to Silver'splace. Ninth Avenue was almost empty and, as compared with Broadway, layin deep shadows. The lights of the bar, filtering through the filmedglass in one window of Silver's, made a yellowish blur in what wasotherwise a row of blank, dead house fronts. Above the saloon thesquatty three-story building was all dark, and from this circumstanceTrencher felt sure he had come to the rendezvous before the Kid arrived. Alongside the saloon door he felt his way into a narrow entryway thatwas as black as a coal bunker and went up a flight of wooden steps tothe second floor. At the head of the steps he fumbled with his handuntil he found a doorknob. As he knew, this door would not be lockedexcept from the inside; unless it contained occupants it was neverlocked. He knew, too, what furniture it contained--one table and threeor four chairs. Steering a careful course to avoid bumping into thetable, which, as he recalled, should be in the middle of the floor, hefound the opposite wall and, after a moment's search with his hands, asingle electric bulb set in a wall bracket. He flipped on the light. 

"That's right, " said a voice behind him. "Now that you've got your mittsup, keep 'em up!"

As regards the position of his hands Trencher obeyed. He turned his headthough, and over his shoulder he looked into the middle-aged face ofMurtha, of the Central Office. Murtha's right hand was in his coatpocket and Trencher knew that Murtha had him covered--through the clothof the coat. 

"Hello, Murtha, " said Trencher steadily enough, "what's the idea?"

"The idea is for you to stand right where you are without making anybreaks until I get through frisking you, " said Murtha. 

On noiseless feet he stepped across the floor, Trencher's back beingstill to him, and one of his hands, the left one, with deft movementsshifted about over Trencher's trunk, searching for a weapon. 

"Got no gat on you, eh?" said Murtha. "Well, that's good. Now then, bring your hands down slow, and keep 'em close together. That'sit--slow. I'm taking no chances, understand, and you'd better not takeany either. "

Again Trencher obeyed. Still standing behind him Murtha slipped his armsabout Trencher's middle and found first one of Trencher's wrists andthen the other. There was a subdued clicking of steel mechanisms. 

"Now then, " said Murtha, falling back a pace or two, "I guess you canturn round if you want to. "

Trencher turned round. He glanced at his hands, held in enforcedcompanionship by the short chain of the handcuffs, and then steadily athis captor. 

"Why so fussy, Murtha?" he asked in a slightly contemptuous tone. "Younever heard of me starting any rough stuff when there was a pinch comingoff, did you?"

"That's true, " said the detective; "but when a gun's just bumped off oneguy he's liable to get the habit of bumping off other guys. Even a swellgun like you is. So that's why I've been just a trifle particular. "

"You're crazy, man! Who says I bumped anybody off?"

"I do, for one, " replied Murtha cheerfully. "Still that's neither herenor there, unless you feel like telling me all about what came off overin Thirty-ninth Street to-night. 

"You've always been a safety player so far as I know--and I'm curious toknow what made you start in using a cannon on folks all of a sudden. Atthat, I might guess--knowing Sonntag like I did. "

"I don't know what you're talking about, " parried Trencher. "I tell youyou've got me wrong. You can't frame me for something I didn't do. Ifsomebody fixed Sonntag it wasn't me. I haven't seen him sinceyesterday. I'm giving it to you straight. "

"Oh well, we won't argue that now, " said Murtha affably. In his mannerwas something suggestive of the cat that has caught the king of therats. A tremendous satisfaction radiated from him. "You can stall somepeople, son, but you can't stall me. I've got you and I've got the goodson you--that's sufficient. But before you and me glide down out of heretogether and start for the front office I'd like to talk a little withyou. Set down, why don't you, and make yourself comfortable?" Heindicated a chair. 

Trencher took the chair and Murtha, after springing a catch which hefound on the inner side of the door, sat down in another. 

"I've got to hand it to you, Trencher, " went on the detectiveadmiringly. "You sure do work swift. You didn't lose much time climbinginto that outfit you're wearing. How did you get into it so quick? And, putting one thing with another, I judge you made a good fast get-awaytoo. Say, listen, Trencher, you might as well come clean with me. I'llsay this for Sonntag--he's been overdue for a croaking this long time. If I've got to spare anybody out of my life I guess it might as well behim--that's how I stand. He belonged to the Better-Dead Club to startwith, Sonntag did. If it was self-defence and you can prove it, I've gotno kick coming. All I want is the credit for nailing you all by mylonesome. Why not slip me the whole tale now, and get it off your chest?You don't crave for any of this here third-degree stuff down atheadquarters, and neither do I. Why not spill it to me now and savetrouble all round?"

His tone was persuasive, wheedling, half friendly. Trencher merely shookhis head, forcing a derisive grin to his lips. 

"Can the bull, Murtha, " he said. "You haven't got a thing on me and youknow it. "

"Is that so? Well, just to play the game fair, suppose I tell you someof the things I've got on you--some of them. But before I start I'mgoing to tell you that your big mistake was in coming back to whereyou'd left that nice new yellow overcoat of yours. Interested, eh?" hesaid, reading the expression that came into Trencher's face in spite ofTrencher's efforts. "All right then, I'll go on. You had a good prospectof getting out of town before daylight, but you chucked your chance whenyou came back to the Clarenden a little while ago. But at that I wasexpecting you; in fact, I don't mind telling you that I was standingbehind some curtains not fifteen feet from that check room when youshowed up. I could have grabbed you then, of course, but just betweenyou and me I didn't want to run the risk of having to split the creditfifty-fifty with any bull, in harness or out of it, that might comebutting in. The neighbourhood was lousy with cops and plain-clothes menhunting for whoever it was that bumped off Sonntag; they're still there, I guess, hunting without knowing who it is they're looking for, andwithout having a very good description of you, either. I was the onlyfellow that had the right dope, and that came about more by accidentthan anything else. So I took a chance, myself. I let you get away andthen I trailed you--in a taxi. 

"All the time you was on that street car I was riding along right behindyou, and I came up these steps here not ten feet behind you. I wantedyou all for myself and I've got you all by myself. "

"You don't hate yourself, exactly, do you?" said Trencher. "Well, without admitting anything--because there's nothing to admit--I'd liketo know, if you don't mind, how you dope it out that I had anything todo with Sonntag's being killed--that is if you're not lying about himbeing killed?"

"I don't mind, " said Murtha blithely. "It makes quite a tale, but I canboil it down. I wasn't on duty to-night--by rights this was a night offfor me. I had a date at the Clarenden at eleven-thirty to eat a bitewith a brother-in-law of mine and a couple of friends of his--a fellownamed Simons and a fellow named Parker, from Stamford. 

"I judge it's Parker's benny and dicer you're wearing now. 

"Well, anyhow, on my way to the Clarenden about an hour or so ago I buttright into the middle of all the hell that's being raised over thisshooting in Thirty-ninth Street. One of the precinct plain-clothes menthat's working on the case tells me a tall guy in a brown derby hat anda short yellow overcoat is supposed to have pulled off the job. Thatdidn't mean anything to me, and even if it had I wouldn't have figuredyou out as having been mixed up in it. Anyway, it's no lookout of mine. So I goes into the Clarenden and has a rarebit and a bottle of beer withmy brother-in-law and the others. 

"About half-past eleven we all start to go, and then this party, Parker, can't find his coat check. He's sure he stuck it in his vest pocket whenhe blew in, but it ain't there. We look for it on the floor but it's notthere, either. Then all of a sudden Parker remembers that a man in abrown derby, with a coat turned inside out over his arm, who seemed tobe in a hurry about something, came into the Clarenden along with him, and that a minute later in that Chinese room the same fellow butts intohim. That gives me an idea, but I don't tell Parker what's on my mind. Isends the head waiter for the house detective, and when the housedetective comes I show him my badge, and on the strength of that he letsme and Parker go into the cloak room. Parker's hoping to find his owncoat and I'm pretending to help him look for it, but what I'm reallylooking for is a brown derby hat and a short yellow coat--and sureenough I find 'em. But Parker can't find his duds at all; and so inputting two and two together it's easy for me to figure how the switchwas made. I dope it out that the fellow who lifted Parker's check andtraded his duds for Parker's is the same fellow who fixed Sonntag'sclock. Also I've got a pretty good line on who that party is; in fact Ipractically as good as know who it is. 

"So I sends Parker and the others back to the table to smoke a cigar andstick round awhile, and I hang round the door keeping out of sightbehind them draperies where I can watch the check room. Because, yousee, Trencher, I knew you were the guy and I knew you'd come back--ifyou could get back. "

He paused as though expecting a question, but Trencher stayed silent andMurtha kept on. 

"And now I'm going to tell you how I come to know you was the rightparty. You remember that time about two years ago when I ran you in as asuspect and down at headquarters you bellyached so loud because I took abum old coin off of you? Well, when I went through that yellow overcoatand found your luck piece, as you call it, in the right-hand pocket, Ifelt morally sure, knowing you like I did, that as soon as you missed ityou'd be coming back to try to find it. And sure enough you did comeback. Simple, ain't it?

"The only miscalculation I made was in figuring that when you found itgone from the pocket you'd hang round making a hunt for it on the flooror something. You didn't though. I guess maybe you lost your nerve whenyou found it wasn't in that coat pocket. Is that right?"

"But I did find it!" exclaimed Trencher, fairly jostled out of his poseby these last words from his gloating captor. "I've got it now!"

Murtha's hand stole into his trousers pocket and fondled somethingthere. 

"What'll you bet you've got it now?" he demanded gleefully. "What'll youbet?"

"I'll bet my life--that's all, " answered Trencher. "Here, I'll showyou!"

He stood up. Because his wrists were chained he had to twist his bodysidewise before he could slip one hand into his own trousers pocket. 

He groped in its depths and then brought forth something and held it outin his palm. 

The poor light of the single electric bulb glinted upon an object whichthrew off dulled translucent tints of bluish-green--not a trade dollar, but a big overcoat button the size of a trade dollar--a flat, smooth, rimless disk of smoked pearl with a tiny depression in the middle wherethe thread holes went through. For a little space of time both of themwith their heads bent forward contemplated it. 

Then with a flirt of his manacled hands Trencher flung it away fromhim, and with a sickly pallor of fright and surrender stealing up underthe skin of his cheeks he stared at the detective. 

"You win, Murtha, " he said dully. "What's the use bucking the game afteryour luck is gone? Come on, let's go down-town. Yes, I bumped offSonntag. "

CHAPTER V

QUALITY FOLKS

In our town formerly there were any number of negro children named forCaucasian friends of their parents. Some bore for their names the namesof old masters of the slavery time, masters who had been kindly andgracious and whose memories thereby were affectionately perpetuated;these were mainly of a generation now growing into middle age. Others--Iam speaking still of the namesakes, not of the original bearers of thenames--had been christened with intent to do honour to indulgent andwell-remembered employers of post-bellum days. Thus it might befall, forexample, that Wadsworth Junius Courtney, Esquire, would be a prominentadvocate practicing at the local bar and that Wadsworth Junius CourtneyJones, of colour, would be his janitor and sweep out his office for him. Yet others had been named after white children--and soon after--for thereason that the white children had been given first names having a fine, full, sonorous sound or else a fascinatingly novel sound. 

Of these last there were instances amounting in the aggregate to a smallhost. 

I seem to remember, for example, that once a pink girl-mite came intothe world by way of a bedroom in a large white house on Tilghman Avenueand was at the baptismal font sentenced for life to bear the Christianname of Rowena Hildegarde. 

Or is Rowena Hildegarde a Christian name?

At any rate, within twelve months' time, there were to be found in morecrowded and less affluent quarters of our thriving little city four moreRowena Hildegardes, of tender years, or rather, tender months--two blackones, one chrome-yellow one, and one sepia-brown one. 

But so far as the available records show there was but one white childin our town who bore for its name, bestowed upon it with due knowledgeof the fact and with deliberate intent, the name of a person ofundoubted African descent. However, at this stage to reveal thecircumstances governing this phenomenon would be to run ahead of ourtale and to precipitate its climax before the groundwork were laid forits premise. Most stories should start at the beginning. This one must. 

 * * * * *

From round the left-hand corner of the house came with a sudden blarethe sound of melody--words and music--growing steadily louder as theunseen singer drew nearer. The music was a lusty, deep-volumedcamp-meeting air, with long-drawn quavers and cadences in it. The wordswere as follows:

 _Had a lovin' mother, _ _Been climbin' up de hill so long;_ _She been hopin' git to heaben in due time_ _Befo' dem heaben do's close!_

And then the chorus, voicing first a passionate entreaty, then rising inthe final bars to a great exultant shout:

 _Den chain dat lion down, Good Lawd!_ _Den chain dat lion down!_ _Oh, please!_ _Good Lawd, done chained dat lion down!_ _Done chained dat deadly lion down!_ _Glor-e-e-e!_

The singer, still singing, issued into view, limping slightly--a wizenwoman, coal-black and old, with a white cloth bound about her head, turban fashion, and a man's battered straw hat resting jauntily upon theknotted kerchief. Her calico frock was voluminous, unshapely andstarch-clean. Her under lip was shoved forward as though permanentlytwisted into a spout-shape by the task of holding something against thegums of her lower front teeth, and from one side of her mouth protrudeda bit of wood with the slivered bark on it. One versed in the science offorestry might have recognised the little stub of switch as apeach-tree switch; one bred of the soil would have known its purpose. Neither puckered-out lip nor peach-tree twig seemed to interfere in theleast with her singing. She flung the song out past them--over the lip, round the twig. 

With her head thrown away back, her hands resting on her bony hips, andher feet clunking inside a pair of boys' shoes too large for her, shecrossed the lawn at an angle. In all things about her--in her gait, despite its limp, in her pose, her figure--there was somethingmasterful, something dominating, something tremendously proud. Considering her sparseness of bulk she had a most astoundingly bigstrong voice, and in the voice as in the strut was arrogant pride. 

She crossed the yard and let herself out of a side gate opening upon anempty side street and went out of sight and ultimately out of hearingdown the side street in the hot sunshine of the late afternoon. Butbefore she was out of hearing she had made it plain that not only aloving mother and a loving father, but likewise a loving brother and aloving sister, a loving nephew and a loving uncle, a loving grandmotherand divers other loving relatives--had all been engaged in thehill-climbing pilgrimage along a lion-guarded path. 

The hush that succeeded her departure was a profound hush; indeed, bycomparison with the clamorous outburst that had gone before it seemedalmost ghastly. Not even the shrieks of the caucusing blue jays thatmight now be heard in the oak trees upon the lawn, where they wereholding one of their excited powwows, served to destroy the illusionthat a dead quiet had descended upon a spot lately racked by loudsounds. The well-dressed young man who had been listening with the airof one intent on catching and memorising the air, settled back in thehammock in which he was stretched behind the thick screen of vines thatcovered the wide front porch of the house. 

"The estimable Aunt Charlotte appears to be in excellent voice andspirits to-day, " he said with a wry smile. "I don't know that I everheard her when her top notes carried farther than they did just now. "

The slender black-haired girl who sat alongside him in a porch chairwinced. 

"It's perfectly awful--I know it, " she lamented. "I suppose if Mildredand I have asked her once not to carry on like that here at the front ofthe house we've asked her a hundred times. It's bad enough to have herwhooping like a wild Indian in the kitchen. But it never seems to do anygood. "

"Why don't you try getting rid of her altogether as a remedy?" suggestedthe young man. 

"Get rid of Aunt Sharley! Why, Harvey--why, Mr. Winslow, I mean--wecouldn't do that! Why, Aunt Sharley has always been in our family! Why, she's just like one of us--just like our own flesh and blood! Why, sheused to belong to my Grandmother Helm before the war----"

"I see, " he said dryly, breaking in on her. "She used to belong to yourgrandmother, and now you belong to her. The plan of ownership has merelybeen reversed, that's all. Tell me, Miss Emmy Lou, how does it feel tobe a human chattel, with no prospect of emancipation?" Then catching thehurt look on her flushed face he dropped his raillery and hastened tomake amends. "Well, never mind. You're the sweetest slave girl I evermet--I guess you're the sweetest one that ever lived. Besides, she'sgone--probably won't be back for half an hour or so. Don't hitch yourchair away from me--I've got something very important that I want totell you--in confidence. It concerns you--and somebody else. It concernsme and somebody else--and yet only two persons are concerned in it. "

He was wrong about the time, however, truthful as he may have been inasserting his desire to deal confidentially with important topics. Inside of ten minutes, which to him seemed no more than a minute, seeingthat he was in love and time always speeds fast for a lover with hissweetheart, the old black woman came hurrying back up the side street, and turned in at the side gate and retraversed the lawn to the back ofthe old house, giving the vine-screened porch a swift searching look asshe hobbled past its corner. 

Her curiosity, if so this scrutiny was to be interpreted, carried herfurther. In a minute or two she suddenly poked her head out through theopen front door. She had removed her damaged straw headgear, but stillwore her kerchief. Hastily and guiltily the young man released his holdupon a slim white hand which somehow had found its way inside his own. The sharp eyes of the old negress snapped. She gave a grunt as shewithdrew her head. It was speedily to develop, though, that she had notentirely betaken herself away. Almost immediately there came to the earsof the couple the creak-creak of a rocking-chair just inside the hall, but out of view from their end of the porch. 

"Make the old beldam go away, won't you?" whispered the man. 

"I'll try, " she whispered back rather nervously. Then, raising hervoice, she called out in slightly strained, somewhat artificial voice, which to the understanding of the annoyed young man in the hammockappeared to have almost a suggestion of apprehension in it:

"Is--is that you, Aunt Sharley?"

The answer was little more than a grunt. 

"Well, Aunt Sharley, hadn't you better be seeing about supper?"

"Num'mine 'bout supper. Ise tendin' to de supper. Ise bound de supper'llbe ready 'fo' you two chillens is ready fur to eat it. "

Within, the chair continued to creak steadily. 

The girl spread out her hands with a gesture of helplessness. 

"You see how it is, " she explained under her breath. "Auntie is so setin her ways!"

"And she's so set in that rocking-chair too, " he retorted grimly. Sayingwhat he said next, he continued to whisper, but in his whisper was asuggestion of the proprietorial tone. Also for the first time in hislife he addressed her without the prefix of Miss before her name. Thisaffair plainly was progressing rapidly, despite the handicaps of awithered black duenna in the immediate offing. 

"Emmy Lou, " he said, "please try again. Go in there yourself and speakto her. Be firm with her--for once. Make her get away from that door. She makes me nervous. Don't be afraid of the old nuisance. This is yourhouse, isn't it--yours and your sister's? Well, then, I thoughtSoutherners knew how to handle darkies. If you can handle this one, suppose you give me a small proof of the fact--right now!"

Reluctantly, as though knowing beforehand what the outcome would be, Emmy Lou stood up, revealing herself as a straight dainty figure inwhite. She entered the door. Outside in the hammock Harvey strained hisears to hear the dialogue. His sweetheart's voice came to him only in aseries of murmurs, but for him there was no difficulty aboutdistinguishing the replies, for the replies were pitched in a strident, belligerent key which carried almost to the yard fence. From them he wasable to guess with the utmost accuracy just what arguments against thepresence of the negress the girl was making. This, then, was what heheard:

". . . Now, Mizz Emmy Lou, you mout jes' ez well hush up an' save yorebreath. You knows an' I knows, even ef he don't know it, dat 'tain'tproper fur no young man to be cotein' a young lady right out on a frontpo'ch widout no chaperoner bein' clost by. Quality folks don't do sechez dat. Dat's why I taken my feet in my hand an' come hurryin' back yeref'um dat grocery sto' where I'd done went to git a bottle of lemonextractors. I seen yore sister settin' in dat Mistah B. Weil's candysto', drinkin' ice-cream sody wid a passel of young folks, an' by dat Irealise' I'd done lef' you 'lone in dis house wid a young man dat's astranger yere, an' so I come right back. And yere I is, honey, and yereI stays. . . . Whut's dat you sayin'? De gen'l'man objec's? He do, do he?"The far-carrying voice rose shrilly and scornfully. "Well, let him!Dat's his privilege. Jes' let him keep on objectin' long ez he's a mindto. 'Tain't gwine 'fluence me none. . . . I don't keer none ef he do heahme. Mebbe it mout do him some good ef he do heah me. Hit'll do him good, too, ef he heed me, I lay to dat. Mebbe he ain't been raised de way weis down yere. Ef so, dat's his misfortune. " The voice changed. "Whutwould yore pore daid mother say ef she knowed I wuz neglectin' my plainduty to you two lone chillen? Think I gwine run ary chancet of havin'you two gals talked about by all de low-down pore w'ite trashscandalisers in dis town? Well, I ain't, an' dat's flat. No, sir-ree, honey! You mout jes' ez well run 'long back out dere on dat front po'ch, 'ca'se I'm tellin' you I ain't gwine stir nary inch f'um whar I is twellyore sister git back yere. "

Beaten and discomfited, with one hand up to a burning cheek, Emmy Loureturned to her young man. On his face was a queer smile. 

"Did--did you hear what she said?" she asked, bending over him. 

"Not being deaf I couldn't well help hearing. I imagine the people nextdoor heard it, too, and are no doubt now enjoying the joke of it. "

"Oh, I know she's impossible, " admitted Emmy Lou, repeating her lamentof a little while before, but taking care even in her mortification tokeep her voice discreetly down. "There's no use trying to do anythingwith her. We've tried and tried and tried, but she just will have herway. She doesn't seem to understand that we've grown up--Mildred and I. She still wants to boss us just as she did when we were children. Andshe grows more crotchety and more exacting every day. "

"And I--poor benighted Yank that I am--came down here filled with agreat and burning sympathy for the down-trodden African. " Harvey saidthis as though speaking to himself. 

The girl forgot her annoyance in her instinct to come to the defence ofher black mentor. 

"Oh, but she has been like a mother to us! After mamma died I don't knowwhat we should have done--two girls left alone in this old house--if ithadn't been for Aunt Sharley. She petted us, she protected us, shenursed us when we were sick. Why, Harvey, she couldn't have been moreloyal or more devoted or more self-sacrificing than she has been throughall these years while we were growing up. I know she loves us with everydrop of blood in her veins. I know she'd work her fingers to the bonefor us--that she'd die in her tracks fighting for us. We try to rememberthe debt of gratitude we owe her now that she's getting old and fussyand unreasonable and all crippled with rheumatism. "

She paused, and then, womanlike, she added a qualifying clause: "But Imust admit she's terribly aggravating at times. It's almost unbearableto have her playing the noisy old tyrant day in and day out. I getawfully out of patience with her. "

Over on Franklin Street the town clock struck. 

"Six o'clock, " said Harvey. Reluctantly he stirred and sat up in thehammock and reached for his hat. 

"I could be induced, you know, if sufficiently pressed, to stay on forsupper, " he hinted. For one Northern born, young Mr. Harvey Winslow wasfast learning the hospitable customs of the town of his recent adoption. 

"I'd love to have you stay, " stated Emmy Lou, "but--but"--she glancedover her shoulder toward the open door--"but I'm afraid of Auntie. Shemight say she wasn't prepared to entertain a visitor--'not fixed furcompany' is the way she would put it. You see, she regards you as aperson of great importance. That's why she's putting on so many airsnow. If it was one of the home boys that I've known always that was herewith me she wouldn't mind it a bit. But with you it's different, andshe's on her dignity--riding her high horse. You aren't very muchdisappointed, are you? Besides, you're coming to supper to-morrow night. She'll fuss over you then, I know, and be on tiptoe to see thateverything is just exactly right. I think Auntie likes you. "

"Curious way she has of showing it then, " said Harvey. "I guess I stillhave a good deal to learn about the quaint and interesting tribalcustoms of this country. Even so, my education is progressing by leapsand bounds--I can see that. "

After further remarks delivered in a confidential undertone, the purportof which is none of our business, young Mr. Winslow took his departurefrom the Dabney homestead. Simultaneously the vigilant warder abandonedher post in the front hall and returned to her special domain at theback of the house. Left alone, the girl sat on the porch with hertroubled face cupped in her hands and a furrow of perplexity spoilingher smooth white brow. Presently the gate latch clicked and her sister, a year and a half her junior, came up the walk. With half an eye anyonewould have known them for sisters. They looked alike, which is anotherway of saying both of them were pretty and slim and quick in theirmovements. 

"Hello, sis, " said Mildred by way of greeting. She dropped into a chair, smoothing down the front of her white middy blouse and fanning herflushed face with the broad ends of her sailor tie. Then observing hersister's despondent attitude: "What are you in the dumps about? Has thatnew beau of yours turned out a disappointment? Or what?"

In a passionate little burst Emmy Lou's simmering indignation boiled upand overflowed. 

"Oh, it's Aunt Sharley again! Honestly, Mil, she was absolutelyunbearable this evening. It was bad enough to have her go stalkingacross the lawn with that old snuff stick of hers stuck in the corner ofher mouth, and singing that terrible song of hers at the very top of herlungs and wearing that scandalous old straw hat stuck up on hertopknot--that was bad enough, goodness knows! I don't know what sort ofpeople Har--Mr. Winslow thinks we must be! But that was only thebeginning. "

Followed a recapitulation of the greater grievance against the absentoffender. Before Emmy Lou was done baring the burden of her complaintMildred's lips had tightened in angered sympathy. 

"It must have been just perfectly awfully horrible, Em, " she said with acharacteristic prodigality of adjectives when the other had finished herrecital. "You just ought to give Aunt Sharley a piece of your mind aboutthe way she behaves. And the worst of it is she gets worse all the time. Don't you think you're the only one she picks on. Why, don't youremember, Em, how just here only the other day she jumped on me becauseI went on the moonlight excursion aboard the _Sophie K. Foster_ withSidney Baumann?--told me right to my face I ought to be spanked and putto bed for daring to run round with 'codfish aristocracy'--the verywords she used. What right has she, I want to know, to be criticisingSidney Baumann's people? I'm sure he's as nice a boy as there is in thiswhole town; seems to me he deserves all the more credit for working hisway up among the old families the way he has. I don't care if his fatherwas a nobody in this town when he first came here. 

"Quality folks--quality folks! She's always preaching about our beingquality folks and about it being wrong for us to demean ourselves bygoing with anybody who isn't quality folks until I'm sick and tired ofthe words. She has quality folks on the brain! Does she think we arestill babies? You're nearly twenty-three and I'm past twenty-one. Wehave our own lives to live. Why should we be so----"

She broke off at the sound of a limping footstep in the hall. 

"Supper's ready, " announced Aunt Sharley briefly. "You chillen comeright in an' eat it whilst it's hot. "

Strangely quiet, the two sisters followed the old negress back to thedining room. Aunt Sharley, who had prepared the meal, now waited uponthem. She was glumly silent herself, but occasionally she broke, orrather she punctuated, the silence with little sniffs of displeasure. Only once did she speak, and this was at the end of the supper, when shehad served them with blackberries and cream. 

"Seem lak de cat done got ever'body's tongue round dis place to-night!"she snapped, addressing the blank wall above the older girl's head. "Well, 'tain't no use fur nobody to be poutin' an' sullin'. 'Tain'tgwine do 'em no good. 'Tain't gwine budge me nary hair's brea'th frumwhut I considers to be my plain duty. Ef folkses don't lak it so much dewuss fur dem, present company not excepted. Dat's my say an' I done saidit!"

And out of the room she marched with her head held defiantly high. 

That night there were callers. At the Dabney home there nearly alwayswere callers of an evening, for the two sisters were by way of beingwhat small-town society writers call reigning belles. Once, when theyhad first returned from finishing school the year before, a neighbouringlady, meeting Aunt Sharley on the street, had been moved to ask whetherthe girls had many beaus, and Aunt Sharley, with a boastful flirt of herunder lip which made her side face look something like the profile of awithered but vainglorious dromedary, had answered back:

"Beaus? Huh! Dem chillens is got beaus frum ever' state!" Which was aslight overstretching of the real facts, but a perfectly pardonable andproper exaggeration in Aunt Charlotte's estimation. At home she mightmake herself a common scold, might be pestiferously officious and morethan pestiferously noisy. Abroad her worshipful pride in, and heraffection for, the pair she had reared shone through her old black faceas though a lamp of many candle power burned within her. She might chidethem at will, and she did, holding this to be her prerogative and herright, but whosoever spoke slightingly of either of them in herpresence, be the speaker black or white, had Aunt Charlotte to fightright there on the spot; she was as ready with her fists and her teethto assert the right of her white wards to immunity from criticism asshe was with her tongue lashings. 

These things were all taken into consideration when Emmy Lou and Mildredcame that night to balance the account for and against the old woman--somany, many deeds of thoughtfulness, of kindness, of tenderness on thecredit side; so many flagrant faults, so many shortcomings of temper andbehaviour on the debit page. The last caller had gone. Aunt Sharley, after making the rounds of the house to see to door boltings and windowlatchings, had hobbled upstairs to her own sleeping quarters over thekitchen wing, and in the elder sister's room, with the lights turnedlow, the two of them sat in their nightgowns on the side of Emmy Lou'sbed and tried the case of Spinster Charlotte Helm, coloured, in thescales of their own youthful judgments. Without exactly being able toexpress the situation in words, both realised that a condition whichverged upon the intolerable was fast approaching its climax. 

Along with the impatience of youth and the thought of many grievancesthey had within them a natural instinct for fairness; a legacy perhapsfrom a father who had been just and a mother who had been mercifullykind and gentle. First one would play the part of devil's advocate, thewhile the other defended the accused, and then at the remembrance ofsome one of a long record of things done or said by Aunt Sharley thoseattitudes would be reversed. 

There were times when both condemned the defendant, their hair braidsbobbing in emphasis of the intensity of their feelings; times whentogether they conjured up recollections of the everlasting debt thatthey owed her for her manifold goodnesses, her countless sacrifices onbehalf of them. The average Northerner, of whatsoever social status, would have been hard put to it either to comprehend the true inwardnessof the relationship that existed between these girls of one race andthis old woman of another or to figure how there could be but oneoutcome. The average Southerner would have been able at once to sensethe sentiments and the prejudices underlying the dilemma that nowconfronted the orphaned pair, and to sympathise with them, and with theold negress too. 

To begin with, there were the fine things to be said for Aunt Charlotte;the arguments in her behalf--a splendid long golden list of themstretching back to their babyhood and beyond, binding them with tiesstronger almost than blood ties to this faithful, loving, cantankerous, crotchety old soul. Aunt Charlotte had been born in servitude, thepossession of their mother's mother. She had been their mother'shandmaiden before their mother's marriage. Afterward she had been theirown nurse, cradling them in babyhood on her black breast, spoilingthem, training them, ruling them, overruling them, too, coddling themwhen they were good, nursing them when they were ailing, scolding themand punishing them when they misbehaved. 

After their father's death their mother, then an invalid, had advised asfrequently with Aunt Sharley regarding the rearing of the two daughtersas with the guardians who had been named in her husband's will--and withas satisfactory results. Before his death their father had urged hiswife to counsel with Aunt Sharley in all domestic emergencies. Dying, hehad signified his affectionate regard for the black woman by leaving hera little cottage with its two acres of domain near the railroad tracks. Regardless though of the fact that she was now a landed proprietor andthereby exalted before the eyes of her own race, Aunt Sharley hadelected to go right on living beneath the Dabney roof. In the latteryears of Mrs. Dabney's life she had been to all intents a copartner inthe running of the house, and after that sweet lady's death she had beenits manager in all regards. In the simple economies of the house she hadindeed been all things for these past few years--housekeeper, cook, housemaid, even seamstress, for in addition to being a poetess with acook-stove she was a wizard with a needle. 

As they looked back now, casting up the tally of the remembered years, neither Emmy Lou nor Mildred could recall an event in all their livesin which the half-savage, half-childish, altogether shrewd and competentnegress had not figured after some fashion or other: as foster parent, as unofficial but none the less capable guardian, as confidante, asoverseer, as dictator, as tirewoman who never tired of well-doing, asarbiter of big things and little--all these rôles, and more, too, shehad played to them, not once, but a thousand times. 

It was Aunt Sharley who had dressed them for their first real party--nota play-party, as the saying went down our way, but a regular dancingparty, corresponding to a début in some more ostentatious and lessfavoured communities. It was Aunt Sharley who had skimped and scrimpedto make the available funds cover the necessary expenses of the littlehousehold in those two or three lean years succeeding their mother'sdeath, when dubious investments, which afterward turned out to be goodones, had chiseled a good half off their income from the estate. It wasAunt Sharley who, when the question of going away to boarding schoolrose, had joined by invitation in the conference on ways and means withthe girls' guardians, Judge Priest and Doctor Lake, and had cast hervote and her voice in favour of the same old-fashioned seminary thattheir mother in her girlhood had attended. The sisters themselves hadrather favoured an Eastern establishment as being more fashionable andsmarter, but the old woman stood fast in her advocacy of the otherschool. What had been good enough for her beloved mistress was goodenough for her mistress' daughters, she insisted; and, anyhow, hadn'tthe quality folks always gone there? Promptly Doctor Lake and JudgePriest sided with her; and so she had her way about this importantmatter, as she had it about pretty much everything else. 

It was Aunt Sharley who had indignantly and jealously vetoed thesuggestion that a mulatto sewing woman, famed locally for her skill, should be hired to assist in preparing the wardrobes that Emmy Lou andMildred must take with them. It was Aunt Sharley who, when her day'sduties were over, had sat up night after night until all hours, straining her eyes as she plied needle and scissors, basting and hemminguntil she herself was satisfied that her chillen's clothes would be asample and as ornate as the clothes which any two girls at the boardingschool possibly could be expected to have. It was Aunt Sharley whopacked their trunks for them, who kissed them good-by at the station, all three of them being in tears, and who, when the train had vanisheddown the tracks to the southward, had gone back to the empty house, there to abide until they came home to her again. They had promised towrite to her every week--and they had, too, except when they were toobusy or when they forgot it. Finally, it was Aunt Sharley who never letthem forget that their grandfather had been a governor of the state, that their father had been a colonel in the Confederacy, and that theywere qualified "to hole up they haids wid de fines' in de land. "

When they came to this phase of the recapitulation there sprang into theminds of both of them a recollection of that time years and years in thepast when Aunt Sharley, accompanying them on a Sunday-school picnic inthe capacity of nursemaid, had marred the festivities by violentlysnatching Mildred out of a circle playing King Willyum was King James'Son just as the child was about to be kissed by a knickerbockeredadmirer who failed to measure up to Aunt Sharley's jealous requirementstouching on quality folks; and, following this, had engaged in a fightwith the disappointed little boy's coloured attendant, who resented thisslur upon the social standing of her small charge. Aunt Sharley had comeoff victor in the bout, but the picnic had been spoiled for at leastthree youngsters. So much for Aunt Sharley's virtues--for her loyalty, her devotion, her unremitting faithfulness, her championship of theirdestinies, her stewardship over all their affairs. Now to turn theshield round and consider its darker side:

Aunt Sharley was hardly a fit candidate for canonisation yet. Either itwas too early for that--or it was too late. She was unreasonable, shewas crotchety, she was contentious, she was incredibly intolerant of theopinions of others, and she was incredibly hardheaded. She had alwaysbeen masterful and arrogant; now more and more each day she was becominga shrew and a tyrant and a wrangler. She was frightfully noisy; sheclarioned her hallelujah hymns at the top of her voice, regardless ofwhat company might be in the house. She dipped snuff openly beforefriends of the girls and new acquaintances alike. She refusedpoint-blank to wear a cap and apron when serving meals. She was foreverquarrelling with the neighbours' servants, with delivery boys, withmarketmen and storekeepers. By sheer obstinacy she defeated all theirplans for hiring a second servant, declaring that if they dared bringanother darky on the place she would take pleasure in scalding theinterloper with a kettle of boiling water. She sat in self-imposedjudgment upon their admirers, ruthlessly rejecting those courtiers whodid not measure up to her arbitrary standards for appraising the localaristocracy; and toward such of the young squires as fell under the banof her disfavour she deported herself in such fashion as to leave intheir minds no doubt whatsoever regarding her hostility. In public shepraised her wards; in private she alternately scolded and petted them. She was getting more feeble, now that age and infirmities were comingupon her, wherefore the house showed the lack of proper care. They wereafraid of her, though they loved her with all their hearts and knew sheloved them to the exclusion of every living person; they wereapprehensive always of her frequent and unrestrained outbreaks oftemper. She shamed them and she humiliated them and she curbed them inperfectly natural impulses--impulses that to them seemed perfectlyproper also. 

Small enough were these faults when set up alongside the tally of hergoodnesses; moreover, neither of the two rebels against her authoritywas lacking in gratitude. But it is the small things that are mostannoying usually, and, besides, the faults of the old woman were thingsnow of daily occurrence and recurrence, which chafed their nerves andfretted them, whereas the passage of time was lessening the sentimentalvalue of her earlier labours and sacrifices in their behalf. 

And here was another thing: While they had been getting older AuntSharley had been getting old; they had grown up, overnight, as it were, and she could not be made to comprehend the fact. In their case theeternal conflict between youth and crabbed age was merely beingrepeated--with the addition in this particular instance of unusualcomplications. 

For an hour or more the perplexed pair threshed away, striving to winnowthe chaff from the pure grain in Aunt Sharley's nature, and the upshotwas that Emmy Lou had a headache and Mildred had a little spell ofcrying, and they agreed that never had there been such a paradox of partsaint and part sinner, part black ogre and part black angel, as theirAuntie was, created into a troubled world, and that something should bedone to remedy the evil, provided it could be done without grievouslyhurting the old woman's feelings; but just what this something whichshould be done might be neither of them could decide, and so they wentto bed and to sleep. 

And the next day was another day exactly similar in its petty annoyancesto the day before. 

But a day was to come before the summer ended when a way out was found. The person who found the way out--or thought he did--was Mr. HarveyWinslow, the hero or villain of the hammock episode previously describedin this narrative. He did not venture, though, to suggest a definitecourse of action until after a certain moonlit, fragrant night, when twohappy young people agreed that thereafter these twain should be one. 

Mildred knew already what was impending in the romance of Emmy Lou. Soperhaps did Aunt Sharley. Her rheumatism had not affected her eyesightand she had all her faculties. All the same, it was to Aunt Sharley thatEmmy Lou went next morning to tell of the choice she had made. There wasno one whose consent had actually to be obtained. Both the girls wereof age; as their own master they enjoyed the use and control of theircosy little inheritance. Except for an aunt who lived in New Orleans andsome cousins scattered over the West, they were without kindred. TheDabneys had been an old family, but not a large one. Nevertheless, inobedience to a feeling that told her Aunt Sharley should be the first, next only to her sister, to share with her the happiness that had comeinto her life, Emmy Lou sought out the old woman before breakfast time. 

Seemingly Aunt Sharley approved. For if at the moment she mumbled out acomplaint about chillens too young to know their own minds being proneto fly off with the first young w'ite gen'l'man that came along frumnobody knowed whar, still there was nothing begrudged or forced aboutthe vocal jubilations with which she made the house ring during thesucceeding week. At prayer meeting on Wednesday night at Zion ColouredBaptist Church and at lodge meeting on Friday night she bore herselfwith an air of triumphant haughtiness which sorely irked her fellowmembers. It was agreed privily that Sis' Charlotte Helm got mo' and mo'bigotty, and not alone that, but mo' and mo' uppety, ever' day shelived. 

If young Mr. Winslow had been, indirectly, the cause for her pridefuldeportment before her own colour, it was likewise Mr. Winslow whoshortly was to be the instrument for humbling her into the dust. Nowthis same Mr. Winslow, it should be stated, was a masterful young man. Only an abiding sense of humour kept him sometimes from beingdomineering. Along with divers other qualities it had takenmasterfulness for him at twenty-nine to be superintendent of ourstreet-railway system, now owned and operated by Northern capitalists. Likewise it had taken masterfulness for him to distance the field ofEmmy Lou's local admirers within the space of five short months after heprocured his transfer to our town from another town where his companylikewise had traction interests. He showed the same trait in the standhe presently took with regard to the future status of Aunt Sharley inthe household of which he was to become a member and of which he meantto be the head. 

For moral support--which she very seriously felt she needed--Emmy Loutook her sister with her on the afternoon when she invaded the kitchento break the news to Aunt Sharley. The girls came upon the old woman inone of her busiest moments. She was elbows deep in a white mass which indue time would become a batch of the hot biscuits of perfection. "Auntie, " began Emmy Lou in a voice which she tried to makematter-of-fact, "we've--I've something I want to say to you. "

"Ise lissenin', chile, " stated the old woman shortly. 

"It's this way, Auntie: We think--I mean we're afraid that you'regetting along so in life--getting so old that we----"

"Who say Ise gittin' ole?" demanded Aunt Sharley, and she jerked herhands out of the dough she was kneading. 

"We both think so--I mean we all think so, " corrected Emmy Lou. 

"Who do you mean by we all? Does you mean dat young Mistah Winslow, Esquire, late of de North?" Her blazing eyes darted from the face of onesister to the face of the other, reading their looks. "Uh-huh!" shesnorted. "I mout 'a' knowed he'd be de ver' one to come puttin' sechnotions ez dem in you chillens' haids. Well, ma'am, an' whut, pray, dohe want?" Her words fairly dripped with sarcasm. 

"He thinks--in fact we all three do--that because you are getting alongin years--you know you are, Auntie--and because your rheumatism bothersyou so much at times that--that--well, perhaps that we should make achange in the running of the house. So--so----" She hesitated, thenbroke off altogether, anxious though she was to make an end to what sheforesaw must be a painful scene for all three of them. Poor Emmy Lou wasfinding this job which she had nerved herself to carry through adesperately hard job. And Aunt Sharley's attitude was not making it anyeasier for her either. 

"'So' whut?" snapped Aunt Sharley; then answered herself: "An' so dewind blow frum dat quarter, do hit? De young gen'l'man ain't j'ined defambly yit an' already he's settin' hisse'f to run it. All right den. Goon, chile--quit mumblin' up yore words an' please go on an' tell me whutyou got to say! But ef you's fixin' to bring up de subjec' of my lettin'ary one of dese yere young flighty-haided, flibbertigibbeted, free-issuenigger gals come to work on dis place, you mout ez well save yore breathnow an' yereafter, 'ca'se so long ez Ise able to drag one foot behinet'other I p'intedly does aim to manage dis yere kitchen. "

"It isn't that--exactly, " blurted out Emmy Lou. "You see, Auntie, " shewent on desperately, "we've decided, Harvey and I, that after ourmarriage we'll live here. We couldn't leave Mildred alone, and until shegets married this is going to be home for us all. And so we'reafraid--with one more coming into the household and everything--that theadded work is going to be too heavy for you to undertake. So we'vedecided that--that perhaps it would be better all round if you--ifwe--if you----"

"Go on, chile; say it, whutever it is. "

"----that perhaps it would be better if you left here altogether andwent to live in that nice little house that papa left you in his will. "

Perhaps they did not see the stricken look that came into the eyes ofthe old negress or else she hid the look behind the fit of rage thatinstantly possessed her. Perhaps they mistook the grey pallor thatoverspread the old face, turning it to an ashen colour, for the hue oftemper. 

"Do it all mean, den, dat after all dese yeahs you's tryin' to git shetof me--tryin' to t'row me aside lak an' ole worn-out broom? Well, Iain't gwine go!" Her voice soared shrilly to match the heights of hertantrum. 

"Your wages will go on just the same--Harvey insists on that as much aswe do, " Emmy Lou essayed. "Don't you see, Auntie, that your life will beeasier? You will have your own little home and your own little garden. You can come to see us--come every day if you want to. We'll come to seeyou. Things between us will go on almost exactly the same as they donow. You know how much we love you--Mildred and I. You know we aretrying to think of your comfort, don't you?"

"Of course you do, Aunt Sharley, " Mildred put in. "It isn't as if youwere going clear out of our lives or we out of yours. You'll be ever somuch happier. "

"Well, I jes' ain't gwine go nary step. " The defiant voice had become apassionate shriek. "Think Ise gwine leave yere an' go live in dat littlehouse down dere by dem noisy tracks whar all dem odds an' ends of porew'ite trash lives--dem scourin's an' sweepin's whut come yere to wuk inde new cotton mill! Think Ise gwine be corntent to wuk in a gyardenwhilst I knows Ise needed right yere to run dis place de way which itshould be run! Think Ise gwine set quiet whilst Ise pulled up by deroots an' transported 'way frum de house whar Ise spend purty nigh dewhole of my endurin' life! Well, I won't go--_I_ won't never go! I won'tgo--'ca'se I jes' can't!" And then, to the intense distress of thegirls, Aunt Sharley slumped into a chair, threw her floury hands overher face and with the big tears trickling out between her fingers shemoaned over and over again between her gulping breaths:

"Oh, dat I should live to see de day w'en my own chillens wants to driveme away frum 'em! Oh, dat I should live to see dis day!"

Neither of them had ever seen Aunt Sharley weep like this--shaken as shewas with great sobs, her head bowed almost to her knees, her bared armsquivering in a very palsy. They tried to comfort her, tried to put theirarms about her, both of them crying too. At the touch of their armsstealing about her hunched shoulders she straightened, showing a sparkof the spirit with which they were more familiar. She wrenched her bodyfree of them and pointed a tremulous finger at the door. The two sistersstole out, feeling terribly guilty and thoroughly miserable. 

It was not the Aunt Sharley they knew who waited upon them that dusk atsupper. Rather it was her ghost--a ghost with a black mask of tragedyfor a face, with eyes swollen and reddened, with lips which shook inoccasional spasms of pain, though their owner strove to keep them firm. With their own faces tear-streaked and with lumps in their throats thegirls kept their heads averted, as though they had been caught doingsomething very wrong, and made poor pretense of eating the dishes thatthe old woman placed before them. Such glances as they stole at her weresidelong covert glances, but they marked plainly enough how hershoulders drooped and how she dragged herself about the table. 

Within a space of time to be measured by hours and almost by minutes sheseemed to have aged years. 

It was a mute meal and a most unhappy one for the sisters. More thanonce Aunt Sharley seemed on the point of saying something, but she, too, held her tongue until they had risen up from their places. From withinthe passageway leading to the rear porch she spoke then across thethreshold of the door at the back end of the dining room. 

"You, nur nobody else, can't turn me out of dis house, " she warned them, and in her words was the dead weight of finality. "An' ef you does, Iain't gwine leave de premises. Ise gwine camp right dere on de sidewalkan' dere I means to stay twell de policemens teks me up fur a vagrom. Deshame of it won't be no greater fur me 'n 'tis fur you. Dat's all!" Andwith that she was gone before they could answer, if indeed they had anyanswer to make. 

It was the next day that the _Daily Evening News_ announced theengagement and the date of the marriage, which would follow within fourweeks. Congratulations in number were bestowed upon Emmy Lou; they cameby telephone and in letters from former schoolmates, but mainly theycame by word of mouth from townspeople who trooped in to say the thingswhich people always say on such occasions--such things, for example, asthat young Mr. Winslow should count himself a lucky man and that EmmyLou would make a lovely bride; that he should be the proudest young manin the Union and she the happiest girl in the state, and all the rest ofit. Under this outpouring of kindly words from kindly folk the recipientwas radiant enough to all appearances, which was a tribute to her powersas an actress. Beneath the streams of her happiness coursed sombreundercurrents of distress and perplexity, roiling the waters of her joyand her pride. 

For nearly a week, with no outsider becoming privy to the facts, sheendured a situation which daily was marked by harassing experiences andwhich hourly became more intolerable. Then, in despair, seeing no wayout at all, she went to a certain old white house out on Clay Street toconfide in one to whom many another had turned, seeking counsel in thetime of trouble. She went to see Judge William Pitman Priest, and shewent alone, telling no one, not even Mildred, of the errand upon whichshe was bound. 

The wide front porch was empty where the old Judge spent most of hisleisure hours when the weather suited, and knowing as she did the customof the house, and being, for a fact, almost as much at home beneath itsroof as beneath her own, Emmy Lou, without knocking, walked into thehall and turning to the right entered the big sitting room. Its loneoccupant sat up with a jerk, wiping the drowsiness out of his eyes withthe back of his hand. He had been taking a cat nap on his ancient sofa;his long white back hair was tousled up comically behind his bald pinkbrow. 

"Why, hello, honey!" he said heartily, rising to his feet and bowingwith a quaint ceremonial gesture that contrasted with and yet somehowmatched the homeliness of his greeting. "You slipped in so quiet on themdainty little feet of yours I never heared you comin' a-tall. " He tookher small hands in his broad pudgy ones, holding her off at arm'slength. "And don't you look purty! Mighty nigh any woman looks cool andsweet when she's got on white fixin's, but when a girl like you puts 'emon--well, child, there ain't no use talkin', you shorely are a sight tocure sore eyes. And you git to favour your sweet mother more and moreevery day you live. I can't pay you no higher compliment than that. Setdown in that cheer yonder, where I kin look at you whilst we visit. "

"I'd rather sit here by you, sir, on the sofa, if you don't mind, " shesaid. 

"Suit yourself, honey. "

She settled herself upon the sofa and he let his bulky frame downalongside her, taking one of her hands into his. Her free hand playedwith one of the big buttons on the front of her starched linen skirt andshe looked, not at him, but at the shining disk of pearl, as he said:

"Well, Emmy Lou, whut brings you 'way out here to my house in the heatof the day?"

She turned her face full upon him then and he saw the brooding in hereyes and gave her hand a sympathetic little squeeze. 

"Judge, " she told him, "you went to so much trouble on my account andMildred's when we were still minors that I hate to come now worrying youwith my affairs. But somehow I felt that you were the one for me to turnto. "

"Emmy Lou, " he said very gravely, "your father was one of the best menthat ever lived and one of the best friends ever I had on this earth. And no dearer woman than your mother ever drawed the breath of life. Itwas a mighty proud day fur me and fur Lew Lake when he named us two asthe guardians of his children, and it was a pleasure to both of us tohelp look to your interests after he was took from us. Why, when yourmother went too, I'd a' liked the best in the world to have adopted youtwo children outright. " He chuckled a soft little chuckle. "I reckin Iwould have made the effort, too, only it seemed like that old niggerwoman of yours appeared to have prior rights in the matter, and knowin'her disposition I was kind of skeered to advance the suggestion. '"

"It was about Aunt Sharley that I came to see you to-day, Judge Priest. "

"That so? I had a visit from her here the other day. "

"What other day?" she asked, startled. 

"Oh, it must have been a matter of three weeks ago--fully. Shall I tellyou whut she come to see me about? You'll laugh when you hear it. Ittickled me right smartly at the time. She wanted to know what I knewabout this here young Mr. Winslow--yes, that was it. She said all thevisible signs p'inted to a serious affair 'twixt you two young people, and she said before it went any further she wanted to know ef he was thekind of a young man to be gittin' hisself engaged to a member of theDabney family, and she wanted to know ef his folks were the real qualityfolks and not this here codfish aristocracy: That was the very term sheused--'codfish aristocracy. ' Well, I was able to reasshore her. You see, honey, I'd took it on myself to do a little inquirin' round about Mr. Winslow on my own responsibility--not that I wanted to be pryin' intoyour business and not because I aimed to be tryin' to come between youand the young man ef I wasn't altogether satisfied with the accounts Igot of him, but because I loved you and wanted to make sure in my ownmind that Tom Dabney's child wasn't makin' the wrong choice. Youunderstand, don't you? You see, ez fur back ez a month and a half ago, or mebbe even further back than that, I was kind of given to understandthat you and this young man were gittin' deeply interested in eachother. "

"Why, how could you?" inquired Emmy Lou. "We weren't even engaged then. Who could have circulated such a report about us?"

"The very first time I seen you two young folks walkin' up FranklinStreet together you both were circulatin' it, " he said, chuckling again. "You may not 'a' knowed it, but you were. I may be gittin' old, but myeyesight ain't entirely failed up on me yit--I could read the signs whenI was still half a block away frum you. It was right after that that Istarted my own little private investigation. So you see I was qualifiedto reasshore Aunt Sharley. I told her all the available information onthe subject proved the young gentleman in question was not only a mightyclever, up-standin', manly young feller, but that where he hailed fromhe belonged to the quality folks, which really was the p'int she seemedmost anxious about. That's whut I told her, and I was monstrous glad tobe able to tell her. A stranger might have thought it was pure impudenceon her part, but of course we both know, you and me, whut was in theback part of her old kinky head. And when I'd got done tellin' her shewent down the street from here with her head throwed away back, singin'till you could 'a' heard her half a mile off, I reckin. "

"I never guessed it. She never told me she'd been to see you. And youdidn't tell me, either, when you came the other night to wish me joy, Judge. "

"I kind of figgered she wanted the matter treated confidential, "explained Judge Priest. "So I respected whut I took to be her wishes inthe matter. But wasn't it fur all the world jest like that old blackwoman?"

"Yes, it was just like her, " agreed Emmy Lou, her face shadowed withdeepening distress. "And because it was just like her and because I knownow better than ever before how much she really loves me, those thingsmake it all the harder to tell you what I came here to tell you--make itall the harder for me to decide what I should do and to ask your advicebefore I do decide. "

"Oh, I reckin it can't be so serious ez all that, " said Judge Priestcomfortingly. "Betwixt us we oughter be able to find a way out of thedifficulty, whutever it is. S'pose, honey, you start in at the beginnin'and give me all the facts in the matter that's worryin' you. "

She started then and, though her voice broke several times, she kept onuntil she came to the end of her tragic little recital. To Emmy Lou itwas very tragic indeed. 

"So you see, Judge Priest, just how it is, " she stated at theconclusion. "From both sides I am catching the brunt of the whole thing. Aunt Sharley won't budge an inch from the attitude she's taken, andneither will Harvey budge an inch. He says she must go; she tells meevery day she won't go. This has been going on for a week now and I'malmost distracted. At what should be the happiest time in a girl's lifeI'm being made terribly unhappy. Why, it breaks my heart every time Ilook at her. I know how much we owe her--I know I can never hope torepay her for all she has done for me and my sister. 

"But oh, Judge, I do want to be the right kind of wife to Harvey. All mylife long I mean to obey him and to look up to him; I don't want tobegin now by disobeying him--by going counter to his wishes. And I canunderstand his position too. To him she's just an unreasonable, meddlesome, officious, contrary old negro woman who would insist onrunning the household of which he should be the head. She would too. 

"It isn't that he feels unkindly toward her--he's too good and toogenerous for that. Why, it was Harvey who suggested that wages should goon just the same after she leaves us--he has even offered to doublethem if it will make her any better satisfied with the move. I'm sure, though, it can't be the question of money that figures with her. Shenever tells anyone about her own private affairs, but after all theseyears she must have a nice little sum saved up. I can't remember whenshe spent anything on herself--she was always so thrifty about money. Atleast she was careful about our expenditures, and of course she musthave been about her own. So it can't be that. Harvey puts it down toplain stubbornness. He says after the first wrench of the separation isover she ought to be happier, when she's taking things easy in her ownlittle house, than she is now, trying to do all the work in our house. He says he wants several servants in our home--a butler, and a maid towait on me and Mildred, and a housemaid and a cook. He says we can'thave them if we keep Aunt Sharley. And we can't, either--she'd drivethem off the place. No darky could get along with her a week. Oh, I justdon't know what to do!"

"And whut does Aunt Sharley say?" asked the Judge. 

"I told you. Sometimes she says she won't go and sometimes she says shecan't go. But she won't tell why she can't--just keeps on declaring upand down that she can't. She makes a different excuse or she gives adifferent reason every morning; she seems to spend her nights thinkingthem up. Sometimes I think she is keeping something back from me--thatshe isn't telling me the real cause for her refusal to accept thesituation and make the best of it. You know how secretive our colouredpeople can be sometimes. "

"All the time, you mean, " amended the old man. "Northerners never seemto be able to git it through their heads that a darky kin beloud-mouthed and close-mouthed at the same time. Now you take that blackboy Jeff of mine. Jeff knows more about me--my habits, my likes and mydislikes, my private business and my private thoughts and all--than Iknow myself. And I know jest egsactly ez much about his real self--whuthe thinks and whut he does behind my back--ez he wants me to know, nomore and no less. I judge it's much the same way with your Aunt Sharley, and with all the rest of their race too. We understand how to live with'em, but that ain't sayin' we understand how they live. "

He looked steadfastly at his late ward. 

"Honey, when you come to cast up the account you do owe a lot to thatold nigger woman, don't you?--you and your sister both. Mebbe you oweeven more than you think you do. There ain't many left like her in thisnew generation of darkies that's growed up--she belongs to a speciesthat's mighty nigh extinct, ez you might say. Us Southern people arepowerfully given, some of us, to tellin' whut we've done fur the blackrace--and we have done a lot, I'll admit--but sometimes I think we'reprone to furgit some of the things they've done fur us. Hold on, honey, "he added hastily, seeing that she was about to speak in her own defence. "I ain't takin' issue with you aginst you nor yit aginst the young manyou're fixin' to marry. After all, you've got your own lives to live. Iwas jest sort of studyin' out loud--not offerin' an argument inopposition. "

Still looking straight at her he asked a question:

"Tell me one thing, Emmy Lou, jest to satisfy my curiosity and before wego any further with this here bothersome affair that's makin' youunhappy. It seems like to me I heared somewheres that you first met thisyoung man of yours whilst you and little Mildred were off at KnollwoodSeminary finishin' your educations. Is that so or ain't it?"

"Yes, sir, that's true, " she answered. "You see, when we first went toKnollwood, Harvey had just been sent South to take a place in the officeof the trolley road at Knollwood. 

"His people were interested in the line; he was assistant to the generalmanager then. I met him there. And he--he was interested in me, Isuppose, and afterward, when he had worked his way up and had beenpromoted to the superintendency, his company bought our line in, too, and he induced them to transfer him here--I mean to say he wastransferred here. So that's how it all happened. "

"I see, " he said musingly. "You met him down there and he gotinterested--'interested' was the word you used, wasn't it, honey?--andthen after a spell when you had left there he followed you here--orrather it jest so happened by a coincidence that he was sent here. Well, I don't know ez I blame him--for being interested, I mean. It strikes methat in addition to bein' an enterprisin' young man he's also gotexcellent taste and fine discrimination. He ought to go quite a ways inthe world--whut with coincidences favourin' him and everything. "

The whimsical note died out of his voice. His tone became serious. 

"Child, " he said gently, "whut would you say--and whut's even moreimportant, whut would you do--ef I was to tell you that ef it hadn'ta-been fur old Aunt Sharley this great thing that's come into your lifeprobably never would have come into it? What ef I was to tell you thatif it hadn't a-been fur her you never would have knowed Mr. HarveyWinslow in the first place--and natchelly wouldn't be engaged to marryhim now?"

"Why, Judge Priest, how could that be?" Her widened eyes betokened ablank incredulity. 

"Emmy Lou, " he answered slowly, "in tellin' you whut I'm about to tellyou I'm breakin' a solemn pledge, and that's a thing I ain't much givento doin'. But this time I figger the circumstances justify me. Nowlisten: You remember, don't you, that in the first year or two followingafter the time your mother left us, the estate was sort of snarled up?Well, it was worse snarled up than you two children had any idea of. Twoor three of the heaviest investments your father made in the later yearsof his life weren't turnin' out very well. The taxes on 'em amounted tomighty nigh ez much ez whut the income frum 'em did. We didn't aim topester you two girls with all the details, so we sort of kept 'em toourselves and done the best we could. You lived simple and there wasenough to take care of you and to keep up your home, and we knowed wecould depend on Aunt Sharley to manage careful. Really, she knowed moreabout the true condition of things than you did. Still, even so, you nodoubt got an inklin' sometimes of how things stood with regards to yourfinances. "

She nodded, saying nothing, and he went on:

"Well, jest about that time, one day in the early part of the summer Ihad a visit frum Aunt Sharley. She come to me in my office down at thecourthouse, and I sent Jeff to fetch Lew Lake, and we both set downthere together with that old nigger woman, and she told us whut she hadto say. She told us that you children had growed up with the idea thatyou'd go off to boardin' school somewheres after you were done with ourlocal schools, and that you were beginnin' to talk about goin' and thatit was high time fur you to be gittin' ready to go, and, in brief, shewanted to know whut about it? We told her jest how things stood--thatunder the terms of your father's will practically everything you ownedwas entailed--held in trust by us--until both of the heirs had come ofage. We told her that, with your consent or without it, we didn't havethe power to sell off any part of the estate, and so, that bein' thecase, the necessary money to send you off to school jest natchellycouldn't be provided noways, and that, since there was jest barelyenough money comin' in to run the home and, by stintin', to care fur youand Mildred, any outside and special expense comin' on top of theregular expenses couldn't possibly be considered--or, in other words, that you two couldn't hope to go to boardin' school. 

"I reckin you kin guess fur yourself whut that old woman done then. Sheflared up and showed all her teeth. She said that the quality alwayssent their daughters off to boardin' school to give 'em the final polishthat made fine ladies of 'em. She said her Ole Miss--meanin' yourgrandmother--had gone to Knollwood and that your mother had gone there, and that you two girls were goin' there, too, whether or no. We tried toexplain to her that some of the finest young ladies in the land and someof the best-born ones never had the advantages of a college education, but she said she didn't keer whut people somewheres else might do--thatthe daughters of her kind of quality folks went to college and that youtwo were goin', so that all through your lives you could hold up yourheads with the finest in the land. You never seen anybody so set anddetermined about a thing ez that old woman was. We tried explainin' toher and we tried arguin' with her, and Lew Lake tried losin' his temperwith her, him bein' somewhat hot-headed, but nothin' we could say seemedto have any effect on her at all. She jest set there with her old skinnyarms folded on her breast like a major-general, and that old under lipof hers stuck out and her neck bowed, sayin' over and over agin that yougirls were goin' to that boardin' school same ez the Dabneys and theHelms had always done. So finally we throwed up our hands and told herwe were at the end of our rope and she'd kindly have to show us the wayto bring it all about. 

"And then she up and showed us. You remember the night me and Lew Lakecome up to your house to talk over the matter of your college educationand I told you to call Aunt Sharley into the conference--you rememberthat, don't you? And you remember she come out strong in favour ofKnollwood and that after a while we seemed to give in? Well, child, I'vegot a little confession to make to you now along with a bigger one lateron: That was all a little piece of by-play that had been planned out inadvance. We knowed beforehand that Aunt Sharley was goin' to favourKnollwood and that we were goin' to fall into line with her notionsabout it at the end. She'd already licked us to a standstill there in myoffice, and we were jest tryin' to save our faces. 

"So you went to college and you both stayed there two full years. And Imout ez well tell you right now that the principal reason why you had somany purty fixin's to wear whilst you was away and why you had ez muchpin money to spend ez any other two girls there was because that oldwoman lived on less'n it would take, seemin'ly, to keep a bird alive, savin' every cent she could scrape up, and bringin' it to me to be senton to you ez part of your allowance. "

"But I don't understand yet, " cried out Emmy Lou. "Why, Judge, AuntSharley just can write her own name. We had to print out the words inthe letters we wrote her so that she could read them. I don't understandhow the poor good old ignorant soul could figure out where the moneywhich paid for our schooling could be found when both you and DoctorLake----"

"I'm comin' to that part now, " he told her. "Honey, you were right whenyou guessed that Aunt Sharley has been holdin' somethin' back frum youdurin' this past week; but she's been tellin' you the truth too--in away of speakin'. She ain't got any money saved up--or at least ef she'sgot any at all it ain't ez much ez you imagine. Whut she's got laid bykin only represent the savin's of four or five years, not of a wholelifetime. And when she said to you that she couldn't leave you to go tolive in that little house that your father left her in his will shewasn't speakin' a lie. She can't go there to live because it ain'thers--she don't own it any more. Over five years ago she sold itoutright, and she took the price she got fur it and to that price sheadded whut she'd saved up ez the fruits of a life-time of toil spent inyour service and the service of your people before you, and that was themoney--her money, every cent of it--which paid fur your two years atcollege. Now you know. "

For a long half minute she stared at him, her face whitening and thegreat tears beginning to run down her cheeks. They ran faster andfaster. She gave a great sob and then she threw her arms about the oldJudge's neck and buried her face on his shoulder. 

"Oh, I never dreamed it! I never dreamed it! I never had a suspicion!And I've been so cruel to her, so heartless! Oh, Judge Priest, why didyou and Doctor Lake ever let her do it? Why did you let her make thatsacrifice?"

He patted her shoulder gently. 

"Well, honey, we did try at first to discourage her from the notion, butwe mighty soon seen it wasn't any use to try, and a little later on, comin' to think it over, we decided mebbe we didn't want to try anymore. There're some impulses in this world too noble to be interferedwith or hampered or thwarted, and some sacrifices so fine that none ofus should try to spoil 'em by settin' up ourselves and our own wills inthe road. That's how I felt. That's how Lew Lake felt. That's how weboth felt. And anyhow she kept p'intin' out that she wouldn' never needthat there little house, because so long ez she lived she'd have a homewith you two girls. That's whut she said, anyway. "

"But why weren't we allowed to know before now? Why didn't weknow--Mildred and I--ten days ago, so that she might have been sparedthe cruel thing I've done? Why didn't she come out and tell us when wewent to her and I told her she must get off the place? Why didn't youtell me, Judge, before now--why didn't you give me a hint before now?"

"Honey, I couldn't. I was under a solemn promise not to tell--a promisethat I've jest now broken. On the whole I think I'm glad I did breakit. . . . Lemme see ef I kin remember in her own words whut she said to us?'Gen'l'mens, ' she says, 'dem chillens is of de quality an' entitled tohole up they haids wid de fines' in de land. I don't want never to havedem demeaned by lettin' dem know or by lettin' ary other pusson know datan old black nigger woman furnished de money to help mek fine youngladies of 'em. So long ez I live, ' she says, 'dey ain't never to heah itfrum my lips an' you must both gimme yore word dat dey don't never heahit frum yourn. W'en I dies, an' not befo' den, dey may know de truth. Deday dey lays me in de coffin you kin tell 'em both de secret--but notbefo'!' she says. 

"So you see, child, we were under a pledge, and till to-day I've keptthat pledge. Nobody knows about the sale of that little piece ofproperty except Aunt Sharley and Lew Lake and me and the man who boughtit and the man who recorded the deed that I drew up. Even the man whobought it never learned the real name of the previous owner, and thematter of the recordin' was never made public. Whut's the good of mybein' the circuit judge of this district without I've got influenceenough with the county clerk to see that a small real-estate transactionkin be kept frum pryin' eyes? So you see only five people knowedanything a-tall about that sale, and only three of them knowed the truefacts, and now I've told you, and so that makes four that are sharin'the secret. . . . Don't carry on so, honey. 'Tain't ez ef you'd donesomethin' that couldn't be mended. You've got all your life to make itup to her. And besides, you were in ignorance until jest now. . . . Now, Emmy Lou, I ain't goin' to advise you; but I certainly would like tohear frum your own lips whut you do aim to do?"

She raised her head and through the brimming tears her eyes shone liketwin stars. 

"What am I going to do?" she echoed. "Judge, you just said nobody knewexcept four of us. Well, everybody is going to know--everybody in thistown is going to know, because I'm going to tell them. I'll be a prouderand a happier girl when they do know, all of them, than I've ever beenin my whole life. And I warn you that neither you nor Aunt Sharley norany other person alive can keep me from telling them. I'm going to gloryin telling the world the story of it. "

"Lord bless your spunky little soul, honey, I ain't goin' to try tohender you frum tellin', " said Judge Priest. "Anyhow, I expect to bekept busy durin' the next few days keepin' out of that old niggerwoman's way. . . . So that's the very first thing you aim to do?"

"No, it isn't, either, " she exclaimed, catching the drift of hismeaning. "That is going to be the second thing I do. But the first thingI am going to do is to go straight back home as fast as I can walk andget down on my knees before Aunt Sharley and beg her forgiveness forbeing so unjust and so unkind. "

"Oh, I reckin that won't hardly be necessary, " said Judge Priest. "Ikind of figger that ef you'll jest have a little cryin' bee with herthat'll answer every purpose. Jest put your young arms round her oldneck and cry a spell with her. It's been my observation that, black orwhite, cryin' together seems to bring a heap of comfort to the membersof your sex. "

"I think perhaps I shall try that, " she agreed, smiling in spite ofherself; and her smile was like sunshine in the midst of a shower. "I'llbegin by kissing her right smack on the mouth--like this. " And shekissed the Judge squarely on his. 

"Judge Priest, " she stated, "this town is due for more than onesurprise. Do you know who's going to be the matron of honour at mywedding three weeks from now? I'll give you just one guess. "

He glanced up at her quizzically. 

"Whut do you s'pose the young man is goin' to have to say about that?"he asked. 

"If he doesn't like it he can find some other girl to marry him, " shesaid. 

"Oh, I kind of imagine he'll listen to reason--especially comin' frumyou, " said Judge Priest. "He will ef he's the kind of young man that'sworthy to marry Tom Dabney's daughter. "

 * * * * *

It is possible that some of the bridegroom's kinspeople, coming downfrom the North for the wedding, were shocked to find a wizen, coal-blackwoman, who was lame of one leg, not only taking part in the ceremony, filling a place next in importance to that of the contracting pair andthe maid of honour, but apparently in active and undisputed charge ofthe principal details. However, being well-bred persons, they did notbetray their astonishment by word, look or deed. Perhaps they figuredit as one of the customs of the country that an old shrill-voicednegress, smelling of snuff and black silk, should play so prominent arôle in the event itself and in the reception that followed. 

However, all that is ancient history now. What I have to add is acommingling of past local history and present local history. As I saidat the outset, there were formerly any number of black children in ourtown who bore the names of white friends and white patrons, but to myknowledge there was never but one white child named for a black person. The child thus distinguished was a girl child, the first-born of Mr. AndMrs. Harvey Winslow. Her full name was Charlotte Helm Winslow, butnearly everybody called her Little Sharley. She is still called so, Ibelieve, though growing now into quite a sizable young person. 

CHAPTER VI

JOHN J. COINCIDENCE

Somebody said once that facts are stubborn things, which is a lie. Factsare almost the most flexible things known to man. The historianappreciates the truth of this just as the fictionist recognises and isgoverned by the opposite of it, each according to his lights. Inrecording the actual, the authentic, the definite, your chronicler mayset down in all soberness things which are utterly inconceivable; mayset them down because they have happened. But he who deals with thefanciful must be infinitely more conventional in his treatment of theprobabilities and the possibilities, else the critics will say he haslet his imagination run away with him. They'll tell him to put ice onhis brow and advise sending his creative faculty to the restcure. 

Jules Verne was a teller of most mad tales which he conjured up out ofhis head. The Brothers Wright and Edison and Holland, the submarine man, worked out their notions with monkey wrenches and screw drivers andthings, thereby accomplishing verities far surpassing the limit wherecommon sense threw up a barrier across the pathway of Verne's genius. H. G. Wells never dreamed a dream of a world war to equal the one whichWilliam Hohenzollern loosed by ordering a flunky in uniform to transmitcertain dispatches back yonder in the last week of July and the firstweek of August, 1914. 

So always it has gone. So always, beyond peradventure, it must continueto go. 

If in his first act the playwright has his principal charactersassembled in a hotel lobby in Chicago and in Act II has them all bumpinginto one another--quite by chance--in a dugout in Flanders, thereviewers sternly will chide him for violating Rule 1 of the book ofdramatic plausibilities, and quite right they will be too. But when theidentical event comes to pass in real life--as before now it has--wemerely say that, after all, it's a small world now, isn't it? And sosaying, pass along to the next preposterous occurrence that has justoccurred. In fiction coincidence has its metes and bounds beyond whichit dare not step. In human affairs it has none. 

Speaking of coincidences, that brings me round to the matter of acertain sergeant and a certain private in our American ExpeditionaryForce which is a case that is a case in point of what I have just beensaying upon this subject. If Old Man Coincidence had not butted intothe picture when he did and where he did and so frequently as he did, there would be--for me--no tale to tell touching on these two, thesergeant and the private. But he did. And I shall. 

To begin at the remote beginning, there once upon a time was a fight infront of the public school in Henry Street over on the East Side, inwhich encounter one Pasquale Gallino licked the Semitic stuffings out ofa fellow-pupil of his--by name Hyman Ginsburg. To be explicit about it, he made the Ginsburg boy's somewhat prominent nose to bleed extensivelyand swelled up Hyman's ear until for days thereafter Hyman's head, viewed fore or aft, had rather a lop-sided appearance, what with one earbeing so much thicker than its mate. The object of this mishandlementwas as good as whipped before he started by reason of the longer reachand quicker fist play of his squat and swarthy opponent. Nevertheless, facing inevitable and painful defeat, he acquitted himself with propercredit and courage. 

Bearing his honourable wounds, Master Ginsburg went home from battle toa tenement in Allen Street, there to be licked again for having beenlicked before; or, speaking with exactitude, for having been in a fight, his father being one who held by the theory that diplomacy ever shouldfind the way out to peace when blows threatened to follow ondisputation. With view, therefore, to proving his profound distaste forphysical violence in any form he employed it freely upon the body of hisson, using to that end a strap. Scarred in new places, the victim of twobeatings in one day went weeping and supperless to bed. 

Now this fight in Henry Street took place some sixteen years ago, and insixteen years a great deal of water runs under the bridges provided forthat purpose and for other purposes. Two separate currents of the waterthat flowed caught up Hyman Ginsburg and Pasquale Gallino and carriedthem along differing channels toward differing destinies. While Hymanwas in the grammar grades, a brag pupil, Pasquale was in the Protectory, a branded incorrigible. While Hyman was attending high school, Pasqualewas attending reform school. When Hyman, a man grown, was taking hisexaminations with the idea of getting on the police force, Pasquale wasconstructing an alibi with the idea of staying out of Sing Sing. Oneachieved his present ambition--that was Hyman. 

The next period of their respective developments found this pair in afair way each to achieve a definite niche in his chosen profession. Patrolman Hyman Ginsburg, after walking post for some months, had beentaken out of uniform and put into civilian garb as a plain-clothes manon the Headquarters staff. Here he was making good. Having intelligenceand energy and the racial persistence which is as much a part of hisbreed as their hands and their feet are, he was looked upon in thedepartment as a detective with a future ahead of him. 

As for him who had once been Pasquale Gallino, he now occupied aposition of prominence amid congenial surroundings while following afterequally congenial pursuits. There was a gang. Despite the fact that itwas such a new gang, this gang before the eyes of law and order stoodhigh upon a pinnacle of evil eminence, overtopping such old-establishedgangs as the Gas House and the Gophers, the Skinned Rabbits and thePearl Button Kid's. Taking title from the current name of its chieftain, it was popularly known as the Stretchy Gorman gang. Its headquarters wasa boozing den of exceeding ill repute on the lower West Side. Its chiefspecialties were loft robberies and dock robberies. Its favourite sidelines were election frauds and so-called strike-breaking jobs. The mainamusement of its members was hoodlumism in its broader and more generalphases. Its shield and its buckler was political influence of a sort;its keenest sword was its audacious young captain. You might call it ageneral-purposes gang. Contemporary gangsters spoke of it with respectand admiration. For a thing so young it gave great promise. 

A day came, though, when the protection under which the Stretchy Gormanshad flourished ceased to protect. It is not known, nor yet is itwritten, what the reason for this was. Perhaps there was a breaking offof the friendly relations theretofore existing between one of thedown-town district leaders and one of the powers--name deleted--higherup. Perhaps the newspapers had scolded too shrilly, demanding thehouse-cleaning of a neighbourhood which had become a bad smell in thesensitive nostrils of honest taxpayers and valued advertisers. Certainlyburglaries in the wholesale silk district had occurred so numerously asto constitute a public scandal. 

Then, besides, there was the incident of the night watchman of a NorthRiver freight pier, a worthy enough person though a nonvoter andtherefore of small account from the viewpoint of ward politics, whostood up in single-handed defence of his employer's premises and goodsagainst odds of at least four to one. Swinging a cold chisel, someonechipped a bit of bone out of the watchman's skull as expeditiously andalmost as neatly as a visiting Englishman chips the poll of hisbreakfast egg; so that forever after the victim nursed an achesome andslightly addled brain. Then there were other things. 

Be the cause what it may, it certainly is the fact that on a pleasantautumnal afternoon Inspector Krogan summoned to his presence two membersof the Central Office staff and told them to go get Stretchy Gorman. Stretchy was to be gone after and got on the blanket charge--the rubberblanket charge, as one might say, since it is so elastic and covers sucha multitude of sins--of being a suspicious character. 

Now Stretchy Gorman had no character to speak of; so therein theaccusation appeared faulty. But equally was it true as Holy Gospel thathe was suspicious of nearly everybody on earth and that nearly everybodyon earth had reasons to be suspicious of him. So, balancing one wordagainst the other, the garment might be said to fit him. At any rate, itwas plain the supreme potentates had decreed for him that he was to wearit. 

One of the detectives detailed to this assignment was Hyman Ginsburg. His partner on the job was a somewhat older man named Casane. These twofrequently worked together. Pulling in double harness they made adependable team. Both had wit and shrewdness. By sight, Casane knew theindividual they were deputed to take; Ginsburg, to his knowledge, hadnever seen him. 

Across his roll-top desk the inspector, speaking as follows, accordingto the mode of the fellowcraft, gave them their instructions:

"You'll likely be findin' this here party at the Stuffed Owl. That's hisregular hang-out. My information is that he's usually there regular thistime of the day. I've just had word that he went in there fifteenminutes ago; it's likely he'll be stayin' a while. 

"Now, if he's in there don't you two go and send for him to come outsideto you; nothin' like that. See? You go right in after him and nail himright in front of his own pals. Understand? I want him and his bunch andthe reporters all to know that this here alleged drag of his that thenewspapers've been beefin' so loud about is all bogus. And then youfetch him here to me and I'll do the rest. Don't make no gun play nornothin' of that nature without you have to, but at the same time andnevertheless don't take no foolish chances. This party may act up roughand then again he may not. Get me? My guess is he won't. Still andnotwithstandin', don't leave no openin's. Now get goin'. "

Sure enough it was at the sign of the Stuffed Owl, down in a basementbat cave of a place and in the dusk of the evening, that they foundtheir man. To Ginsburg's curious eyes he revealed himself as a short, swart person with enormously broad shoulders and with a chimpanzee's armreach. Look at those arms of his and one knew why he was calledStretchy. How he had acquired his last name of Gorman was only to beguessed at. It was fair to assume, though, he had got it by processes ofself-adoption--no unusual thing in a city where overnight a Finkelsteinturns into a Fogarty and he who at the going down of the sun was AntonioBaccigaluppi has at the upcoming of the same become Joseph Brown. Onething, though, was sure as rain: This particular Gorman had never beena Gorman born. 

Not the blackest of the "Black Irish, " not the most brunette of brunetteWelshmen ever had a skin of that peculiar brownish pallor, like clearwater in a cypress swamp, or eyes like the slitted pair looking outobliquely from this man's head. 

Taking their cue of action from their superior's words, Casane andGinsburg, having come down the short flight of steps leading from thesidewalk, went directly across the barroom to where their man sat at asmall table with two others, presumably both of his following, for hiscompanions. 

The manner of the intruders was casual enough; casual and yet marked bya businesslike air. They knew that at this moment they were notespecially attractive risks for an accident insurance company. The verysawdust on the floor stank of villainy; the brass bar rail might havebeen a rigid length of poison snake; the spittoons were small sinks ofcorruption. Moreover, they had been commissioned to take a monarch offhis throne before the eyes of his courtiers, and history records thatthis ever was a proceeding fraught with peril. 

Still they went straight toward him. Before they spoke a word--almostbefore they were well inside the street door--he must have recognisedthem as Headquarters men. Being what he was, he instantly would haveappraised them for what they were had the meeting taken place in thedead vast and middle of Sahara's sandy wastes. Even the seasonedurbanite who is law-abiding and who has no cause to fear the thief-takercan pick out a detective halfway up the block. 

Besides, in the same instant that they descended from the street level, the barkeeper with his tongue had made a small clucking sound, thricerepeated, and with all four fingers of his right hand had gripped theleft lapel of his unbuttoned waistcoat. Thereat there had been a generalraising of heads all over the place. Since the days of Jonathan Wild andeven before that--since the days when the Romany Rye came out of theEast into England--the signal of the collar has been the sign of thecollar, which means the cop. 

The man they sought eyed them contemptuously from under the down-tiltedvisor of his cap as they approached him. His arms were folded upon thetable top and for the moment he kept them so. 

"Evening, " said Casane civilly, pausing alongside him. "Call yourselfGorman, don't you?"

"I've been known to answer to that name, " he answered back in thecurious flat tone that is affected by some of his sort and is naturalwith the rest of them. "Wot of it?"

"There's somebody wants to have a talk with you up at the frontoffice--that's all, " said Casane. 

"It's a pinch, then, huh?" The gangster put his open hands against theedge of the table as though for a rearward spring. 

"I'm tellin' you all we know ourselves?" countered Casane. His voice wasconciliatory--soothing almost. But Ginsburg had edged round past Casane, ready at the next warning move to take the gang leader on the flank witha quick forward rush, and inside their overcoats, the shapes of both theofficers had tensed. 

"Call it a pinch if you want to, " went on Casane. "I'd call it more ofan invitation just to take a little walk with us two and then have achat with somebody else. Unless you or some of your friends here feellike startin' something there'll be no rough stuff--that's orders. We'reaskin' you to go along--first. How about it?"

"Oh, I'll go--I'll go! There's nobody got anything on me. And nobody'sgoin' to get anything on me neither. "

He stood up and with a quick movement jerked back the skirts of hiscoat, holding them aloft so that his hip pockets and his waistband, showed. 

"Take notice!" he cried, invoking as witnesses all present. "Take noticethat I'm carryin' no gat! So don't you bulls try framin' me under theSullivan Law for havin' a gat on me. There's half a dozen here knows Iain't heeled and kin swear to it--case of a frame-up. Now go ahead andfrisk me!"

"That'll be all right--we could easy take your word for it, " saidCasane, still maintaining his placating pose. Nevertheless he signed toGinsburg and the latter moved a step nearer their man and his practicedfingers ran swiftly over the unresisting form, feeling beneath the arms, down the flanks, about the belt line and even at the back of the neckfor a suspicious hard bulge inside the garments, finally giving the sidecoat pockets a perfunctory slap. 

"Unless you make it necessary, we won't be callin' for the wagon, "Casane stated. "Just the three of us'll take a little stroll, like I'mtelling you--just stroll out and take the air up to Headquarters. "

He slipped into position on one side of the gangster, Ginsburg on theother. Over his shoulder the man thus placed between them looked roundto where his two underlings still sat at the table, both silent as therest of the company were, but both plainly prepared for anycontingencies; both ready to follow their chief's lead in whatsoevercourse, peaceable or violent, he might next elect to follow. 

"Here you, Louie, " he bade one of them, "jump to the telephone andnotify a certain party to have me mouthpiece at Headquarters by the timeI kin get there with these two dicks. Tell him the cops've got nothin'on me, but I wants me mouthpiece there just the same--case of a tie. "

Until now the preliminaries had been carried on with a due regard forthe unwritten but rigid code of underworld etiquette. From neither sidehad there issued a single unethical word. The detectives had beenpunctilious to avoid ruffling the sensibilities of any and all. All thesame, the prisoner chose of a sudden to turn nasty. It was at oncemanifest that he aimed to give offence without giving provocation orreal excuse for reprisals on the part of the invaders. He spat sidewiseacross Casane's front and as he took the first step forward he broughtthe foot down upon one of Ginsburg's feet, grinding his heel sharplyinto the toes beneath. Ginsburg winced at the pain but did not speak; hehad not spoken at all up until now, leaving it to Casane as the elderman to conduct the preliminaries. 

"Why don't you say something, you Jew!" taunted the prisoner. "Don't youeven know enough to excuse yourself when you stick your fat feet inpeople's way?"

"That'll be all right, " said Ginsburg crisply. It was his business toavoid the issue of a clash. "And it'll be all right your calling me aJew. I am a Jew and I'm proud of it. And I'm wearing the same name Istarted out with too. "

"Is that so?"

Except in the inspired pages of fiction city thugs are singularly barrenof power to deliver really snappy, really witty retorts. 

"Is that so, Jew?" He stared at Ginsburg and a derisive grin opened agap in his broad dark face. "Oh, be chee! We ain't strangers--you andme ain't! We've met before--when we was kids. Down in Henry Street, itwas. I put me mark on you oncet, and if I ever feel like it I'll do itagain sometime. "

Like a match under shavings the words kindled half-forgotten memories inthe young detective's brain and now--for his part--recognition cameflashing back out of the past. 

"I thought so, " he said, choosing to ignore the gangster and addressingCasane. "I thought from the first Gorman wasn't his right name. I'veforgotten what his right name is, but it's nothing that sounds likeGorman. He's a wop. I went to the same school with him over on the EastSide a good many years ago. "

"Don't forget to tell him how the wop licked the Jew, " broke in theprisoner. "Remember how the scrap started?"

He spat again and this time he did not miss. Ginsburg put up his glovedhand and wiped clean a face that with passion had turned a mottle ofred-and-white blotches. His voice shook from the strain of his effort tocontrol himself. 

"I'll get you for that, " he said quietly. "And I'll get you good. Theday'll come when I'll walk you in broad daylight up to the big chief, and I'll have the goods on you too. "

"Forget it, " jeered the ruffian triumphantly. Before the eyes of hissatellites he had--by his standards--acquitted himself rightcreditably. "You got nothin' on me now, Jew, and you never will have. Well, come on, you bulls, let's be goin' along. I wouldn't want theneither one of you for steady company. One of you is too polite and theother'n too meek for my tastes. "

 * * * * *

The man who was called Stretchy Gorman spoke a prophetic word when hesaid the police had nothing on him. Since they had nothing on him, hewas let go after forty-eight hours of detention; but that is not sayingthey did not intend, if they could--and in such cases they usuallycan--to get something on him. 

No man in the department had better reason to crave that consummationthan Hyman Ginsburg had. With him the hope of achieving revenge becamepractically an obsession. It rode in his thoughts. Any hour, in acampaign to harry the gangster to desperation by means of methods thatare common enough inside the department, he might have invoked competentand willing assistance, for the word had filtered down from on high, where the seats of the mighty are, that those mysterious forces aloftwould look complacently upon the eternal undoing of the Stretchy Gormansand their titular leader, no matter how accomplished. 

But this notion did not match in with the colour of Ginsburg's desires. Single-handed, he meant to do the trick. Most probably then the creditwould be all his; assuredly the satisfaction would. When he consideredthis prospect his mind ran back along old grooves to the humiliatingbeating he had suffered in front of the Henry Street school so longbefore and of a most painful strapping that followed; these beingcoupled always with a later memory scar of a grievous insult endured inthe line of duty and all the more hateful because it had been endured. 

Once Ginsburg had read a book out of a public library--a book whichmentally he called Less Miserables. Through the pages of that book therehad walked a detective whom Ginsburg in his mind knew by the name ofJawbert. Now he recalled how this Jawbert spent his life tracking downan offender who was the main hero of the book. He told himself that inthe matter of Stretchy Gorman he would be as another Jawbert. 

By way of a beginning he took advantage of leisure hours to trace outthe criminal history of his destined victim. In the gallery he foundnumbered and classified photographs; in the Bertillon bureau, fingerprints; and in the records, what else he lacked of information--as anurchin, so many years spent in the protectory; as a youth, so many yearsin the reformatory; as a man, a year on Blackwell's Island for amisdemeanour and a three-year term at Sing Sing for a felony; also hedug up the entry of an indictment yet standing on which trial had neverbeen held for lack of proof to convict; finally a long list of arrestsfor this and that and the other thing, unproved. From under a successionof aliases he uncovered Gorman's real name. 

But a sequence of events delayed his fuller assumption of the rôle ofJawbert. He was sent to Rio de Janeiro to bring back an absconder ofnote. Six months he worked on the famous Gonzales child-stealingmystery. He made two trips out to the Pacific Coast in connection withthe Chappy Morgan wire-tapping cases. Few of the routine jobs about thedetective bureau fell to him. He was too good for routine and hissuperiors recognised the fact and were governed thereby. 

By the rules of tradition, Ginsburg--as a successful detective--shouldhave been either an Irishman or of Irish descent. But in the secondbiggest police force in the world, wherein twenty per cent of thepersonnel wear names that betoken Jewish, Slavic or Latin forebears, tradition these times suffers many a body wallop. 

On a night in early April, Ginsburg, coming across from New Jersey, landed off a ferryboat at Christopher Street. He had gone across theriver to gather up a loose end of the evidence accumulating againstChappy Morgan, king of the wireless wire-tappers. It was nearly midnightwhen he emerged from the ferryhouse. In sight was no surface car; so heset out afoot to walk across town to where he lived on the East Side. 

Going through a side street in a district which mainly is given over tothe establishments of textile jobbers, he observed, half a block away, afire escape that bore strange fruit. The front line of a stretch oftallish buildings stood out in relief against the background of a wetmoon and showed him, high up on the iron ladder which flighted down theface of one house of the row, two dark clumps, one placed just above theother. 

Ginsburg slipped into a protecting ledge of shadow close up against thebuildings and edged along nearer. The clumps resolved into the figuresof men. One--the uppermost shape of a man--was receiving from someunseen sources flat burdens that came down over the roof coping andpassing them along to the accomplice below. The latter in turn stackedthem upon the grilled floor of the fire balcony that projected out intospace at the level of the fourth floor, the building being five floorsin height. By chance Ginsburg had happened upon a loft-robbingenterprise. 

He shifted his revolver from his hip pocket to the side pocket of hisovercoat and crept closer, planning for the pair so intently engagedoverhead a surprise when they should descend with their loot. There wasno time now to seek out the patrolman on the post; the job must be allhis. 

Two doors from the building that had been entered he crept noiselesslydown into a basement and squatted behind an ash barrel. It was inkyblack in there; so inkily black he never suspected that the recess heldanother tenant. Your well-organised loft-robbing mob carries along alookout who in case of discovery gives warning; in case of attack, repels the attack, and in case of pursuit acts as rear guard. InStretchy Gorman's operations Stretchy acted as his own lookout, and ahighly competent one he was, too, with a preference for lurking inareaways while his lieutenants carried forward the more arduous but lessresponsible shares of the undertaking. 

In the darkness behind Ginsburg where he crouched a long gorilla's armof an arm reached outward and downward, describing an arc. You mightcall it the long arm of coincidence and be making no mistake either. Atthe end of the arm was a fist and in the fist a length of gas pipewrapped in rags. This gas pipe descended upon the back of Ginsburg'sskull, crushing through the derby hat he wore. And the next thingGinsburg knew he was in St. Vincent's Hospital with a splitting headacheand the United States Government had gone to war against the GermanEmpire. 

Ginsburg did not volunteer. The parent who once had wielded thedisciplinary strap-end so painstakingly had long since rejoined hisbearded ancestors, but there was a dependent mother to be cared for anda whole covey of younger brothers and sisters to be shepherded throughschool and into sustaining employment. So he waited for the draft, andwhen the draft took him and his number came out in the drawing, as itvery soon did, he waived his exemptions and went to training campwearing an old suit of clothes and an easy pair of shoes. Presently hefound himself transferred to a volunteer outfit--one of the very fewdraft men who were to serve with that outfit. 

In camp the discipline he had acquired and the drilling he had done inhis prentice days on the force stood him in good stead. Hard worktrimmed off of him the layers of tissue he had begun to take on; plainsolid food finished the job of unlarding his frame. Shortly he wasCorporal Ginsburg--a trim upstanding corporal. Then he became SergeantGinsburg and soon after this was Second Sergeant Ginsburg of B Companyof a regiment still somewhat sketchy and ragged in its make-up, but withpromise of good stuff to emerge from the mass of its material. When hisregiment and his division went overseas, First Sergeant Ginsburg wentalong too. 

The division had started out by being a national guard division; almostexclusively its rank and file had been city men--rich men's sons fromuptown, poor men's sons with jaw-breaking names from the tenements. Atthe beginning the acting major general in command had been fond ofboasting that he had representatives of thirty-two nations andpractitioners of fifty-four creeds and cults in his outfit. Before verylong he might truthfully expand both these figures. 

To stopper the holes made by the wear and tear of intensive training, the attritions of sickness and of transfers, the losses by death and bywounding as suffered in the first small spells of campaigning, replacements came up from the depots, enriching the local colour of thedivision with new types and strange accents. Southern mountaineers, Western ranch hands and farm boys from the Middle States came along tofind mates among Syrians, Jews, Italians, Armenians and Greeks. CottonBelt, Corn Belt, Wheat Belt and Timber Belt contributed. Born feudistsbecame snipers, counter jumpers became fencibles, yokels becamedrillmasters, sweat-shop hands became sharpshooters, aliens becameAmericans, an ex-janitor--Austrian-born--became a captain, a rabblebecame an organised unit; the division became a tempered mettlesomelance--springy, sharp and dependable. 

This miracle so often repeated itself in our new army that it ceased tobe miraculous and became commonplace. During its enactment we as anation accepted it with calmness, almost with indifference. I expect ourgrandchildren will marvel at it and among them will be some who willwrite large, fat books about it. 

On that great day when a new definition for the German equivalent of theEnglish word "impregnable" was furnished by men who went up to battleswearfully or prayerfully, as the case might be, a-swearing anda-praying as they went in more tongues than were babbled at Babel Tower;in other words, on the day when the never-to-be-broken Hindenburg linewas broken through and through, a battalion of one of the infantryregiments of this same polyglot division formed a little individualground swell in the first wave of attack. 

That chill and gloomy hour when condemned men and milkmen rise up fromwhere they lie, when sick folk die in their beds and the drowsy birdsbegin to chirp themselves awake found the men of this particularbattalion in shallow front-line trenches on the farther edge of a birchthicket. There they crouched, awaiting the word. The flat cold taste ofbefore sunup was clammy in their throats; the smell of the fadingnighttime was in their nostrils. 

And in the heart of every man of them that man over and over again askedhimself a question. He asked himself whether his will power--which meanthis soul--was going to be strong enough to drag his reluctant body alongwith it into what impended. You see, with a very few exceptions none ofthis outfit had been beyond the wires before. They had been under fire, some of them--fire of gas shells and of shrapnel and of high explosivesin dugouts or in rear positions or as they passed along roads lyingunder gun range of the enemy. But this matter would be different; thisexperience would widely differ from any they had undergone. This meantgoing out into the open to walk up against machine-gun fire andsmall-arm fire. So each one asked himself the question. 

Take a thousand fighting men. For purposes of argument let us say thatwhen the test of fighting comes five men out of that thousand cannotreadjust their nerves to the prospect of a violent end by powder andball from unseen sources. Under other circumstances any one of the fivemight face a peril greater than that which now confronts him. Conceivably he might flop into a swollen river to save a drowning puppy;might dive into a burning building after some stranger's pet tabby cat. But this prospect which lies before him of ambling across a field withdeath singing about his ears, is a thing which tears with clawingfingers at the tuggs and toggles of his imagination until his fleshrevolts to the point where it refuses the dare. It is such a man thatcourts-martial and the world at large miscall by the hateful name ofcoward. 

Out of the remaining nine hundred and ninety-five are five more--as weallow--who have so little of perception, who are so stolid, so dull ofwit and apprehension that they go into battle unmoved, unshaken, unthinking. This leaves nine hundred and ninety who are afraid--sorelyand terribly afraid. They are afraid of being killed, afraid of beingcrippled, afraid of venturing out where killings and cripplings arecarried on as branches of a highly specialised business. 

But at the last they find that they fear just one thing more than theyfear death and dismemberment; and that this one supremest thing is thefear that those about them may discover how terribly afraid they are. Itis this greater fear, overriding all those lesser terrors, that makesover ordinary men into leaders of forlorn hopes, into holders of lastditches, into bearers of heroic blazons, into sleepers under memorialshafts erected by the citizens of a proud, a grateful and a sorrowingcountry. A sense of self-respect is a terrific responsibility. 

Under this double stress, torn in advance of the actual undertaking byprimitive emotions pulling in opposite directions, men bear themselvesafter curious but common fashions. To a psychologist twenty men chosenat random from the members of the battalion, waiting there in the edgeof the birch thicket for their striking hour to come, would have offeredtwenty contrasting subjects for study. 

Here was a man all deathly white, who spoke never a word, but whoretched with sharp painful sounds and kept his free hand gripped intohis cramping belly. That dread of being hit in the bowels which so manymen have at moments like this was making him physically sick. 

Here again was a man who made jokes about cold feet and yellow streaksand the chances of death and the like and laughed at his own jokes. Butthere was a quiver of barely checked hysteria in his laughing and hiseyes shone like the eyes of a man in a fever and the sweat kept poppingout in little beads on his face. 

Here again was a man who swore constantly in a monotonous undertone. Always I am reading where a man of my race under strain or provocationcoins new and apt and picturesque oaths; but myself, I have never seensuch a man. I should have seen him, too, if he really existed anywhereexcept in books, seeing that as a boy I knew many steamboat mates onSouthern waters and afterward met socially many and divers mule driversand horse wranglers in the great West. 

But it has been my observation that in the matter of oaths theAnglo-Saxon tongue is strangely lacking in variety and spice. There area few stand-by oaths--three or four nouns, two or three adjectives, onedouble-jointed adjective--and these invariably are employed over andover again. The which was undeniably true in this particular instance. This man who swore so steadily merely repeated, times without number andpresumably with reference to the Germans, the unprettiest and at thesame time the most familiar name of compounded opprobrium that ourdeficient language yields. 

For the fiftieth time in half as many minutes, a captain--his name wasCaptain Griswold and he was the captain of B Company--consulted theluminous face of his wrist watch where he stooped behind shelter. Hespoke then, and his voice was plainly to be heard under the whistle andwhoop of the shells passing over his head from the supporting batteriesbehind with intent to fall in the supposed defences of the enemy infront. Great sounds would have been lost in that crashing tumult; by oneof the paradoxes of battle lesser sounds were easily audible. 

"All right, " said Captain Griswold, "it's time! If some damn fool hasn'tgummed things up the creeping barrage should be starting out yonder andeverything is set. Come on, men--let's go!"

They went, each still behaving according to his own mode. The man withthe gripes who retched was still retching as he heaved himself up overthe parapet; the man who had laughed was still laughing; the man who hadsworn was mechanically continuing to repeat that naughty pet name of hisfor the Fritzies. Nobody, though, called on anybody else to defend theglory of the flag; nobody invited anybody to remember the _Lusitania_;nobody spoke a single one of the fine speeches which the bushelmen offiction at home were even then thinking up to put into the mouths ofmen moving into battle. 

Indeed, not in any visible regard was the scene marked by drama. Merelysome muddied men burdened with ironmongery and bumpy with gas masks andammunition packs climbed laboriously out of a slit in the wet earth andin squads--single filing, one man behind the next as directly as mightbe--stepped along through a pale, sad, slightly misty light at rather adeliberate pace, to traverse a barb-wired meadowland which rose beforethem at a gentle incline. There was no firing of guns, no waving ofswords. There were no swords to wave. There was no enemy in sight and noevidence as yet that they had been sighted by any enemy. As a matter offact, none of them--neither those who fell nor those who lived--saw onthat day a single living individual recognisable as a German. 

A sense of enormous isolation encompassed them. They seemed to be allalone in a corner of the world that was peopled by diabolical sounds, but not by humans. They had a feeling that because of an error in theplans they had been sent forward without supports; that they--a punyhandful--were to be sacrificed under the haunches of the Hindenburg linewhile all those thousands of others who should have been theircompanions upon this adventure bided safely behind, held back by thecountermand which through some hideous blunder had failed to reach themin time. But they went on. Orders were to go on--and order, plusdiscipline, plus the individual's sense of responsibility, plus thatfear of his that his mates may know how fearful of other things heis--make it possible for armies to be armies instead of mobs and forbattles to be won. 

They went on until they came to an invisible line drawn lengthwiseacross the broad way of the weed field, and here men began to drop down. Mainly those stricken slid gently forward to lie on their stomachs. Onlyhere and there was there a man who spun about to fall face upward. Thosewho were wounded, but not overthrown, would generally sit down quitegently and quite deliberately, with puzzled looks in their eyes. Sincestill there was neither sign nor sight of the well-hidden enemy thethought took root in the minds of the men as yet unscathed that, advancing too fast, they had been caught in the drop curtain of theirown barrage. 

Sergeant Hyman Ginsburg, going along at the head of his squad, got thisnotion quite well fixed in his mind. Then, though, he saw smoke jetsissuing from bushes and trees on ahead of him where the ridges of theslope sharpened up acutely into a sort of natural barrier like a wall;and likewise for the first time he now heard the tat-tat-tat of machineguns, sounding like the hammers of pneumatic riveters rapidly operated. To him it seemed a proper course that his squad should take such coveras the lay of the land afforded and fire back toward the machine guns. But since the instructions, so far as he knew them, called for a steadyadvance up to within a few rods of the enemy's supposed position andthen a quick rush forward, he gave no such command to his squad. 

Suddenly he became aware that off to the right the forward movement ofthe battalion was checking up. Then, all in an instant, men on bothsides were falling back. He and his squad were enveloped in a reversemovement. It seemed too bad that the battalion should be driven in aftersuffering these casualties and without having dealt a blow in return forthe punishment it had undergone. But what did it matter if, after all, they were being sacrificed vainly as the result of a hideous mistake atdivisional headquarters? Better to save what was left. 

So far as he could tell, nobody gave the word to retire. He foundhimself going back at the tail of his squad where before he had been itshead. Subconsciously he was surprised to observe that the copse fromwhich they had emerged but a minute or two earlier, as he had imagined, was a considerable distance away from them, now that they had set theirfaces toward it. It did not seem possible that they could have left itso far behind them. Yet returning to it the men did not perceptiblyhurry their steps. They retreated without evidences of disorder--almostreluctantly--as though by this very slowness of movement to signifytheir disgust for the supposed fiasco that had enveloped them, causingthem to waste lives in an ill-timed and futile endeavour. 

Ginsburg reëntered the covert of birches with a sense of gratitude forits protection and let himself down into the trench. He faced about, peering over its rim, and saw that his captain--Captain Griswold--wasjust behind him, returning all alone and looking back over his shoulderconstantly. 

Captain Griswold was perhaps twenty yards from the thicket when heclasped both hands to the pit of his stomach and slipped down flat inthe trampled herbage. In that same moment Ginsburg saw how manyinvisible darting objects, which must of course be machine-gun bullets, were mowing the weed stems about the spot where the captain had gonedown. Bits of turf flew up in showers as the leaden blasts, sprayingdown from the top of the ridge, bored into the earth. 

Well, somebody would have to bring the captain in out of that. He laidhis rifle against the wall of the trench and climbed out again intoplain view. So far as he knew he was going as a solitary volunteer uponthis errand. He put one arm across his face, like a man fending off raindrops, and ran bent forward. 

The captain, when he reached him, was lying upon his side with his faceturned away from Ginsburg and his shrapnel helmet half on and half offhis head. Ginsburg stooped, putting his hands under the pits of thecaptain's arms, and gave a heave. The burden of the body came againsthim as so much dead heft; a weight limp and unresponsive, the trunksagging, the limbs loose and unguided. 

Ginsburg felt a hard buffet in his right side. It wasn't a blow exactly;it was more like a clout from a heavily-shod blunt-ended brogan. Hislast registered impression as he collapsed on top of the captain wasthat someone, hurrying up to aid him, had stumbled and driven a bootedtoe into his ribs. Thereafter for a space events--in so far asGinsburg's mind recorded them--were hazy, with gaps between of completeforgetfulness. He felt no pain to speak of, but busybodies keptbothering him. It drowsily annoyed him to be dragged about, to be liftedup and to be put down again, to be pawed over by unseen, dimlycomprehended hands, to be ridden in a careening, bumping vehicle forwhat seemed to him hours and hours. Finally, when he was striving toreorganise his faculties for the utterance of a protest, someone putsomething over his nose and he went sound asleep. 

Ensued then a measureless period when he slept and dreamed strangejumbled dreams. He awakened, clear enough in his thoughts, but besetwith a queer giddiness and a weakness, in a hospital sixteen miles fromwhere the mix-up had started, though he didn't know about that of courseuntil subsequent inquiry enabled him to piece together a number offragmentary recollections. For the present he was content to realisethat he lay on a comfortable cot under a tight roof and that he had hisfull complement of arms and legs and could move them, though when hemoved the right leg the ankle hurt him. Also he had a queer squeezed-insensation amidships as though broad straps had been buckled tightlyabout his trunk. 

Upon top of these discoveries came another. Sitting up in the next-handcot to his on the right was a member of his own company, one PaulDempsey, now rather elaborately bandaged as to his head and shoulders, but seemingly otherwise in customary good order and spirits. 

"Hello, Dempsey, " he said. 

"Hello, sarge, " answered back Dempsey. "How you feelin' by now--allright?"

"Guess so. My ankle is sprained or something and my side feels sort offunny. "

"I shouldn't wonder, " said Dempsey. "I got a dippy kind of feelin'inside my own headpiece--piece of shell casin' come and beaned me. Itdon't amount to much, though; just enough to get me a wound stripe. You're the lucky guy, sarge. Maybe it's so you won't have to go back andprob'ly I will. "

The speaker sighed and grinned and then confessed to a great perceptionwhich many before him had known and which many were to know afterward, but which some--less frank than he--have sought to conceal. 

"I'll go back of course if they need me--and if I have to--but I'd justas lief not. You kin take it from me, I've had plenty of this gettin'all-shot-up business. Oncet is enough for First-Class Private Dempsey. 

"Say, " he went on, "looks like you and me are goin' partners a lot herelately. I get mine right after you get yours. We ride back here togetherin the same tin Lizzie--you and me do--and now here we are side by eachagain. Well, there's a lot of the fellows we won't neither of us see nomore. But their lives wasn't wasted, at that. I betcher there's a lot ofGerman bein' spoke in hell these last two or three days. 

"Oh, you ain't heard the big news, have you? Bein' off your dip and outof commission like you was. Well, we busted old Mister Hindenburg's linein about nine places and now it looks like maybe we'll eat Thanksgivin'dinner in Berlin or Hoboken--one. "

Dempsey went on and every word that he uttered was news--how theseemingly premature advance of the battalion had not been a mistake atall; how the only slip was that the battalion walked into a whole coteof unsuspected machine-gun nests, but how the second battalion going upand round the shore of the hill to the left had taken the boche on theflank and cleaned him out of his pretty little ambuscade; how there weretidings of great cheer filtering back from all along the line and soforth and so on. Ginsburg broke in on him:

"How's Captain Griswold?"

"Oh, the cap was as good as dead when this here guy, Goodman, fetchedhim in on his back after he'd went out after you fell and fetched youback in first. I seen the whole thing myself--it was right after thatthat I got beaned. One good scout, the cap was. And there ain't nothin'wrong with this Goodman, neither; you kin take it from me. "

"Goodman?" Ginsburg pondered. The name was a strange one. "Say, was itthis Goodman that kicked me in the ribs while I was tryin' to pick upthe captain?"

"Kicked you nothin'! You got a machine-gun bullet glancin' on your shortribs and acrost your chest right under the skin--that was what put youdown and out. And then just as Goodman fetched you in acrost over thetop here come another lot of machine-gun bullets, and one of 'em drilledyou through the ankle and another one of them bored Goodman cleanthrough the shoulder; but that didn't keep him from goin' right back outthere, shot up like he was, after the captain. Quick as a cat that guywas and strong as a bull. Naw, Goodman he never kicked you--that was alittle chunk of lead kicked you. "

"But I didn't feel any pain like a bullet, " protested Ginsburg. "It wasmore like a hard wallop with a club or a boot. "

"Say, that's a funny thing too, " said Dempsey. "You're always readin'about the sharp dartin' pain a bullet makes, and yet nearly everybodythat gets hit comes out of his trance ready to swear a mule musterkicked him or somethin'. I guess that sharp-dartin' pain stuff runs forSweeney; the guys that write about it oughter get shot up themselvesoncet. Then they'd know. "

"This Goodman, now?" queried Ginsburg, trying to chamber manyimpressions at once. "I don't seem to place him. He wasn't in BCompany?"

"Naw! He's out of D Company. He's a new guy. He's out of a bunch ofreplacements that come up for D Company only the day before yistiddy. Well, for a green hand he certainly handled himself like one old-timer. "

Dempsey, aged nineteen, spoke as the grizzled veteran of many campaignsmight have spoken. 

"Yes, sir! He certainly snatched you out of a damn bad hole in jigtime. "

"I'd like to have a look at him, " said Ginsburg. "And my old mother backhome would, too, I know. "

"Your mother'll have to wait, but you kin have your wish, " said Dempseygleefully. He had been saving his biggest piece of news for the last. "If you've got anything to ask him just ask him. He's layin'there--right over there on the other side of you. We all three of usrode down here together in the same amb'lance load. "

Ginsburg turned his head. Above the blanket that covered the figure ofhis cot neighbour on the right he looked into the face of the man whohad saved him--looked into it and recognised it. That dark skin, clearthough, with a transparent pallor to it like brown stump water in aswamp, and those black eyes between the slitted lids could belong to butone person on earth. If the other had overheard what just had passedbetween Ginsburg and Dempsey he gave no sign. He considered Ginsburgsteadily, with a cool, hostile stare in his eyes. 

"Much obliged, buddy, " said Ginsburg. Something already had told himthat here revealed was a secret not to be shared with a third party. 

"Don't mention it, " answered his late rescuer shortly. He drew a fold ofthe blanket up across his face with the gesture of one craving solitudeor sleep. 

"Huh!" quoth Dempsey. "Not what I'd call a talkative guy. "

This shortcoming could not be laid at his own door. He talked steadilyon. After a while, though, a reaction of weariness began to bluntDempsey's sprightly vivacity. His talk trailed off into grunts and heslept the sleep of a hurt tired-out boy. 

Satisfied that Dempsey no longer was to be considered in the rôle of apossible eavesdropper, Ginsburg nevertheless spoke cautiously as againhe turned his face toward the motionless figure stretched alongside himon his left. 

"Listening?" he began. 

"Yes, " gruffly. 

"When did you begin calling yourself Goodman?"

"That's my business. "

"No, it's not. Something has happened that gives me the right to know. Forget that I used to be on the cops. I'm asking you now as one soldierto another: When did you begin calling yourself Goodman?"

"About a year ago--when I first got into the service. "

"How did you get in?"

"Enlisted. "

"Where? New York?"

"No. Cleveland. "

"What made you enlist?"

"Say, wot's this--thoid-degree stuff?"

"I told you just now that I figured I had a right to know. When a mansaves your life it puts him under an obligation to you--I mean puts youunder an obligation to him, " he corrected. 

"Well, if you put it that way--maybe it was because I wanted to duck outof reach of you bulls. Maybe because I wanted to go straight a while. Maybe because I wanted to show that a bad guy could do somethin' for hiscountry. Dope it out for yourself. That used to be your game--dopin'things out--wasn't it?"

"I'm trying to, now. Tell me, does anybody know--anybody in the Army, Imean--know who you are?"

"Nobody but you; and you might call it an accident, the way you come tofind out. "

"Something like that. How's your record since you joined up?"

"Clean as anybody's. "

"And what's your idea about keeping on going straight after the war isover and you get out of service?

"Don't answer unless you feel like it; only I've got my own privatereasons for wanting to know. "

"Well, I know a trade--learnt it in stir, but I know it. I'm asteamfitter by trade, only I ain't never worked much at it. Maybe when Iget back I'd try workin' at it steady if you flatties would only keepoff me back. Anything else you wanted to find out?" His tone wassneering almost. "If there's not, I think I'll try to take a nap. "

"Not now--but I'd like to talk to you again about some things when we'reboth rested up. "

"Have it your own way. I can't get away from you for a while--not withthis hole drilled in me shoulder. "

However, Ginsburg did not have it his own way. The wound in his leg gavethreat of trouble and at once he was shifted south to one of the bigbase hospitals. An operation followed and after that a rather long, slowconvalescence. 

In the same week of November that the armistice was signed, Ginsburg, limping slightly, went aboard a troopship bound for home. It befell, therefore, that he spent the winter on sick leave in New York. He hadplenty of spare time on his hands and some of it he employed in businessof a more or less private nature. For example, he called on the districtattorney and a few days later went to Albany and called upon thegovernor. A returned soldier whose name has been often in the paper andwho wears on his uniform tunic two bits of ribbon and on his sleevesservice and wound stripes is not kept waiting in anterooms these times. He saw the governor just as he had seen the district attorney--promptly. In fact, the governor felt it to be an honour to meet a soldier who hadbeen decorated for gallantry in action and so expressed himself. Laterhe called in the reporters and restated the fact; but when one of thereporters inquired into the reasons for Sergeant Ginsburg's visit atthis time the governor shook his head. 

"The business between us was confidential, " he said smilingly. "But Imight add that Sergeant Ginsburg got what he came for. And it wasn't ajob either. I'm afraid, though, that you young gentlemen will have towait a while for the rest of the details. They'll come out in time nodoubt. But just for the present a sort of surprise is being planned forsomeone and while I'm to be a party to it I don't feel at liberty totell about it--yet. "

 * * * * *

Now it is a part of the business of newspaper men to put two and twotogether and get four. Months later, recalling what the governor hadsaid to the Albany correspondents, divers city editors with the aid oftheir bright young staff men did put two and two together and they got astory. It was a peach of a bird of a gem of a story that they got on theday a transport nosed up the harbour bearing what was left of one of theinfantry regiments of the praiseworthy Metropolitan Division. 

Even in those days of regardless receptions for home-arriving troops itdid not often happen that a secretary to the governor and an assistantfrom the office of the district attorney went down the bay on the sametug to meet the same returning soldier--and he a private soldier atthat. Each of these gentlemen had put on his long-tailed coat and histwo-quart hat for the gladsome occasion; each of them carried a documentfor personal presentation to this private soldier. 

And the sum total of these documents was: Firstly, to the full legaleffect that a certain indictment of long standing was now by dueprocesses of law forever and eternally quashed; and secondly, that thegovernor had seen fit to remove all disabilities against a certainindividual, thereby restoring the person named to all the rights, boons, benefits and privileges of citizenship; and thirdly, that in accordancewith a prior and privy design, now fully carried out, the recipient ofthese documents had official guaranty, stamped, sealed and delivered, that when he set foot on the soil of these United States he would do sowithout cloud upon his title as a sovereign voter, without blemish onhis name and without fear of prosecution in his heart. And the upshot ofit all was that the story was more than a peach; it was a pippin. Therehabilitation of Private Pasquale Gallino, sometime known as StretchyGorman, gangster, and more latterly still as P. Goodman, U. S. A. , A. E. F. , was celebrated to the extent of I don't know how many gallonsof printer's ink. 

Having landed in driblets and having been reassembled in camp as awhole, the division presently paraded, which made another story deemedworthy of columns upon columns in print. Our duty here, though, is notto undertake a description of that parade, for such was competently doneon that fine day when the crowd that turned out was the largest crowdwhich that city of crowds, New York, had seen since the day when thecrowding Dutchmen crowded the Indians off the shortly-to-be-crowdedisland of Manhattan. 

Those who followed the daily chronicles of daily events saw then, through the eyes of gifted scribes, how Fifth Avenue was turned into afour-mile stretch of prancing, dancing glory; and how the outpouringmillions, in masses fluid as water and in strength irresistible as aflood, broke the police dams and made of roadway and sidewalks onegreat, roaring, human sluiceway; and how the khaki-clad ranks marchedupon a carpet of the flowers and the fruit and the candy and thecigarettes and the cigars and the confetti and the paper ribbons thatwere thrown at them and about them. These things are a tale told andretold. For us the task is merely to narrate one small incident whichoccurred in a side street hard by Washington Square while the parade wasforming. 

Where he stood marking time in the front row of the honour men of hisown regiment--there being forty-six of these honour men, all bearingupon their proudly outbulged bosoms bits of metal testifying to valorousdeeds--First Sergeant Hyman Ginsburg, keeping eyes front upon the broadback of the colonel who would ride just in advance of the honour squadand speaking out of the side of his mouth, addressed a short, squat, dark man in private's uniform almost directly behind him at the end ofthe second file. 

"Pal, " he said, casting his voice over his shoulder, "did you happen toread in the paper this morning that the police commissioner--the newone, the one that was appointed while we were in France--would be in thereviewing stand to-day?"

"No, I didn't read it; but wot of it?" answered the person addressed. 

"Nothing, only it reminded me of a promise I made you that night down atthe Stuffed Owl when we met for the first time since we were kidstogether. Remember that promise, don't you?"

"Can't say I do. "

"I told you that some day I'd get you with the goods on you and that I'dlead you in broad daylight up the street to the big chief. Well, to-day, kid, I make good on that promise. The big chief's waiting for us upyonder in the reviewing stand along with the governor and the mayor andthe rest. And you've got the goods on you--you're wearing them on yourchest. And I'm about to lead you to him. "

Whereupon old Mr. John J. Coincidence, standing in the crowd, took outhis fountain pen and on his shirt cuff scored a fresh tally to his owncredit. 

CHAPTER VII

WHEN AUGUST THE SECOND WAS APRIL THE FIRST

How Ethan A. Pratt, formerly of South New Medford, in the State ofVermont, came to be resident manager and storekeeper for the BritishGreat Eastern Company, Ltd. , on Good Friday Island, in the South Seas, is not our present concern. Besides, the way of it makes too long a talefor telling here. It is sufficient to say he was. 

Never having visited that wide, long, deep and mainly liquid backside ofthe planet known broadly as the South Seas but always intending to doso, I must largely depend for my local colour upon what Ethan Prattwrote back home to South New Medford; on that, plus what returnedtravellers to those parts have from time to time told me. So if in thissmall chronicle those paragraphs which purport to be of a descriptivenature appear incomplete to readers personally acquainted with the spotsdealt with or with spots like them the fault, in some degree at least, must rest upon the fact that I have had my main dependence in thepreserved letters of one who was by no means a sprightly correspondent, but on the contrary was by way of being somewhat prosy, not to saycommonplace, on his literary side. 

From the evidence extant one gathers that for the four years of his lifehe spent on Good Friday Island Ethan Pratt lived in the rear room of atwo-room house of frame standing on a beach with a little village aboutit, a jungle behind it, a river half-mooning it and a lagoon before it. In the rear room he bedded and baited himself. The more spacious frontroom into which his housekeeping quarters opened was a store of sortswhere he retailed print goods staple, tinned foods assorted andgimcracks various to his customers, these mostly being natives. Thebuilding was crowned with a tin roof and on top of the roof thereperched a round water tank, like a high hat on a head much too large forit. The use of this tank was to catch and store up rain water, which raninto it from the sloping top of a larger and taller structure standingpartly alongside and partly back of the lesser structure. The largerbuilding--a shed it properly was; a sprawling wide-eaved barracks of ashed--was for the storing of copra, the chief article for exportproduced on Good Friday Island. 

Copra, as all know--or as all should know, since it has come to be oneof the most essential vegetable products of the world, a thing needfulin the manufacture of nearly every commercial output in which fattyessences are required--is the dried meat of the nut of the coconut palm. So rich is it in oils that soap makers--to cite one of the industriesemploying it--scarce could do without it; but like many of this earth'smost profitable and desirable yieldings it has its unpretty aspects. Forone thing it stinks most abominably while it is being cured, and afterit has been cured it continues to stink, with a lessened intensity. Foranother thing, the all-pervading reek of the stuff gets into food thatis being prepared anywhere in its bulked vicinity. 

Out in front of the establishment over which Ethan Pratt presided, wherethe sandy beach met the waters, was a rickety little wharf like a hyphento link the grit with the salt. Down to the outer tip of the wharf ran anarrow-gauge track of rusted iron rails, and over the track on occasionplied little straddlebug handcars. Because the water offshore was shoalships could not come in very close but must lie well out in the lagoonand their unloadings and their reloadings were carried on by means ofwhale-boats ferrying back and forth between ship side and dock side withthe push cars to facilitate the freight movement at the land end of theconnection. This was a laborious and a vexatious proceeding, necessitating the handling and rehandling of every bit of incoming oroutbound cargo several times. But then, steamers did not come veryoften to Good Friday Island; one came every two months about. 

The expanse upon which Ethan Pratt looked when he turned his eyesoutward was of an incredible whiteness. You would have thought it to bethe whitest, most blinding thing in the world until you considered theroad that skirted it and some of the buildings that bordered it. For theroad was built of crushed coral, so dazzlingly white that to lookfixedly at it for thirty seconds in bright weather was to make theeyeballs ache; and the buildings referred to were built of blocks ofwhite coral like exaggerated cubes of refined sugar. These buildingswere the chapels and churches--Methodist, Catholic, Seventh DayAdventist, English Wesleyan and American Mormon. When the sun shoneclear the water on beyond became a shimmering blazing shield ofwhite-hot metal; and an hour of uninterrupted gazing upon it would haveturned an argus into a blinkard. But other times--early morning orevening or when stormy weather impended--the lagoon became all awonderful deep clear blue, the colour of molten stained glass. Onepeering then into its depths saw, far down below, marvellous sea gardensall fronded and ferny and waving; and through the foliage of thisfairy-land went darting schools and shoals of fish queerly shaped and asbrilliantly coloured as tropical birds. 

At the top of the beach, girdling it on its land side, and stencillingthemselves against the sky line, ran a fringing of coconut palms. Thetrunks were naked almost to the tops, where the foliage revealed itselfin flaring clumps of green. Viewed separately a tree was suggestive of agreat bird standing on one leg with its head hidden under its wing, itsrump up-reared and its splayed tail feathers saluting the skies. Viewedtogether they made a spectacle for which nothing in the temperate zones, animal or vegetable, offers a measurable comparison. When the wind blewsoftly the trees whispered among themselves. When the wind blew hard andfuriously, as often it did, or when the trade breeze swelled tohurricane speed, the coconuts in their long bearded husks would bewrenched free and would come hurtling through the air like fletchedcannon balls. When one of them struck a tin roof there resulted aterrific crashing sound fit to wake the dead and to stun the living. 

Living there Pratt's diet was mainly tinned salmon, which tasted faintlyof tin and strongly of copra; and along with the salmon, crackers, whichin this climate were almost always flabby with dampness and often wereafflicted with greenish mould. Salmon and crackers had come to be hismost dependable stand-bys in the matter of provender. True the nativesbrought him gifts of food dishes; dishes cooked without salt andpleasing to the Polynesian palate. Coming out upon his balcony of amorning he would find swinging from a cross-beam a basket made of thegreen palm leaves and containing a chicken or a fish prepared accordingto the primitive native recipe, or perhaps a mess of wild greens bakedon hot stones; or maybe baked green bananas or taro or yams or hardcrusty halves of baked breadfruit. 

To the white man yams and taro taste mighty good at first, buteventually he sickens of them. Pratt sickened sooner than some white menhad; and almost from the first the mere sight and savour of asoft-fleshed baked fish had made his gorge rise in revolt. So he fellback upon staples of his own land and ate salmon and crackers. 

This island where he lived was an island of smells and insects. Considerfirst the matter of the prevalent smells: When the copra was curing andthe village green was studded with thousands of little cusps, each beingbrown without and milk-white within, and each destined to remain thereuntil the heat had dried the nut meats to the proper brownish tone, there rose and spread upon the air a stench so thick and so heavy as tobe almost visible; a rancid, hot, rottenish stench. Then, when the windblew off the seas it frequently brought with it the taint of rottedfish. Sniffing this smell Ethan Pratt would pray for a land breeze; butsince he hated perfumed smells almost as intensely as he hatedputrescent ones, a land breeze was no treat to his nose either, for itcame freighted with the sickish odour of the frangipane and of a plantthe islanders call _mosooi_, overpowering in their combined sweetness. 

In his letters he complained much of these smells and likewise much ofthe heat, but more than of either he complained of the insects. It wouldappear that the mosquitoes worked on him in shifts. By day there cameday mosquitoes, creatures of the sunlight and matching it in a way, seeing that they were big grey-striped fellows with keen and stridentvoices. By night there were small vicious mosquitoes, in colour anappropriate black and in habit more bloodthirsty than Uhlans. After darkthe flame of his kerosene lamp was to them as the traditional light inthe traditional casement is to returning wanderers. It brought them inmillions, and with them tiny persistent gnats and many smallcoffin-shaped beetles and hosts of pulpy, unwholesome-looking moths ofmany sizes and as many colours. Screens and double screens at the windowopenings did not avail to keep these visitors out. Somehow they found away in. The mosquitoes and the gnats preyed upon him; the beetles andthe moths were lured by the flame to a violent end. To save the wickfrom being clogged by their burnt bodies he hooded the top of the lampwith netting. This caused the lamp chimney to smoke and foul itself withsoot. To save his shins from attack he wrapped his legs in newspaperbuskins. For his hands and his face and his neck and his ears he coulddevise no protection. 

To be encountered just outside the door were huge flying cockroachesthat clung in his hair or buffeted him in the face as they blunderedalong on purposeless flights. Still other insects, unseen but none theless busy, added to the burden of his jeremiad. Borers riddled the pagesof his books; and the white ant, as greedy for wood pulp as a paperbaron, was constantly sapping and mining the underpinnings of his house. 

Touching on the climate his tone was most rebellious. By all accountsthe weather was rarely what one born in Vermont would regard asseasonable weather. According to him its outstanding characteristicswere heat, moistness and stickiness. If he took a nap in the afternoonhe rose from it as from a Turkish bath. His hair was plastered to hishead all day with dampness; his forehead and his face ran sweat; hiswrists were as though they had been parboiled and freshly withdrawn fromthe water. Perspiration glued his garments to his frame. His shoesbehind the door turned a leprous white from mildew and rotted to pieceswhile yet they were new. 

The forest, into which he sometimes ventured, was a place of dampness, deepness and smells; a place of great trees, fat fungoids, sprawlingcreepers, preposterous looking parasites, orchids, lianas; a place ofthings that crawled and climbed and twined and clung. It was filledwith weird sounds--the booming of wild pigeons; a nagging, tapping soundas though woodchoppers were at work far off in its depths; and aconstant insane chattering sound, as though mad children, hidden allabout him, were laughing at him. Dusk brought from their coverts theflying foxes, to utter curious notes as they sailed through thegloaming, and occasionally sharp squeaks as of mortal agony or intensegratification--he couldn't make up his mind which. After nightfall if heflung a burning cigar stump out upon the sand he could see it moving offin the darkness apparently under its own motive power. But the truth wasthat a land crab, with an unsolvable mania for playing the rôle oftorchbearer, would be scuttling away with the stub in one of its claws. 

The forest sheltered no dangerous beasts and no venomous reptiles but init were stinging nettles the touch of which was like fire to a sensitivewhite skin. Also, the waters of the lagoon were free from man-eaters, but wading close to shore one was almost sure to bark one's shanks onthe poisoned coral, making sores that refused to heal. Against theriver, which flowed down out of the interior to the sea, Pratt likewisebore a grudge, because it was in the river that a brown woman washed hisclothes on the stones, returning them with the buttons pounded off; butfor every missing button there was sure to be a bright yellow, semi-indelible stain, where the laundress had spread the garments to dryupon a wild berry bush. 

Every two months the steamer came. Then the white population of thestation doubled and trebled itself. Traders and storekeepers came bycanoe from outlying islands or from remote stations on the farther sideof his own island, for Good Friday Island had but one port of entry andthis was it. Beachcombers who had been adopted into villages in theinterior sauntered in over jungle trails. Many of them were desertersfrom whalers or from naval vessels; nearly all were handsome chaps in ananimal sort of way. 

For this common sharing of a common comeliness among them there was areason. In a land where physical perfection literally is worshipped, good-looking men, brawny and broad, are surest of winning an asylum andwives and tribal equality. To Pratt it seems to have been a source ofwonderment that almost without exception they were blue-eyed andlight-haired; he could understand of course why their skins, once fairand white, had changed to the colour of well-tanned calfskin. The sunbeating upon their naked bodies had done that. 

There also would be present a party of overseers and managers from a bigGerman plantation on an adjacent island. The traders and the Germanswould appear in white ducks with white shoes smartly pipe-clayed, andwhite straw hats. The beachcombers would be in clean pyjama suits withbright-coloured neckties. Ordinarily these latter went aboutbare-headed, bare-legged and bare-bodied except for the lava-lava madeof fibre from the paper mulberry tree and worn like a kilt about thehips; but now, in white men's garments, they sought to prove that theystill were white men and civilised white men too. If the steamer werelate, as very often happened, some of the visitors would take advantageof the wait to make themselves roaring drunk on gin. 

So much briefly, for the stage setting of Ethan Pratt's environment; nowfor the personality of the man: Of all the breeds and the mixed breedsthat have gravitated out of white lands into these sea islands ofdarker-skinned peoples, there surely was never a more incongruous, morealien figure than this man presented. For you should know that in allthings he was most typical of what is most typical in a certaincross-section of New England life--not the coastwise New England of aseafaring, far-ranging, adventurous race, but the New England oflong-settled remote interior districts. He came of a farming stock and astorekeeping stock, bred out of the loins of forbears made hard by thetask of chiselling a livelihood off of flinty hillsides, made narrow bythe pent-up communal system of isolated life, made honest and truthfulby the influences behind them and the examples before them ofgenerations of straight-walking, strait-laced, God-dreading folk. 

That form of moral dyspepsia known as the Puritanical conscience was hisby right of inheritance. In his nature there was no flexibility, noinstinct for harmonious adaptability to any surroundings excepting thoseamong which he had been born and in which he intended to end his days. Temperamentally he was of a fast colour. The leopard cannot change thespots and neither could he change his; nor did he will so to do. Inshort he was what he was, just as God and prenatal reactions hadfashioned him, and so he would remain to the end of the chapter. 

For all the four years he had spent out there the lure of the SouthSeas--about which so much has been written that it must be a verity andnot a popular myth--had never laid hold upon him. Its gorgeous physicalbeauty, its languor, its voluptuous colour and abandon, its prodigallyglorious dawns and its velvety nights--held for him no value to bereckoned as an offset against climatic discomforts; it left himuntouched. In it he never saw the wonderland that Stevenson made sovivid to stay-at-homes, nor felt for one instant the thrill thatinspired Jack London to fine rhapsodising. In it he saw and he felt onlythe sense of an everlasting struggle against foreign elements andhostile forces. 

Among the missionaries he had acquaintances but no friends. He despisedthe swaggering beachcombers who had flung off the decencies ofcivilisation along with the habiliments of civilisation and who found amarrowy sweetness in the husks of the prodigal. Even more he despisedthe hectoring Germans with their flaming red and yellow beards, theirthick-lensed spectacles, their gross manners when among their own kindand their brutishness in all their dealings with the natives--abrutishness so universal among them that no Polynesian would work at anyprice for a German, and every German had to depend for his plantationlabour upon imported black boys from the Solomons and from New Guinea, who having once been trapped or, to use the trade word, indented, werethereafter held in an enforced servitude and paid with the bond-man'swage of bitter bread and bloody stripes. 

He had never been able to get under the skin of a native; indeed he hadnever tried. In all the things that go to make up an understanding of afellow mortal's real nature they still were to him as completelystrangers as they had been on the day he landed in this place. Set downin the midst of a teeming fecundity he nevertheless remained as truly acastaway as though he had floated ashore on a bit of wreckage. He couldhave been no more and no less a maroon had the island which received himbeen a desert island instead of a populous one. 

When a chief paid him a formal visit, bringing a gift of taro root andsitting for hours upon his veranda, the grave courtesy of the ceremony, in which a white man differently constituted might have taken joy, merely bored him unutterably. As for the native women, they had aslittle of sex appeal for him as he had for them--which was saying a gooddeal now, because he was short and of a meagre shape, and the scorn ofthe Polynesian girl for a little man is measureless. The girls of GoodFriday Island called him by a name which sounded like "Pooh-pooh. "

Among an English-speaking people it would have been a hard-enough lot tobe pooh-poohed through life by every personable female one met. Here thecoupled syllables carried an added sting of contemptuousness. In thelanguage of the country they meant runty, mean-figured, undersized. Agraceful girl, her naked limbs glistening with coconut oil, a necklet offlowers about her throat and a hibiscus bloom pasted to her cheek like abeauty spot, meeting him in the road would give him a derisive smileover her shoulder and with the unconscious cruelty of primitive folkwould softly puff out "Pooh-pooh" through her pursed lips as she passedhim by. And it hurt. Certain of the white residents called him Pooh-poohtoo, which hurt more deeply. 

How he hated the whole thing--the dampness which mildewed his shoes andrusted out his nettings; the day heat which kept him bathed inclamminess; the pestiferous insects; the forest with its voices likesobbings and hammerings and demoniac chatterings; the food he had toeat; the company he had to keep; the chiefs who bored him; the girls whoderided him; the beachcombers who nauseated him; the white sands, theblue waters, the smells, the sounds, the routine of existence with oneday precisely like another--the whole thing of it. We may picture him asa humid duck-legged little man, most terribly homesick, mosttremendously lonely, most distressingly alien. We may go further andpicture him as a sort of combination of Job with his afflictions, Robinson Crusoe with no man Friday to cheer him in his solitude, andPeter the Hermit with no dream of a crusade to uplift him. In these fouryears his hair had turned almost white, yet he was still under forty. 

To all about him, white people and brown people alike, the coming of thesteamer was an event of supremest importance. For the islanders it meanta short season of excitement, most agreeable to their natures. For thewhites it meant a fleeting but none the less delectable contact with theworld outside, with lands beyond, upon which all of them, for thisreason or that, had turned their backs, and to which some of them darednever return. 

In his case the world did not mean the world at large but merely thesmall circumscribed world of South New Medford, which was his world. Tohim South New Medford comprehended and summed up all that was reallyworth while. He welcomed the steamer not because it brought news of warsand rumours of wars nor tales of great events on this continent or inthat archipelago, but because it brought to him a sheaf of letters, alladdressed in the same prim handwriting and bearing the same postmark;and a sheaf of copies of the South New Medford _Daily Republican_. Theletters he read at once greedily, but with the newspapers he had adifferent way. He shucked them out of their wrappers, arranged them inproper chronological order with those bearing the later dates at thebottom and those bearing the older dates upon the top of the heap, thenstacked them on a shelf in his living room. And each morning he read apaper. 

In the beginning of his sojourn on Good Friday Island he had made agrievous mistake. Following the arrival of the first steamer after hetook over his duties as resident manager for the _British Great Eastern_he had indulged himself in a perfect orgy of reading. He had read allhis _Daily Republicans_ in two days' time, gorging himself on home news, on mention of familiar names and on visions of familiar scenes. Then hadensued sixty-odd days of emptiness until the steamer brought anotherbatch of papers to him. 

From that time on he read one paper a day and one only. Reading it helived the life of the town and became one of its citizens; a sharer atlong distance in its joys, its sorrows and its small thrills. But nevernow did he read more than one paper in a single day; the lesson of thosetwo months had sunk in. No temptation, howsoever strong--the desire toknow how the divorce trial of the H. K. Peabodys turned out, the itch ofyearning to learn whether the body of the man found drowned in ExeterPond was identified--proved potent enough to pull him away from hisrule. That the news he read was anywhere from ten weeks to four monthsold when it reached him did not matter; in fact he very soon forgot thatsuch was the case. For two precious hours a day he was translated backto the day and date that the rumpled sheet in his hands carried on itsfirst page. Afterward he reverted quite naturally and without consciousjar to the proper time of the year as advertised by the calendar. 

His routine would be like this: He would rise early, before the heat ofthe day was upon Good Friday Island to make it steam and sweat and giveoff smells. He would shave himself and bathe and put on clean loosegarments, all white except where the stains of the wild, yellow berrieshad blotched them. His breakfast he prepared himself, afterward washingthe dishes. Then he would light his pipe or his cigar and take from theshelf the uppermost copy of the pile of _Daily Republicans_ there. Withthe love for tidiness and kemptness that was a part of him he wouldsmooth out its creases, then sit down on his veranda to read it. Immediately he became detached from all his surroundings. By hisconcentration he was isolated from and insulated against all externalinfluences. He was not in Good Friday Island then; he was in South NewMedford. 

Each morning he read his paper through from the top line of the firstcolumn of the first page to the bottom line of the last column of thefourth, or last, page. He read it all--news matter, local items, clippings, advertisements, want notices, church notices, lodge notices, patent insides of boiler plate, fashion department, household hints, farm hints, reprint, Births, Weddings and Deaths; syndicate stuff, ruralcorrespondence--no line of its contents did he skip. With his eyes shuthe could put his finger upon those advertisements which ran withoutchange and occupied set places on this page or that; such, for instance, as the two-column display of J. Wesley Paxon, Livery Barn, Horses Keptand Baited, Vehicles at all hours, Funeral Attendance a Specialty; andthe two-inch notice of the American Pantorium and Pressing Club, Membership $1. 00 per Month, Garments Called For and Delivered, Phone No. 41, M. Pincus, Prop. He was like a miser with a loaf; no crumb, howevertiny, got away from him. To him there was more of absorbing interest inthe appearance of the seventeen-year locust in Chittenden County than ina Balkan outbreak; less of interest in the failing state of health ofthe Czar than in the prospects for the hay crop in the Otter Creekvalley. 

When he had read on through to the last ink-smudged line he would rereadthe accounts of those matters which particularly attracted him on theirfirst reading. Then reluctantly and still in his state of absorption, hewould put the paper aside and going inside to a small desk would writehis daily chapter in a bulky letter, the whole to be posted on the nextsteamer day. It was characteristic of the man that in his letter writinghe customarily dealt in comment upon the minor affairs of South NewMedford as they had passed in review before him in the printed columns, rather than in observations regarding witnessed occurrences in GoodFriday Island. This writing stunt done, his day was done. The rest wasdulness. Unutterable, grinding dulness--the monotony of dealing outwares to customers, of keeping his accounts, of posting his records todate, of performing his domestic chores. 

From this dulness, though, there was sometimes an escape. To relieve themonotony of his cheerless grind of duties and obligations there came tohim visions. And these visions, we may be very sure, mainly were inducedby what he had that day read and that day written. By virtue of aspecial conjury residing in these waking dreams of his, the little manpeering nearsightedly at the shimmering white beach saw instead of abeach the first heavy fall of snow upon the withers of the GreenMountains; saw not unchanging stretches of sand but a blanket of purestfleece, frilled and flounced and scrolled after the drift wind hadbillowed it up in low places but otherwise smooth and fair except whereit had been rutted by sleigh runners and packed by the snow-bolteredhoofs of bay Dobbins and sorrel Dollies, the get of Morgan stock. 

In the insane forest voices he heard the contented cacklings of fat hensscratching for provender beneath the gnarled limbs of ancient appletrees whose trunks all were so neatly whitewashed up to the lowermostboughs. Looking upon the settlement where he lived, set as it was like awhite-and-green jewel in a ring of lush barbaric beauty, his fancyshowed him the vista of a spinsterish-looking Main Street lined bydooryards having fences of pointed painted pickets, and behind thepickets, peonies and hollyhocks encroaching upon prim flagged walkswhich led back to the white-panelled doors of small houses buried almostto their eaves in lilac bushes and golden glow. 

The magic of it made all things to match in with the image: Thus, forexample, the tall palms with their feather-duster tops, bendingseaward, turned into broad elms standing in regular double rank, likeYankee militiamen on a muster day. And night times, when through hiswindows there came floating in the soft vowelsome voices of nativefishermen paddling their canoes upon the lagoon and singing as theypaddled, he felt himself translated many thousands of miles away toWednesday evening prayer meeting in a squat, brick church with a woodenbelfry rearing above its steep slated roof. 

But in this last conjuring-up of a beloved scene there lay at the backof the trick more of reminiscence than imagination, since the airs thefishermen chanted were based, nearly all, upon Christian songs that theearlier missionaries had brought hither; the words might be Polynesianbut the cadence that carried the words was likely to be the cadence ofsome pioneer hymnster. 

And ever and always the vision had a certain delectable climax; adefinite consummation most devoutly wished for. For its final upshotwould be that Ethan Pratt would behold himself growing old in thepeaceful safe harbour of South New Medford, anchored fast by hisheartstrings to a small white cottage, all furbished and plenishedwithin, all flowers and shrubs roundabout, with a kitchen garden at itsback, and on beyond an orchard of whitewashed trees where buff cochinsclucked beneath the ripening fruit, and on beyond this in turn a haymeadow stretching away toward rising foothills. 

He saw himself working in the flowers and tilling the vegetable garden. He watched himself quitting this haven to walk a sedate way to worshipof a Sunday morning. With his mind's eye he followed his own course in abuggy along a country road in the fall of the year when the maples hadturned and the goldenrod spread its carpet of tawny glory across thefields. And invariably his companion in these simple homely comfortableemployments was a little woman who wore gold-rimmed glasses and starchyprint frocks. 

Into the picture no third figure ever obtruded. With her alone heconceived of himself as walking side by side through all the remainingdays of his life. For this mousy methodical little man had his greatromance. Unsuspected and undetected, inside the commonplace cover of hisbody it burned with a clear and a steady flame. It had burned there, never flickering, never wavering, through all the days of his faringinto far and foreign parts. Since childhood the two of them had beenengaged. It was she who wrote him the letters that came, a fat sheaf ofthem, by every steamer; it was to her that he wrote in reply. It was forthe sake of her and in the intention of making a home for her thatthrough four years he had endured this imprisonment or this martyrdom orthis whatever you may be pleased to call it, away off here on theopposite side of the world from her. She was saving and he was saving, both for a common purpose. Back there at home it cost her little tolive, and out here it cost him less. In fact, it cost him almostnothing. Ninety per cent of his pay went into his share of the pool. 

Within another year the requisite sum which this pair of canny prudentsouls had set as their modest goal would be reached; and then he couldbid an everlasting farewell to these hated islands and go sailinghome--home to South New Medford and to Miss Hetty Stowe. And then shewould surrender the place she had held for so long as the teacher ofDistrict School Number Four, to become Mrs. Ethan Allen Pratt, a wifehonoured, a helpmate well-beloved. 

So to him the coming of the steamer meant more than an orgy of drunkenbeachcombers and a bustle of life and activity upon the beach; it meantmore than a thin-strained taste of contact with a distant world of whitemen and white men's ways; meant more, even, than letters and papers. Tohim it was a renewal of the nearing prospect of an eternal departure outof these lands. By the steamer's movements he marked off into spacedintervals the remaining period of his exile, he thought of the passageof time not in terms of days or weeks but in terms of two-monthstretches. Six visits more of the ship, or possibly seven, and thisdrear life would come to an end and another life, the one of his hopesand plans, would begin. 

For its next time of coming the boat was due on or about August thefirst. She failed to come on the first, but on the second, early in themorning, she came nosing into the lagoon. In a canoe with a brown man topaddle him Pratt put off for her. He was alongside by the time heranchor chains had rattled out, and the skipper with his own hands passeddown to him a mail bag. He brought it ashore and from it took out hispacket of letters and his sheaf of _Daily Republicans_. These he carriedto his quarters. 

First he read the letters, finding them many fewer in number than wasusual. By his private system of chronological accounting there shouldhave been one letter for every day from the eighteenth of March well oninto May. But here were but a scant dozen instead of the expectedfifty-odd. On the other hand there seemed to be a fairly complete fileof the papers, except that about ten or twelve of the earlier-datednumbers were missing. By some freakishness in the handling of the postat this port or that a batch of the older papers and a larger batch ofthe newer letters had failed of ultimate delivery to the steamer; so hefigured it. This thing had happened before, causing a vexatious break inhis routine. Plainly it had happened again. Well, away out here off thebeat of travel such upsettings must be endured. 

He arranged the papers upon their proper shelf and in their properorder; then, as was his wont, he turned to the letters and read themone by one. To another they might have seemed stiff and precise in theirlanguage; almost formal, faintly breathing as they did the restrainedaffections of a woman no longer young and coming of a breed of women whoalmost from the cradle are by precept and example taught how to cloakthe deeper and the more constant emotions beneath the ice skim of aladylike reserve. But they satisfied their reader; they were as theyalways had been and as they always would be. His only complaint, mentally registered, was that the last one should bear the date of Marchtwenty-ninth. 

Having read them all he filed them away in a safe place, then broughtthe topmost copy of his just-received file of newspapers out upon theveranda and sat himself down to read it. 

The first column always contained local news. He read of the wand drillgiven by the graduating class of the South New Medford Girls' HighSchool; of a demonstration of Wheat-Sweet Breakfast Food in the showwindow of Cody's drug store; of a fire from unknown causes in LawyerHorace Bartlett's offices upstairs over G. A. R. Hall, damage eightydollars; of the death of Aunt Priscilla Lyon, aged ninety-two; of abouncing, ten-pound boy born to Mr. And Mrs. Arthur Purdy, mother andchild doing well--all names familiar to him. He came to the departmentdevoted to weddings. There was but one notice beneath the single-linehead; it made a single paragraph. 

He read it and as he read the words of it burned into his brain like afiery acid. He read it, and it ran like this:

"We are informed that a surprise marriage took place this morning atRutland. In that city Miss Hetty Stowe, of near this place, was unitedin the holy bonds of wedlock to Mr. Gabriel Eno, of Vergennes. We didnot get the name of the officiating minister. The bride is an estimablelady who for years past has taught District School Number Four in thecounty. We have not the pleasure of the happy bridegroom's acquaintancebut assume he is in every way worthy of the lady he has won for a wife. Ye Editor extends congratulations to the happy pair and will printfurther details when secured. "

He read it through again, to the last blurred word. And as he reread aroaring and a crashing filled his ears. It was the castle of his hopescrashing down in ruins. So this, then was why the sequence of lettershad been so abruptly broken off. She had lacked the courage to tell himof her faithlessness; she had chosen the course of silence, leaving himto learn of the treachery through other sources. It was cruelty piledupon cruelty compounded. 

For such a sorry ending he had cut four years out of his life. For thisreward of all his constancy he had endured what had been wellnighunendurable--loneliness, homesickness, isolation, discomfort. For thishe had kept his body clean and his soul clean where all about him wassloth and slackness. He thought backward upon that which he hadundergone; he thought forward upon the dreary purposeless prospect thatstretched unendingly before him. Never now could he bring himself to goback to the spot of his shattered dreams. And to him that was the oneplace in all the world worth going back to. 

He put his face down upon his crossed arms, and presently there began toescape from him strangled sobs sounding most grotesquely like somestrange mimicry of the name the native girls had for him--"Pooh-pooh, pooh-pooh, pooh-pooh, " over and over again repeated. Beyond his doorstepthe life of the station hummed and throbbed, quickened into joyousactivity by the coming of the steamer. He was not conscious of it. Thatroaring still was in his ears. 

Now between his racking sobs he began to pray aloud a broken prayer. Hedid not pray for divine forgiveness of the thing he meant to do. By thenarrow tenets of his faith his soul, through the deliberate act of hishands, would go forth from the body, doomed to everlasting torment. Itdid not appear feasible to him that God might understand. The God hebelieved in was a stern God of punishments, sitting in strict judgmentupon mortal transgressions. So he prayed not for mercy but for strengthto carry him through that which faced him. 

In a cupboard in the inner room was a single-barreled, muzzle-loadingfowling piece made at Liege, in Belgium, many years before. Hispredecessor in the station had left it behind him and Pratt hadsucceeded to possession of it. He knew how to load and fire and cleanit. Occasionally he had used it in shooting at wood pigeons. He wentinside and took it from its place and charged it with black powder froman old-fashioned metal powder flask and with heavy shot from a worn shotpouch. For wadding he tore apart the front page of the uppermost copy ofthe file of _Daily Republicans_ lying upon the shelf where he had placedthem less than half an hour before. 

He rammed the charge home, with wadding between powder and shot, withmore wadding on top of the shot. He withdrew the ramrod and cast itaside; he brought the hammer back to full cock and fixed a cap upon thenipple. He stood the gun upright upon the floor and leaned forward, themuzzle against his upper chest, the stock braced against the edge of acrack in the planking. With the great toe of his bare right foot hepressed the trigger. 

Two natives, passing, heard the booming report and ran in to see whathad caused it. They quickly ran out again and brought white men. Afterthe body had been moved from where it had fallen but before the scantypersonal belongings of the dead man had been sealed up and before thestore had been put under lock and key, the white men made search aboutthe place for any farewell message, or lacking that, any physicalevidence that might furnish a possible explanation for the cause of thesuicide. They found neither message nor clew. In searching about one ofthem came upon a tattered scrap of newspaper. Its burnt edges and itsgeneral singed condition proved that it had been used for wadding. Theforce of the discharge had blown it out, almost intact, to flutter offinto a corner. 

Moved by a curiosity natural under the circumstances the finderdeciphered the smudged and blackened reading that he found upon the twosurfaces of the fragment. On one side appeared part of an advertisementof a merchant tailor; on the other side he made out this, which he readwith a casual interest only:

"The Editor regrets exceedingly that in yesterday's issue he wasvictimised and imposed upon to the extent of printing an erroneous andentirely incorrect item, for which mistake we now hasten to make promptcorrection and due amends. Some person unknown, taking advantage of thefact that yesterday was April the first, or All Fools' Day, telephonedto our sanctum the information that Miss Hetty Stowe, the well-knownteacher, of near here, had been married yesterday morning at Rutland toa Mr. Gabriel Eno, of Vergennes. Accepting the report in good faith, this paper printed it in good faith, as an item of news. We now learnthat the entire story was untrue, being, not to mince words, a liemanufactured out of the whole cloth. We learn that Miss Stowe knows thegentleman whose name was given as bridegroom but very slightly, havingmet him but once, as we are now reliably informed. In fact, nothingcould be farther from her thoughts than marriage with the gentleman inquestion, he being considerably her junior in years. The cruelty of thehoax thus perpetrated is increased by the fact that for the past severaldays Miss Stowe has been confined to the bed of illness, suffering froma sudden and violent attack of fever, which illness has naturally beenenhanced by the embarrassing position in which she has been placedthrough the act of an anonymous practical joker. Such jokes are entirelyout of place and cannot be too strongly reprehended. In correcting thisfalsehood the _Daily Republican_ wishes to state that the perpetrator ofthe same is deserving of severe----"

Here the fragment was torn across. 

To the tale there is no moral unless it be an indirect moral to bederived from contemplation of a strange contradiction in our modernlife, to wit: That practical burglary is by law sternly discouraged andpractical joking is not. 

CHAPTER VIII

HOODWINKED

Spy stories rather went out of fashion when the armistice was signed. But this one could not have been told before now, because it happenedafter the armies had quit fighting and while the Peace Conference wasbusily engaged in belying its first name. Also, in a strict manner ofspeaking, it is not a spy story at all. 

So far as our purposes are concerned, it began to happen on an afternoonat the end of the month of March of this present year, when J. J. Mullinix, of the Secret Service, called on Miss Mildred Smith, thewell-known interior decorator, in her studio apartments on the top floorof one of the best-looking apartment houses in town. For Mullinix therewas a short delay downstairs because the doorman, sharp on the lookoutto bar pestersome intruders who might annoy the tenants, could not atfirst make up his mind about Mullinix. In this building there was a ruleagainst solicitors, canvassers, collectors, pedlar men and beggar men;also one against babies, but none against dogs--excepting dogs above acertain specified size, which--without further description--shouldidentify our building as one standing in what is miscalled the exclusiveresidential belt of Manhattan Island. 

The doorman could not make up his mind offhand whether Mullinix was tobe classified as a well-dressed mendicant or an indifferently dressedbook agent; he was pretty sure, though, that the stranger fell somewherewithin the general ban touching on dubious persons having dubiousintentions. This doubt on the part of the doorman was rather acompliment to Mullinix, considering Mullinix's real calling. ForMullinix resembled neither the detective of fiction nor yet thedetective of sober fact, which is exactly what the latter usually is--amost sober fact; sober, indeed, often to the point of a serious anddignified impressiveness. This man, though, did not have the eagle-birdeye with which the detective of fiction so often is favoured. He did nothave the low flattened arches--frontal or pedal--which frequentlydistinguish the bona-fide article, who comes from Headquarters with abadge under his left lapel and a cigar under his right moustache toquestion the suspected hired girl. About him there was nothingmysterious, nothing portentous, nothing inscrutable. He had a face whichfavourably would have attracted a person taking orders for enlargingfamily portraits. He had the accommodating manner of one who is willingto go up when the magician asks for a committee out of the audience tosit on the stage. 

Not ten individuals alive knew of his connection with the Secret Service. Probably in all his professional life not ten others--outsiders--had everappraised him for what he was. His finest asset was a gift of Nature--asort of protective colouration which enabled him to hide in thebackground of commonplaceness and do his work with an assurance whichwould not have been possible had he worn an air of assurance. In shortand in fine, Mullinix no more resembled the traditional hawkshaw thanMiss Mildred Smith resembled the fashionable conception of a fashionableartist. She never gestured with an upturned thumb; nor yet made aspy-glass of her cupped hand through which to gaze upon a painting. Shehad never worn a smock frock in her life. 

The smartest of smart tailor-mades was none too smart for her. Nothingwas too smart for her, who was so exquisitely fine and well-bred acreature. She was wearing tailor-mades, with a trig hat to match, whenshe opened the door of her entry hall for Mullinix. 

"Just going out, weren't you?" he asked as they shook hands. 

"No, just coming in, " she said. "I had only just come in when the hallman called me up saying you were downstairs. "

"I had trouble getting him to send up my name at all, " he said with ahalf smile on his face. "He insisted on knowing all about me and mybusiness before he announced me. So I told him everything nearly--exceptthe truth. "

"I gathered from his tone he was a bit doubtful about you; but I wasglad to get the word. This is the third time you've favoured me with avisit and each of the other times something highly exciting followed. Come in and let me make you a cup of tea, won't you? Is it business thatbrings you?"

"Yes, " he said, "it's business. "

They sat down in the big inner studio room; on one side of the fireplacethe short, slow-speaking, colourless-looking man who knew the innerblackness of so many whited sepulchres; and on the other side, facinghim from across the tea table, this small patrician lady who, havingrich kinfolk and friends still richer and a family tree deep-rooted inthe most Knickerbockian stratum of the Manhattan social schist, nevertheless chose to earn her own living; and while earning it to findopportunity for service to her Government in a confidential capacity. Not all the volunteers who worked on difficult espionage jobs throughthe wartime carried cards from the Intelligence Department. 

"Yes, " he repeated, "it's business--a bigger piece of business and aharder one and probably a more interesting one than the last thing youhelped on. If it weren't business I wouldn't be coming here to-day, taking up your time. I know how busy you are with your own affairs. "

"Oh, I'm not busy, " she said. "This is one of my loafing days. Sincelunch time I've been indulging in my favourite passion. I've beenprowling through a secondhand bookstore over on Lexington Avenue, picking up bargains. There's the fruit of my shopping. "

She indicated a pile of five or six nibbled-looking volumes in dingycovers resting upon one corner of the low mantelshelf. 

"Works on interior decorating?" he guessed. 

"Goodness, no! Decorating is my business; this is my pleasure. The topone of the heap--the one bound in red--is all about chess. "

"Chess! Did anybody ever write a whole book about chess?"

"I believe more books have been written on chess than on any otherindividual subject in the world, barring Masonry, " she said. "And thenext one to it--the yellow-bound one--is a book about old English games;not games of chance, but games for holidays and parties. I was glancingthrough it in my car on the way here from the shop. It's mostinteresting. Why, some of the games it tells about were played inEngland before William the Conqueror landed; at least so the authorclaims. Did you ever hear of a game called Shoe the Wild Mare? It wasvery popular in Queen Elizabeth's day. The book yonder says so. "

"No, I never heard of it. From the name it sounds as though it might berather a rough game for indoors, " commented Mullinix. "For a busy womanwho's made such a big success at her calling, I wonder how you find timeto dig into so many miscellaneous subjects. "

"I don't call the time wasted, " she said. "For example, there's one bookin that lot dealing with mushroom culture. It seems there's ever so muchto know about mushrooms. Besides, who knows but what some day I mighthave a wealthy client who would want me to design him a mushroom cellar, combining practicability with the decorative. Then, you see, I wouldhave the knowledge at my finger tips. " She smiled at the conceit, busying herself with the tea things. 

"Well, I suppose I'm a one-idea-at-a-time sort of person, " he said. 

"No, you aren't! You only think you are, " she amended. "Just now Isuppose you are all so wrapped up in the business you mentioned a momentago that you can't think of anything else. "

"That's a fact, " he confessed. "And yet all my thinking doesn't seem tohave got me anywhere in particular. " He paused to glance about. "Where'syour maid? Is she, by any chance, where she could overhear us?"

"No, she's out. This is her afternoon off. "

"Good! Then I'll start at the beginning and tell you in as few words aspossible the whole thing. But before I do begin, let me ask you aquestion. It may simplify matters. Anyhow it has a bearing on myprincipal reason for coming to see you to-day. Isn't Mrs. HowardHadley-Smith your cousin?"

"Only by marriage. Her husband was my second cousin. He belonged to thebranch of the family that owns the hyphen and most of the money. He diedsix or seven years ago. He was not the most perfect creature in theworld, but Claire, his wife--his widow, I mean--is a trump. She's one ofthe finest women and one of the sanest in New York. "

"I'm glad to hear that. Because before we're through with this job--yousee I'm assuming in advance that you are going to be willing to help meon it--I say, before we get through it, providing of course we do getthrough it, it may be necessary to take her into our confidence. Thatis, if you are sure we can trust absolutely to her discretion. "

"We can. But please remember that I don't know what the business is allabout. "

"I'm coming to that. Oh, by the way, there is one question more:To-morrow night your cousin is giving a costume party or a fancy-dressparty of some sort or other, isn't she?"

"Yes; an All Fools' Day party; not a very large one though. "

"And you will be going to it, won't you?"

"Yes, indeed! I'm doing the decorating and acting as sort of assistantdirector of the affair. But what can my cousin and her April Fools' Dayparty and all that have to do with the matter that brings you here?"

"A good deal, I hope. But I expect I had better go back to the beginningand tell you the tale in some sort of orderly way. Of course I amtelling it to you as one responsible representative of our Government toanother. "

"I understand. But go ahead, won't you? My curiosity is increasing bythe moment. "

"Well then, here it is: Six days ago there arrived from the conferenceat Versailles a high army officer, acting for this occasion as aconfidential messenger of the Administration. He brought with him acertain communication--a single small sheet or strip of parchment papercontaining about twelve or fifteen typewritten lines. But those fewlines were about as important and, under certain circumstances, asdangerous a collection of typewritten lines as it is possible toconceive of. "

"Weren't they in code?"

"Naturally. But the signature was not. The signature was in thehandwriting of the man--let us say the personage--who dictated thewording of the dispatch. You would know that handwriting if you saw it. Nearly every man, woman and child in this country who can read wouldknow it and would recognise it at a glance. Even between us, I take itthat there is no need of mentioning the name. "

"No. Please go on. The thing has a thrilling sound already. "

"That communication dealt directly with perhaps the most importantsingle issue now in controversy at the Peace Conference--a phase of theAsiatic muddle. In fact, it was an outline of the private agreement thathas been reached as between our envoys and the envoys representingsundry friendly powers in regard to this particular question. If itshould fall into the hands of a certain other power--and betranslated--the entire negotiation would be jeopardised. Almostinevitably at least one Oriental nation would withdraw from theconference. The future of the great thing for which our own statesmenand the statesmen of some of the countries provisionally leaguedtogether with us are working--well, that result, to put the thingmildly, would be jeopardised. The very least that could happen would bethat four governments would be tremendously embarrassed. 

"Indeed it is hard offhand to calculate the possibilities of disaster, but this much is quite sure: Our enemy--and Germany is as much our enemynow as she was during active hostilities--would almost inevitablysucceed in the very thing she has been plotting to bring about, which isthe sowing of discord among the Allies, not to mention the increase of aracial distrust and a racial antagonism which exist in certain quarters, and, on top of all that, the widening and deepening of a problem whichalready has been sufficiently difficult and delicate. "

"I see. Well?"

"Well, naturally everything possible was done at Washington tosafeguard a dispatch of such tremendous importance. No copies of thecommunication were made. The original was put in a place where it waspresumed to be absolutely safe. But within forty-eight hours itdisappeared from the place where it had been put. "

"How did it disappear? Is that known?"

"It was stolen. A government clerk named Westerfeltner, a man who held aplace of trust and confidence, was the man who stole it. For it he wasoffered a sum of money which would make him independent for life, andunder the temptation he weakened and he stole it. But first he stole thekey to the cipher, which would make it possible for anyone having boththe key and the message to decode the message. Once this is done thedamage is done, for the signature is ample proof of the validity of thedocument. That is the one thing above all others we are trying toprevent now. "

"But why couldn't the thief have decoded the dispatch?"

"He might have, excepting for two things. In the first place hisprincipal, the man who corrupted him to betray his honour andincidentally to betray his Government, would not trust him to do this. The head plotter demanded the original paper. In the second place aninterval of a day and a half elapsed between the theft of the code andthe theft of the dispatch. Before the thief secured the dispatch thekey had already passed out of his possession. "

"How do you know these things with such certainty?"

"Because Westerfeltner has confessed. He confessed to me at threeo'clock yesterday morning after the thefts had practically been tracedto his door. He made a clean breast of it all right enough. The highpoints of his confession have all been verified. I am sure that he washonest with me. Fear and remorse together made him honest. At present heis--well, let's call it sequestered. No outsider knows he is now underarrest; or perhaps I should say in custody. No interested party islikely to feel concern regarding his whereabouts, because so far as hewas concerned the crooked contract had been carried out and completedbefore he actually fell under suspicion. "

"Meaning by that, what?"

"Meaning just this: On the night he secured possession of the key hehanded it over to his principal, who still has it unless he hasdestroyed it. It is fair to assume that this other man, being a codeexpert, already has memorised the key so that he can read the dispatchalmost offhand. At least that is the assumption upon which I am going. "

"All this happened in Washington, I suppose?"

"Yes, in Washington. The original understanding was that as soon aspossible after stealing the dispatch Westerfeltner would turn it overto the other man. But something--we don't know yet just what--frightenedthe master crook out of town. With the job only partially accomplishedhe left Washington and came to New York. But before leaving he gave toWesterfeltner explicit instructions for the delivery of thedispatch--when he had succeeded in getting his hands on it--to a thirdparty, a special go-between, with whom Westerfeltner was to communicateby telephone. 

"Late the next day Westerfeltner did succeed in getting his hands on thedocument. That same evening, in accordance with his instructions, hecalled up from his house a certain number. He had been told to call thisnumber exactly at eight o'clock and to ask for Mrs. Williams. Withoutdelay he got Mrs. Williams on the wire. Over the wire a woman's voicetold him to meet her at the McPherson Statue in McPherson Square ateleven-fifteen o'clock that night. He was there at the appointed hour, waiting. According to what he tells me, almost precisely on the minute awoman, wearing plain dark clothes and heavily veiled, came walking alongthe path that leads to the statue from Fifteenth Street. It was darkthere, anyhow, and for obvious reasons both the conspirators keptthemselves well shielded in the shadows. 

"As she came up and saw him waiting there, she uttered the catchwordswhich made him know her for the right person. The words were simpleenough. She merely said to him 'Did you go to the pawnshop?' He answered'Yes, I went there and I got your keepsake. ' 'Thank you, ' she answered, 'then give it to me. ' 'Here it is, safe and sound, ' he replied andpassed to her the paper, which was wadded up, he says, in a pellet aboutthe size of a hazelnut. 

"Up to this point the pair had been speaking in accordance with a sortof memorised ritual, each knowing from the instructions given to both bytheir employer what the other would say. But before they parted theyexchanged a few other words. Westerfeltner tells me that, having his ownsafety in mind as well as a natural anxiety for the safe delivery of thepaper to its real purchaser, he said to her: 'I hope you understand thatyou should keep this thing in your possession for every minute of thetime until you hand it over to our mutual friend. '

"As he recalls her answer, as nearly as possible in the words she used, she said: 'Certainly I do. It will be kept on my person where I can putmy hand on it, but where no one else can see it and where no one elsewill ever suspect it of being. ' Then she asked him: 'Was there anythingelse you wanted to say to me?' He told her there was nothing else andshe said good night to him and turned and walked away in the directionfrom which she had come. He waited a minute or so and then walked off, leaving the square on the opposite side--the Vermont Avenue side. Hewent directly home and went to bed. 

"He is unmarried and lives alone, taking his luncheons and dinners out, but preparing his own breakfasts in his rooms. At three o'clock in themorning he was in bed and asleep when I rang his doorbell. In his nightclothes he got up and let me in; and as soon as I was in I accused him. As a matter of fact the double theft had been discovered the eveningbefore, but unfortunately by then several hours had elapsed from thetime the dispatch was taken, and already, as you know, the dispatch hadchanged hands. 

"Within an hour after the discovery of the loss I had been set to workon the job. At once suspicion fell upon three men, one after the other. It didn't take very long to convince me that two of these men wereinnocent. So these two having been eliminated by deductive processes, Ipersonally went after the third man, who was this Westerfeltner. Themoment I walked in on him I was convinced from his behaviour that I hadmade no mistake. So I took a chance. I charged him point-blank withbeing the thief. Almost immediately he weakened. His denials turned toadmissions. As a conspirator Westerfeltner is a lame duck. I only wish Ihad started after him three or four hours earlier than I did; if only Ihad done so I'm satisfied the paper would be back where it belongs andno damage done. Well, anyhow, if I am one to judge, he told meeverything frankly and held back nothing. "

"Well, then, who is the woman in the case?"

"He didn't know. To his best knowledge he had never seen her before thatnight. He is sure that he had never heard her voice before. Really, allhe does know about her is that she is a small, slender woman with ratherquick, decided movements and that her voice is that of a refined person. He is sure she is a young woman, but he can furnish no betterdescription of her than this. He claims he was very nervous at the timeof their meeting. I figure he was downright excited, filled as he waswith guilty apprehensions, and no doubt because of his excitement hetook less notice of her than he otherwise might. Besides, you mustremember that the place of rendezvous was a fairly dark spot on rather adark night. "

"He has absolutely no idea of his own, then, as to the identity of Mrs. Williams?"

"He hasn't; but I have. The telephone number which figures in the caseis the number of a pay station in an all-night drug store in Washington. Westerfeltner freely gave me the number. Both the proprietor of thisdrug store and his clerk remember that night before last, shortly beforeeight o'clock, a rather small, slight woman wearing a black streetcostume with a dark veil over her face came into the place and said shewas expecting a telephone call for Mrs. Williams. Within two or threeminutes the bell rang and the clerk answered and somebody asked for Mrs. Williams. The woman entered the booth, came out almost immediately, andwent away. All that the drugstore man and his clerk remember about heris that she was a young woman, plainly dressed but well-groomed. Thedruggist is positive she had dark hair; the clerk is inclined to thinkher hair was a deep reddish-brown. Neither of them saw her face; neitherof them remarked anything unusual about her. To them she was merely awoman who came in to keep a telephone engagement, and having kept itwent away again. So, having run into a blind alley at that end of thecase, I started in at the other end of it to find the one lady to whomnaturally the chief conspirator would turn for help in the situationthat confronted him when he ran away from Washington. And I foundher--both of her in fact. "

"Both of her! Then there are two women involved?"

"No, only one; but which one of two suspects she is I can't for the lifeof me decide. I know who she is, and yet I don't know. I'll come to thatpart of it in a minute or two. I haven't told you the name of the headdevil of the whole intrigue yet, have I? You've met him, I imagine. Atany rate you surely have heard of him. 

"You know him, or else you surely know of him, as the Hon. SidneyBertram Goldsborough, of London, England, and Shanghai, China. "

"Goodness gracious me!" In her astonishment Miss Smith had recourse toan essentially feminine exclamation. "Why, that does bring it close tohome! Why, he is among the persons invited to my cousin's houseto-morrow night. I remember seeing his name on the invitation list. That's why you asked me about her party a while ago. My cousin met himsomewhere and liked him. I've never seen him, but I've heard about him. A big mining engineer, isn't he?"

"A big international crook, posing as a mining engineer and ostensiblyin this country to finance some important Korean concessions--that'swhat he is. His real name is Geltmann. Here's his pedigree in anutshell: Born in Russia of mixed German and Swiss parentage. Educatedin England, where he acquired his accent and the monocle habit. Perfected himself in scoundrelism in the competent finishing schools ofthe Far East. Speaks half a dozen languages, including Chinese andJapanese. Carries gilt-edged credentials made in the Orient. That, briefly, is your Hon. Mr. Sidney Bertram Goldsborough, when you undresshim. He was officially suspected of being something other than what heclaimed to be, even before Westerfeltner divulged his name. In fact, hefell under suspicion shortly after he turned up in Paris in January ofthis year, he having obtained a passport for France on the strength ofhis credentials and on the representation that he wanted to go abroad tointerest European financiers in that high-sounding Korean developmentscheme of his--which, by the way, is purely imaginary. He hung aboutParis for three months. How he found out about the document which thearmy officer was bringing home, and how he found out that theofficer--in order to save time--would travel on a French liner insteadof on a transport, are details that are yet to be cleared up by ourpeople on the other side. There has been no time yet of course to takeup the chase over there in Paris. But obviously there must have been aleak somewhere. Either some one abroad was in collusion with him orperhaps indiscreetness rather than guilty connivance was responsible forhis learning what he did learn. As to that, I can't say. 

"But the point remains that Geltmann sailed on the same ship thatbrought the army officer. Evidently he hoped to get possession of thepaper the officer carried on the way over. Failing there, he tried othermeans. He followed the officer down to Washington, seduced Westerfeltnerby the promise of a fat bribe, and then, just when his scheme was aboutto succeed, became frightened and returned to New York, trusting to awoman confederate to deliver the paper to him here. And now he's here, awaiting her arrival, and from all the evidence available he expects toget it from her to-morrow night at your cousin's party. "

"Then the woman is to be there too?" Miss Smith's eyes were stretchedwide. 

"She certainly is. "

"And who is she--or, rather, who do you think she is?"

"Miss Smith, prepare for a shock. Either that woman is Mme. JosephineYbanca, the wife of the famous South American diplomat, or else she isMiss Evelyn Ballister, sister of United States Senator Hector Ballister. And I am pretty sure that you must know both of them. "

"I do! I do! I know Miss Ballister fairly well, and I have met MadameYbanca twice--once here in New York, once at Washington. And let me saynow, that at first blush I do not find it in my heart to suspect eitherof them of deliberate wrongdoing. I don't think they are that sort. "

"I don't wonder you say that, " answered Mullinix. "Also I think I knowyou well enough to feel sure that the fact that both of them are to beguests of your cousin, Mrs. Hadley-Smith, to-morrow night has noinfluence upon you in forming your judgments of these two young women. "

"I know Miss Ballister has been invited and has accepted. But I thinkyou must be wrong when you say Madame Ybanca is also expected. "

"When was the last time you saw your cousin?"

"The day before yesterday, I think it was, but only for a few minutes. "

"Well, yesterday she sent a telegram to Madame Ybanca saying sheunderstood Madame Ybanca would be coming up from Washington this weekand asking her to waive formality and come to the party. "

"You say my cousin sent such a wire?"

"I read the telegram. Likewise I read Madame Ybanca's reply, filed athalf after six o'clock yesterday evening, accepting the invitation. "

"But surely"--and now there was mounting incredulity and indignation inMiss Smith's tone--"but surely no one dares to assert that my cousin isconniving at anything improper?"

"Certainly not! If I thought she was doing anything wrong I would hardlybe asking you to help trap her, would I? Didn't I tell you that we mighteven have to enlist your cousin's co-operation? But I imagine, when youmake inquiry, as of course you will do at once, you'll find that sinceyou saw your cousin she has seen Goldsborough, or Geltmann--to give himhis real name--and that he asked her to send the wire to Madame Ybanca. "

"That being assumed as correct, the weight of the proof would seem topress upon the madame rather than upon Miss Ballister, wouldn't it?"

"Frankly I don't know. At times to-day, coming up here on the train, Ihave thought she must be the guilty one, and at times I have felt surethat she was not. But this much I do know: One of those two ladies isabsolutely innocent of any wrongdoing, and the other one--pardon mylanguage--is as guilty as hell. But perhaps it is only fair to both thatyou should suspend judgment altogether until I have finished telling youthe whole business, as far as I know it. 

"Let us go back a bit. Half an hour after I had heard Westerfeltner'sconfession and fifteen minutes after I had seen the druggist and hisclerk, the entire machinery of our branch of the service had been set inmotion to find out what women in Washington were friends of Geltmann. For Geltmann spent most of last fall in Washington. Now while inWashington he was noticeably attentive to just two women--Miss Ballisterand Madame Ybanca. Now mark a lengthening of the parallel: Both of themare small women; both of them are slender; both are young, and both ofcourse have refined voices. Neither speaks with any special accent, forthe madame, though married to a Latin, is an American woman. She hasblack hair, while Miss Ballister's hair is a golden red-brown. So far, you see, the vague description furnished by the three men who spoke tothe mythical Mrs. Williams might apply to either. "

"Then which of the two is supposed to have been most attracted toGeltmann, as you call him?"

Mullinix smiled a trifle. 

"I was rather expecting that question would come along about here, " hesaid. "I only wish I could tell you; it might simplify matters. But sofar as the available evidence points, there is nothing to indicate thateither of them really cared for him or he for either of them. Theattentions which he paid them both, impartially, were those which a manmight pay to any woman, whether she was married or unmarried, withoutcreating gossip. There is no suggestion here of a dirty scandal. Thewoman who is serving Geltmann's ends is doing it, not for love of himand not even because she is fascinated by him, but for money. She hasagreed to sell out her country, the land she was born in, for hire. I'msure of that much. "

"Then which of them is presumed to be in pressing need of funds?"

"Again you score. I was expecting that question too. As a matter of factboth of them need money. Madame Ybanca belongs to a bridge-playingset--a group of men and women who play for high stakes. She has been aheavy loser and her husband, unlike many politically prominent SouthAmericans, is not a fabulously wealthy man. I doubt whether he would becalled wealthy at all, either by the standards of his own people or ofours. As for Miss Ballister, I have reports which prove she has nosource of income except a modest allowance from her brother, thesenator, who is in moderate circumstances only; yet it is common talkabout Washington that she is extravagant beyond her means. She owesconsiderable sums to tradesmen for frocks and furs, millinery, jewelryand the like. It is fair to assume that she is harassed by her debts. Onthe other hand, Madame Ybanca undoubtedly wants funds with which to meether losses at bridge. So the presumption in this direction runs asstrongly against one as against the other. "

"Well then, barring these slight clews--which to my way of thinkingreally aren't clews at all--and when you have eliminated thecircumstance of Goldsborough's having paid perfectly proper attentionsto both of them simultaneously, what is there to justify the belief thatone or the other must be guilty?"

Miss Smith's voice still carried a suggestion of scepticism. 

"I'm coming to that. Of course their positions being what they are, neither I nor any other Secret Service operative would dare questioneither one or both of them. On a mere hazard you cannot go to thebeautiful young wife of the distinguished representative of a friendlynation, and a woman besides of irreproachable character, and accuse herof being in the pay of an international crook. You cannot do this anymore than you could attempt a similar liberty with regard to an equallybeautiful woman of equally good repute who happens to be a prominentfigure in the most exclusive circles of this country and the favouritesister of a leader on the Administration side in the United StatesSenate. Of course since the developments began to focus suspicion uponthem, they have been watched. Yesterday at church Miss Ballister's wristbag was picked. Along with things of no apparent significance, itcontained a note received by her the day before from Goldsborough--Geltmannrather--reminding her that they were to meet to-morrow night at yourcousin's party. Later in the afternoon Madame Ybanca received a telegramand sent an answer, as I have told you; a telegram inviting her to thevery same party. Putting two and two together, I think I see Geltmann'shand showing. Having put two and two together, I came to New York to getin touch with you and to enlist your help. "

"But why me?"

"Why not you? I remembered that Mrs. Hadley-Smith was related to you. Ifelt pretty sure that you would be going to her party. And I am morallysure that at the party Geltmann means to meet his confederate--MissBallister or Madame Ybanca, as the case may be--and to receive from herthe bit of paper that means so much to him and to those he is serving inthe capacity of a paid agent. It will be easy enough to do the thingthere; whereas a meeting in any other place, public or private, might bedangerous for both of them. 

"Miss Ballister will be coming over from Washington to-morrow. She has achair-car reservation on the Pennsylvania train leaving there at teno'clock in the morning. I don't know what train Madame Ybanca will take, but the news will be coming to me by wire before she is aboard thetrain. Each one of them is now being shadowed; each one of them will beshadowed for every moment while she is on her way and during her stayhere; and of course Geltmann cannot stir a step outside his suite at theHotel Atminster, on Fortieth Street, without being under observation. Hedidn't know it, but he was under observation when he woke up yesterdaymorning. 

"But I think these precautions are of mighty little value; I do notexpect any important result from them. On the other hand, I am convincedthat the transfer of the dispatch will be attempted under your cousin'sroof. I do not need to tell you why Geltmann should have sought toinsure the presence of both women here at one time. He is smart enough;he knows that in this case there is an added element of safety for himin numbers--that it is better to have both present. Then unwittingly theinnocent one will serve as a cover for the guilty one. I think hefigures that should discovery of the theft come soon--he not knowing italready has come--then in such case there will be a divided trail for usto follow, one end pointing toward Miss Ballister and the other towardthe madame. Or, at least, so I diagnose his mental processes. 

"If I have diagnosed them correctly, the big part of the job, MissSmith, is now up to you. We figure from what she told Westerfeltner thatthe paper will be concealed on the person of the woman we are after--inher hair perhaps, or in her bosom; possibly in that favourite cache of awoman--her stocking. At any rate she will have it hidden about her; thatmuch we may count on for a certainty. And so it must be your task toprevent that paper from changing hands; better still, to get it intoyour own possession before it possibly can come under Geltmann's eyeseven for a moment. But there must be no scene, no violence used, noscandal; above all things there must be no publicity. Publicity is to bedreaded almost as much as the actual transfer. 

"For my part I can promise you this: I shall be in the house of yourcousin to-morrow night, if you want me to be there. That detail we canarrange through her: but naturally I must stay out of sight. You must doyour work practically unaided. I guarantee though to insure you plentyof time in which to do it. Geltmann will not reach the party until laterthan he expects. The gentleman will be delayed by one or a number ofannoying but seemingly unavoidable accidents. Beyond these points Ihave to confess myself helpless. After those two women pass inside Mrs. Hadley-Smith's front door the real job is in your hands. You must findwho has the paper and you must get it away from its present custodianwithout making threats, without using force--in short, without doinganything to rouse the suspicions beforehand of the person we are after, or to make the innocent woman aware that she is under scrutiny. 

"Above all, nothing must occur to make any of the other guests realisethat anything unusual is afoot. For that would mean talk on the outside, and talk on the outside means sensational stories in the newspapers. Youcan make no mistake, and yet for the life of me I cannot see how you aregoing to guard against making them. Everything depends on you, and thateverything means a very great deal to our country. Yes, everythingdepends on you, because I am at the end of my rope. "

He finished and sat back in his chair, eyeing her face. Her expressiongave him no clew to any conclusions she might have reached. 

"I'll do my best, " she said simply, "but I must have full authority todo it in my own way. "

"Agreed. I'm not asking anything else from you. "

In a study she rose and went to the mantelpiece and took one book fromthe heap of books there. She opened it and glanced abstractedly throughthe leaves as they flittered under her fingers. 

With her eyes on the page headings she said to him: "I quarrel with oneof your premises. "

"Which one?"

"The one that the woman we want will have the paper hidden in her hairor in her corsage or possibly in her stocking. "

"Well, I couldn't think of any other likely place in which she mighthide it. She wouldn't have it in a pocket, would she? Women don't havepockets in their party frocks, do they?"

Disregarding his questions she asked one herself:

"You say it is a small strip of paper, and that probably it is rolled upinto a wad about the size of a hazelnut?"

"It was rolled up so when Westerfeltner parted from it--that's all I cantell you. Why do you ask that?"

"Oh, it doesn't particularly matter. I merely was thinking of variouspossibilities and contingencies. "

Apparently she now had found the place in the book which, more or lessmechanically, she had been seeking. She turned down the upper corner ofa certain page for a marker and closed the book. 

"Well, in any event, " she said, "I must get to work. I think I shallbegin by calling up my cousin to tell her, among other things, that herparty may have some rather unique features that she had not included inher program. And where can I reach you by telephone or bymessenger--say, in an hour from now?"

A number of small things, seemingly in no wise related to the mainissue, occurred that evening and on the following morning. In theevening, for example, Mrs. Hadley-Smith revised the schedule ofamusements she had planned for her All Fools' party, incorporating someentirely new notions into the original scheme. In the morning MissMildred Smith visited the handkerchief counter of a leading departmentstore, where she made selections and purchases from the stocks, goingthence to a shop dealing in harness and leather goods. Here she gave aspecial commission for immediate execution. 

Toward dusk of the evening of April first a smallish unobtrusive-lookingcitizen procured admittance to Mrs. Hadley-Smith's home, on EastSixty-third Street just off Fifth Avenue. With the air of a man havingbusiness on the premises he walked through the front door along with agroup of helpers from the caterer's. Once inside, he sent a name by thebutler to Mrs. Hadley-Smith, who apparently awaited such word, forpromptly she came downstairs and personally escorted the man to a smallstudy at the back of the first floor; wherein, having been left alone, he first locked the door leading to the hall and drew the curtains ofthe windows giving upon a rear courtyard, and proceeded to make himselfquite at home. 

He ate a cold supper which he found spread upon a table and after thathe used the telephone rather extensively. This done, he lit a cigar andstretched himself upon a sofa, smoking away with the air of a man whohas finished his share of a given undertaking and may take his easeuntil the time arrives for renewed action upon his part. Along towardnine-thirty o'clock, when he had smoked his third cigar, there came asoft knock thrice repeated upon the door, whereupon he rose and unlockedthe door, but without opening it to see who might be outside he wentback to his couch, lay down and lit a fourth cigar. For the next littlewhile we may leave him there to his comfortable solitude and his smokehaze. 

Meanwhile the Hon. Sidney Bertram Goldsborough, so called and soregistered at the Hotel Atminster, grew decidedly peevish over theunaccountable failure of his order to arrive from a theatricalcostumer's, where he had selected it some three days earlier. He wasmorally sure it had been sent hours earlier by special messenger fromthe costume shop. In answer to his vexed inquiries the parcelsdepartment of the hotel was equally sure that no box or packageconsigned to Mr. Goldsborough had been received. Finally, after teno'clock, the missing costume was brought to the gentleman's door with amessage of profound regret from the assistant manager, who expressedsorrow that through the stupidity of some member or members of his forcea valued guest had been inconvenienced. Hastily slipping into thecostume and putting a light overcoat on over it Mr. Goldsborough startedin a taxicab up Fifth Avenue. But at Forty-eighth Street a governmentmail van, issuing suddenly out of the sideway, smashed squarely into theside of the taxicab bearing him, with the result that the taxi lost awheel and Mr. Goldsborough lost another half hour. 

This second delay was due to the fact that his presence upon the spotwas required by a plain-clothes man who took over the investigation ofthe collision from the patrolman on the post. To Mr. Goldsborough, inwardly fuming but outwardly calm and indifferent, it seemed that theplain-clothes person took an unreasonably long time for his inquiriestouching on the accident. At length, with apologies for detaining him, the headquarters man--now suddenly become accommodating where before hehad been officially exact and painstaking in his inquisition into causesand circumstances--personally hailed another taxicab for Mr. Goldsborough and sent him upon his way. 

But, Mr. Goldsborough's chapter of petty troubles was not yet ended; forthe driver of the second taxi stupidly drove to the wrong address, landing his fare at a house on West Sixty-third Street, clear acrossCentral Park and nearly halfway across town from Mrs. Hadley-Smith'shome. So, what with first one thing and then another, eleven o'clock hadcome and gone before the indignant passenger finally was set down at hisproper destination. 

We go back to nine-thirty, which was the hour set and appointed forinaugurating the All Fools' Day party. Nine-thirty being the hour, veryfew of the prospective celebrants arrived before ten. But by ten, or alittle later, most of them were assembled in the big twin drawing-roomson the first floor of the Hadley-Smith establishment. These two rooms, with the study behind them and the wide reception hall that ranalongside them, took up the most of the first-floor ground space of thetown house. As the first arrivals noted, they had been stripped offurniture for dancing. One room was quite empty, save for decorations;the other contained only a table piled with favours. Even the chairs hadbeen removed, leaving clear spaces along the walls. 

It was not such a very large party as parties go, for Mrs. Hadley-Smithhad a reputation for doing her entertaining on a small but anexceedingly smart scale. All told, there were not more than fifty onhand--and accounted for--by ten o'clock. A good many had come incostume--as zanies, Pantaloons, witches, Pierrots, Columbines, clownsand simples. For those who wore evening dress the hostess had provided astore of dunce caps and dominos of gay colours. Nearly everybodypresent already knew nearly everybody else. There were only five or sixguests from out of town, and of these Mme. Josephine Ybanca, wife of thegreat South American diplomat, and Miss Evelyn Ballister, sister of thedistinguished Western statesman, were by odds the handsomest. Of womenthere were more than men; there usually are more women than men inevidence at such affairs. 

At about ten o'clock, Mrs. Hadley-Smith stood out on the floor under thearch connecting but not exactly separating the joined rooms. 

"Listen, please, everybody!" she called, and the motley company, obeyingthe summons, clustered about her. "The musicians won't be here untilmidnight. After they have come and after we've had supper there will bedancing. But until midnight we are going to play games--old games, suchas I'm told they played in England two hundred years ago on May Day andon All Fools' Day and on Halloween. There'll be no servants about and noone to bother us and we'll have these rooms to ourselves to do just aswe please in. "

A babble of politely enthusiastic exclamations rose. The good-lookingwidow could always be depended upon to provide something unusual whenshe entertained. 

"I've asked my cousin, Mildred, to take charge of this part of ourparty, " went on the hostess. "She has been studying up on the subject, I believe. " She looked about her. "Oh, Mildred, where are you?"

"Here, " answered Miss Smith, emerging from a corner, pretty MadameYbanca coming with her. "Madame Ybanca has on such marvellous, fascinating old jewelry to-night; I was just admiring it. Are you readyto start?"

"Quite ready, if you are. "

Crossing to the one table in sight Miss Smith took the party-colouredcover from a big square cardboard box. Seemingly the box was filled tothe top with black silk handkerchiefs; thick, heavy black handkerchiefsthey were. 

"As a beginning, " she announced, "we are going to play a new kind ofBlind Man's Buff. That is to say, it may be new to us, though some ofour remote ancestors no doubt played it a century or so back. In thegame we played as children one person was blindfolded and was spun aboutthree times and then had to lay hands upon one of the others, all ofwhom were duty bound to stand where they were, without moving orspeaking--but you remember, I'm sure, all of you? In this version therules are different, as you'll see. 

"First we'll draw lots to see who's going to be It, as we used to saywhen we were kiddies. Wait a minute though--it will take too long tochoose from among so many. I think I'll save time by finding a victim inthis little crowd here. " And she indicated ten or twelve who chanced tobe clustered at her right. 

"You, Mr. Polk, and you, Miss Vane, and you and you and you--and, ohyes, I'll take in Madame Ybanca too; she makes an even dozen. I shan'tinclude myself, because I rather think I had better act as referee andgeneral factotum until you learn the game. "

The chosen group faced her while the others pressed up in anticipation. From a pocket in her red-and-white clown's blouse Miss Smith produced asheaf of folded bits of tissue paper. 

"One of these papers bears a number, " she went on, as she made aselection of twelve slips from the handful. "All the others are blank. Iknow which one is marked, but no one else does. Now then, take a slip, each of you. The person who draws the numbered slip is It. "

In mock solemnity each of the selected twelve in turn drew from betweenMiss Smith's fingers a colored scrap. 

"Mine's a blank, " called out Miss Vane, opening her bit of paper. 

"Mine too. "

"And mine. "

"And mine is. "

"Who has it, then?"

"I seem to have drawn the fatal number, " said Madame Ybanca, holding upher slip for all to see the markings on it. 

"So you have, " agreed Miss Smith. "Now then, everybody pick out a blackhandkerchief from this box--they're all exactly alike. Not you, though, madame. I'll have to prepare you for your rôle myself. " So saying, shetook one of the handkerchiefs and folded it into a long flat strip. 

"Now, madame, please put your arms back of you--so! You see, I'm goingto tie your hands behind your back. "

"Oh, does everybody have to be tied?" demanded Miss Vane. 

"No, but everybody excepting the madame must be blindfolded, " statedMiss Smith. "I'll explain in just one minute when I'm done with themadame here. " With fast-moving fingers she firmly drew the handkerchiefabout the young matron's crossed wrists. Madame Ybanca uttered a sharplittle "Ouch!"

"Oh, I'm so sorry, " said Miss Smith. "Am I binding you too tightly?"

"No, not that; but I think you are making one of my bracelets press intomy flesh. It's such a thick cumbersome thing anyway. "

"Shall I slip it farther up your arm?" asked Miss Smith. 

"No, take it off entirely, won't you, and keep it for me? It fastenswith a little clasp. "

So Miss Smith undid the bracelet, which was a band of curiously chasedheavy gold, studded with big bosses containing blue stones, and droppedit into her handy blouse pocket. 

Then swiftly she finished her task of knotting the handkerchief ends andMadame Ybanca, very securely bound, stood forth in the midst of alaughing ring, making a pretty and appealing picture, her face slightlyflushed by embarrassment. 

"One thing more for your adornment and you'll be ready, " promised MissSmith. 

Burrowing beneath the remaining handkerchiefs in the box she produced acollarlike device of soft russet leather, all hung with fat silversleigh bells which, being loosely sewed to the fabric by means oftwisted wire threads, jingled constantly and busily. The slightestmovement set the wires to quivering like antennae and the bells tomaking music. Miss Smith lifted the leather circlet down over MadameYbanca's head so that it rested upon her shoulders, looping across justbelow the base of the throat. 

"Take a step forward, " she bade the madame, and as the latter obeyed, all the bells tinkled together with a constant merry clamour. 

"Behold!" said Miss Smith. "The lady of the bells is caparisoned for herpart. Now then, let each person blindfold his or her eyes with thehandkerchief you have; but take care that you are well blinded. 

"Oh, Miss Ballister, let me adjust your handkerchief, won't you? I'mafraid you might disarrange that lovely hair ornament of yours unlessyou have help. There! How's that! Can you see anything at all? How manyfingers do I hold up?"

"Oh, I'm utterly in the dark, " said Miss Ballister. "I can't see athing. "

"Are you all hooded?" called Miss Smith. 

A chorus of assents went up. 

"Good! Then listen a moment: It will be Madame Ybanca's task to catchhold of some one of you with her hands fastened as they are behind her. It is your task to keep out of her way; the bells are to warn you of herapproach. Whoever is caught takes her place and becomes It. 

"Ready--go!"

Standing a moment as though planning a campaign Madame Ybanca made aquick dash toward where the others were grouped the thickest. But herbells betrayed her. From before her they scattered and broke apart, stumbling, groping with outstretched hands to find the wall, jostlinginto one another, caroming off again, whooping with laughter. Fast asMadame Ybanca advanced, the rest all managed to evade her. She halted, laughing in admission of the handicap upon her, when before she had beenso confident of a capture; then, changing her tactics, she undertook tostalk down some member of the blindfolded flock by stealthy, gentleforward steps. But softly though she might advance, the telltale bellsgave ample notice of her whereabouts, and the troop fled. Moreover, evenwhen she succeeded--as she soon did--in herding someone into a corner, the prospective victim, a man, managed to slip past her out of danger, being favoured by the fact that to grasp him with one of her fetteredhands she must turn entirely about. So he was able to wriggle out ofperil and her clutching fingers closed only on empty air. 

"It's not so easy as it seemed, " she confessed. 

"Keep trying, " counselled the referee, keeping pace with her. MissSmith's eyes were darting everywhere at once, watching the hoodedfigures keenly, as though to detect any who might seek to cheat bylifting his or her mufflings. "You're sure to catch somebody presently. They can't dodge you every time, you know. "

So Madame Ybanca tried again. Ahead of her the fugitives stampeded, milling about in uncertain circles, gliding past her along the walls, fleeing from one room to the other and back again--singly, by pairs andthrees. They touched her often, but by reason of her hampered state shenever could touch, with her hands, any of them in their flight. 

As Mrs. Hadley-Smith, fleeing alone, came through the doorway with bothher arms outstretched to fend off possible collisions, a sharp lowwhisper spoken right alongside of her made her halt. The whisperer washer cousin. Unobserved by the madame and unheard by any one else, MissSmith spoke a word or two in her cousin's ear. The next instant almostMrs. Hadley-Smith, apparently becoming confused as to the direction fromwhich the sounds of bells approached, hesitated in indecision and wasfairly trapped by the pursuer. 

"Who's caught? Who's caught?" cried several together. 

"You're not supposed to know--that makes the fun all the better, " criedMiss Smith. "You may halt a bit to get your breath, but nobody is totouch his or her blindfold. "

"I'm sure you took pity on me and let me tag you, " said Madame Ybanca inan undertone to her victim as Miss Smith, deftly freeing the youngerwoman's hands, proceeded to bind the hostess' wrists at her back. 

"Not at all, " replied Mrs. Hadley-Smith, also under her breath. "I wasstupid or awkward or perhaps both at once--that's all. "

A moment later when the collar of bells had been shifted to the newwearer's shoulders, the madame, covering up her own eyes, moved away tojoin the ranks of the blindfolded. 

Before taking up the chase Mrs. Hadley-Smith cast a quick look towardher cousin and the cousin replied with a nod and a significant glancetoward a certain quarter of the same room in which they stood. Raisingher eyebrows to show she understood the widow moved toward the placethat had been indicated. From her path the gaily clad figures retreated, eddying and tacking in uncertain flight away from the jingle of thebells. 

Had any third person there had the use of his or her eyes that personwould have witnessed now a strange bit of byplay and--given a fairshare of perception--would have realised that something more importantthan a petty triumph in the playing of a game was afoot. Having visionthis third person would have seen how Mrs. Hadley-Smith, disregardingeasier chances to make a capture, strove with all her power to touch oneparticular chosen quarry; would have seen how twice, by a quick twist ofa graceful young body, the hunted one eluded those two tied handsoutthrust to seize her; how at the third time of trying the huntressscored a victory and laid detaining hold upon a fold of the fugitive'scostume; and how at this Miss Smith, so eagerly watching the chase, gavea gesture of assent and satisfaction over a thing accomplished, as shehurried toward the pair of them to render her self-appointed serviceupon the winner and the loser. 

But having for the moment no eyes with which to see, no third personthere witnessed these little interludes of stratagem and design, thoughit was by no means hard for them to sense that again a coup had beenscored. What they did not know was that the newest victim was EvelynBallister. 

"Oh, somebody else has been nabbed! Goody! Goody! I'm glad I got away, "shouted Miss Vane, who was by nature exuberant and of a high spirit. "Iwonder who it is now?" She threw back her head, endeavouring to peep outalong her tilted nose. "I hope it's a man this time. It's moreexciting--being pursued by a man. "

"Don't forget--no one is to look, " warned Miss Smith as keeper of therules. "It would spoil the sport if you knew who'll be pursuing younext. "

Already she had stripped the blindfold from about Miss Ballister's headand with a quick jerk at the master knot had freed her cousin frombondage. With flirting motions she twisted the folded kerchief into arope. Practice in the work seemed to have given to her added deftnessand speed, for in no more time than it takes to tell of it she had drawnMiss Ballister's smooth arms round behind their owner's back and wasbusied at the next step of her offices. Almost it seemed the girlsurrendered reluctantly, as though she were loath to go through with therôle that had fallen to her by penalty of being tagged. But if MissSmith felt unwillingness in the sudden rebellious tensing of the limbsshe touched, the only response on her part was an added quickness in herfingers as she placed one veined wrist upon the other and with doublewraps made them snugly fast. 

"It hurts--it pinches! You've bound me too tightly, " murmured theprisoner, as involuntarily she strained against the pull of thetrussings. 

"Oh, I'm so sorry, " whispered Miss Smith. "I'll ease you in just asecond. " But despite her promise she made no immediate move to do so. Instead she concerned herself with lifting the collaret of bells offover Mrs. Hadley-Smith's head and bestowing it upon the roundedshoulders of the girl. As she brought the jingling harness down in itsplace her hands lingered for one fleeting space where a heavy, quaint, old-fashioned gold locket--an heirloom that might have come down from agrandmother's days--was dangling from a gold chain that encircled thegirl's neck. Apparently she caught a finger in the chain and before shecould free it she had given a sharp tug at the chain, thereby liftingthe locket from where it rested against the white flesh of its wearer'sthroat. 

"I--I'm afraid I can't play, " Miss Ballister almost gasped out thewords; then drawing in her breath with a sharp catch: "This room--it'sso warm. I feel a bit faint, really I do. Please untie me. I shan't beable to go on. " Her voice, though pitched still in a low key, wassharpened with a nervous entreaty. 

"I will of course if you really do feel badly, " said Miss Smith. Then aninspiration seemed to come to her. Her eyes sparkled. 

"Oh, " she said, "I've a beautiful idea! We'll play an April Fools' jokeon them. We'll make them all think you still are here and while they'redodging about trying to keep away from you we'll slip away together andbe at the other end of the house. " By a gesture of one hand and with afinger of the other across her lips to impress the need of secrecy, shebrought Mrs. Hadley-Smith into the little conspiracy. 

"Don't blindfold yourself, Claire, " she whispered. "You must help MissBallister and me to play a joke on the others. You are to keep the bellsrattling after we are gone. See? This way. "

With that she shifted the leathern loop from about Miss Ballister's neckand replaced it over Mrs. Hadley-Smith's head which bent forward toreceive it. Smiling in appreciation of the proposed hoax the widow tooka step or two. 

"Watch!" whispered Miss Smith in Miss Ballister's ear. "See how well thetrick works. There--what did I tell you?"

For instantly all the players, deceived by the artifice, were fallingback, huddling away from the fancied danger zone as Mrs. Hadley-Smithwent toward them. In the same instant Miss Smith silently had opened thenearest door and, beckoning to Miss Ballister to follow her, wastiptoeing softly out into the empty hall. The door closed gently behindthem. 

Miss Ballister laughed a forced little laugh. She turned, presenting herback to Miss Smith. 

"Now untie me, please do. " In her eagerness to be free she panted outthe words. 

"Surely, " agreed Miss Smith. "But I think we should get entirely away, out of sight, before the bells stop ringing and the hoax begins to dawnon them. There's a little study right here at the end of the hall. Shallwe go there and hide from them? I'll relieve you of that handkerchiefthen. "

"Yes, yes; but quickly, please!" Miss Ballister's note was insistent;you might call it pleading, certainly it was agitated. "Being tied thisway gives one such a trapped sort of feeling--it's horrid, really it is. I'll never let any one tie my hands again so long as I live. It's enoughto give one hysterics--honestly it is. 

"I understand. Come on, then. "

With one hand slipped inside the curve of the other's elbow Miss Smithhurried her to the study door masked beneath the broad stairs, andopening it, ushered her into the inner room. 

It contained an occupant: a smallish man with mild-looking gray eyes, who at their entrance rose up from where he sat, staring steadily atthem. At sight of the unexpected stranger Miss Ballister halted. Sheuttered a shocked little exclamation and recoiled, pulling away from herescort as though she meant to flee back across the threshold. But hershoulders came against the solid panels. 

The door so soon had been shut behind her, cutting off retreat. 

"Well?" said the stranger. 

Miss Smith stood away from the shrinking figure, leaving it quite alone. 

"This is the woman, " she said, and suddenly her voice was accusing andhard. "The stolen paper is in that necklace she is wearing round herneck. "

For proof of the truth of the charge Mullinix had only to look intotheir captive's face. Her first little fit of distress coming on her sosuddenly while she was being bound had made her pale. Now her pallor wasghastly. Little blemishes under the skin stood out in blotches againstits dead white, and out of the mask her eyes glared in a dumb terror. She made no outcry, but her lips, stiff with fright, twisted to formwords that would not come. Her shoulders heaved _as_--futilely--shestrove to wrench her arms free. Then quickly her head sank forward andher knees began to bend under her. 

"Mind--she's going to faint!" warned Mullinix. 

Both of them sprang forward and together they eased the limp shape downupon the rug. She lay there at their feet, a pitiable little bundle. Butthere was no compassion, no mercifulness in their faces as they lookeddown at her. 

Alongside the slumped form Miss Smith knelt down and felt for the claspof the slender chain and undid it. She pressed the catch of the locketand opened it, and from the small receptacle revealed within, where aminiature might once have been, she took forth a tightly folded halfsheet of yellow parchment paper, which had it been wadded into a ballwould have made a sphere about the size of the kernel of a fair-sizedfilbert. 

Mullinix grasped it eagerly, pressed it out flat and took one glance atthe familiar signature, written below the close-set array of seeminglymeaningless and unrelated letters. 

"You win, young lady, " he said, and there was thanksgiving andcongratulation in the way he said it. "But how did you do it? How was itdone?"

She looked up from where she was casting off the binding about therelaxed hands of the unconscious culprit. 

"It wasn't hard--after the hints you gave me. I made up my mindyesterday that the paper would probably be hidden in a piece ofjewelry--in a bracelet or under the setting of a ring possibly; or in ahair ornament possibly; and I followed that theory. Two tests that Imade convinced me that Madame Ybanca was innocent; they quite eliminatedMadame Ybanca from the equation. So I centred my efforts on this girland she betrayed herself soon enough. "

"Betrayed herself, how?"

"An individual who has been temporarily deprived of sight willinvoluntarily keep his or her hands upon any precious object that isconcealed about the person--I suppose you know that. And as I watchedher after I had blindfolded her----"

"After you had what?"

"Blindfolded her. Oh, I kept my promise, " she added, reading theexpression on his face. "There was no force used, and no violence. Shesuffered herself to be blindfolded--indeed, I did the blinding myself. Well, after she had been blindfolded with a thick silk handkerchief Iwatched her, and I saw that while with one hand she groped her wayabout, she kept the other hand constantly clutched upon this locket, asthough to make sure of the safety of something there. So then I wassure; but I was made doubly sure by her actions while I was tying herhands behind her. And then, after I had her tied and helpless, I couldexperiment further--and I did--and again my experiment convinced me Iwas on the right track. "

"Yes--but tying her hands--didn't she resist that?"

"No; you see, she let me tie her hands too. It was a part of a game. They all played it. "

"Some of the others were blinded, eh?"

"All of them were; every single one of them was. They still are, Iimagine, providing my cousin is doing her part--and I am sure she is. There'll be no suspicion of the truth, even after their eyes areunhooded. Claire has her explanations all ready. They'll miss this girlof course and wonder what has become of her, but the explanationprovides for that: She was taken with a sudden indisposition and slippedaway with me, not wishing to spoil the fun by staying on after shebegan to feel badly. That's the story they'll be told, and there's noreason why they shouldn't accept it as valid either. See! She's comingto. "

"Then I'll get out and leave you to attend to her. Keep her here in thisroom until she's better, and then you may send her back to her hotel. You might tell her that there is to be no prosecution and no unpleasantnotoriety for her if only she keeps her mouth shut about all that'shappened. Probably she'll be only too glad to do that, for I figure shehas learned a lesson. "

"You won't want to question her, then, after she has been revived?"

"It's quite unnecessary. I have the other ends of the case in my hands. And besides I must go outside to meet our dear friend Geltmann when hearrives. He should be driving up to the house pretty soon--I had atelephone message five minutes ago telling me to expect him shortly. SoI'm going out to break some sad news to him on the sidewalk. He doesn'tknow it yet, but he's starting to-night on a long, long trip; a tripthat will take him clear out of this country--and he won't ever, ever becoming back. 

"But I'll call on you to-morrow, if I may--after I've seen to gettinghim off for the West. I want to thank you again in behalf of the Servicefor the wonderful thing you've done so wonderfully well. And I want tohear more from you about that game you played. "

"I'll do better than that, " she promised: "I'll let you read about it ina book--an old secondhand book, it is; you saw it yesterday. Maybe I canconvert you to reading old books; they're often full of things thatpeople in your line should know. "

"Lady, " he said reverently, "you've made a true believer of mealready. "

CHAPTER IX

THE BULL CALLED EMILY

We were sitting at a corner table in a certain small restaurant hard bywhere Sixth Avenue's L structure, like an overgrown straddlebug, wadesthrough the restless currents of Broadway at a sharpened angle. The dishupon which we principally dined was called on the menu _Chicken a laMarengo_. We knew why. Marengo, by all accounts, was a mighty toughbattle, and this particular chicken, we judged, had never had anyrefining influences in its ill-spent life. From its present defiantattitude in a cooked form we figured it had pipped the shell with aburglar's jimmy and joined the Dominecker Kid's gang before it shed itspin-feathers. There were two of us engaged in the fruitless attack uponits sinewy tissues--the present writer and his old un-law-abidingfriend, --Scandalous Doolan. 

For a period of minutes Scandalous wrestled with the thews of one of theembattled fowl's knee-joints. After a struggle in which the honoursstood practically even, he laid down his knife and flirted a thumbtoward a bottle of peppery sauce which stood on my side of the table. 

"Hey, bo, " he requested, "pass the liniment, will you? This sea gull'sgot the rheumatism. "

The purport of the remark, taken in connection with the gesture whichaccompanied it, was plain enough to my understanding; but for the nonceI could not classify the idiom in which Scandalous couched his request. It could not be Underworld jargon; it was too direct and at the sametime too picturesque. Moreover, the Underworld, as a rule, concernsitself only with altering such words and such expressions as strictlyfigure in the business affairs of its various crafts and pursuits. Norto me did it sound like the language of the circus-lot, for in such caseit probably would have been more complex. So by process of elimination Idecided it was of the slang code of the burlesque and vaudeville stage, with which, as with the other two, Scandalous had a thoroughacquaintance. I felt sure, then, that something had set his mind toworking backward along the memory-grooves of some one or another of hisearlier experiences in the act-producing line of endeavour, and that, with proper pumping, a story might be forthcoming. As it turned out, Iwas right. 

"Where did you get that one, Scandalous?" I asked craftily. "Your owncoinage, or did you borrow it from somebody else?"

He only grinned cryptically. After a bit he hailed the attendant waiter, who because he plainly suffered from fallen arches had already beenrechristened by Scandalous as Battling Insteps. 

"Say, Battling, " he said, "take away the emu; he's still the undefeatedchampion of the ages. Tidy him up a little and serve him to the next guythat feels like he needs exercise more'n he does nourishment. The gravymay be mussed up a trifle, but the old ring-general ain't lost an ounce. I fought him three rounds and didn't put a bruise on him. "

"Couldn't I bring you somethin' else?" said the waiter. "The WienerSchnitzel with noodles is very----"

"Nix, " said Scandalous; "if the cassowary licked us, what chance wouldwe stand against the bison? That'll be all for the olio; I'll go rightinto the after-show now. Slip me a dipper of straight chicory and one ofthose Flor de Boiled Dinners, and then you can break the bad news to mypal here. " By this I knew he meant that he craved a cup of black coffeeand one of the domestic cigars to which he was addicted, and that Icould pay the check. 

He turned to me:

"How're you goin' to finish your turn?" he asked. "They've got mince piehere like Mother Emma Goldman used to make. Only you want to be carefulit don't explode in your hand. "

I shook my head. "I'll nibble at these, " I said, "until you getthrough. " And I reached for a little saucer of salted peanuts thatlurked in the shadow of the bowl containing the olives and the celery. For this, you should know, was a table d'hôte establishment, and no suchplace is complete without its drowned olives and its wilted celery. 

"Speaking of peanuts, " he said, "I don't seem to care deeply for such. Ilost my taste for them dainties quite some time back. "

"What was the occasion?" I prompted, for I saw the light of reminiscencesmouldering in his eye. 

"It wasn't no occasion, " he said; "it was a catastrophe. Did I everhappen to tell you about the time I furnished the financial backing forWindy Jordan and his educated bull, and what happened when the blow-offcame?"

I shook my head and in silence hearkened. 

"It makes quite an earful, " he continued. "Business for gents in myprofession was very punk here on the Main Stem that season. By reason ofthe dishonest police it was mighty hard for an honest grafter to make aliving. It certainly was depressing to trim an Ezra for his roll andthen have to cut up the net proceeds with so many central-office guysthat you had to go back and borrow car-fare from the sucker to get homeon. Besides, I was somewhat lonely and low in my peace of mind onaccount of my regular side-kick the Sweet Caps Kid being in thehospital. He'd made the grievous mistake of trying to sell ahalf-interest in the Aquarium to a visiting Swede. Right in the middleof the negotiations something came up that made the Swede doubtful thatall was not well, and he betrayed his increasing misgivings by haulingout a set of old-fashioned genuine antique brass knucks and nicking upSweet Caps' scalp to such an extent my unfortunate companion had tospend three weeks on the flat of his back in the casualty ward, with acouple of doctors coming in every morning to replace the divots. Pendinghis recovery, I was sort of figuring on visiting Antioch, Gilead, Zionand other religious towns up State with a view of selling the haymakerssome Bermuda oats for their fall planting, when along came Windy Jordanand broached a proposition. 

"This here Windy Jordan was one of them human draughts; hence the name. At all hours there was a strong breeze blowing out of him in the form ofwords. If he wasn't conversing, it was a sign he had acute sore throat. But to counteract that fault he was the sole proprietor of the smartestand the largest bull on this side of the ocean, which said bull answeredto the name of Emily. "

"Did you say a bull?" I asked. 

"Sure I said a bull. Why not? Ain't you wise to what a bull is?"

"Certainly I am, but a bull named Emily----"

"Listen, little one: To them that follow after the red wagon and thewhite top, all elephants is bulls, disregardless of genders, just thesame as all regular bulls is he-cows to refined maiden ladies residin'in New England and points adjacent. Only, show-people ain't got anyfalse modesty that way. In the show-business a bull is a bull, whetherit's a lady-bull or a gentleman-bull. So very properly this here bull, being one of the most refined and cultured members of her sex, answersto the Christian name of Emily. 

"Well, this Emily is not only the joy and the pride of Windy Jordan'slife, but she's his entire available assets. Bull and bulline, she'dbeen with him from early childhood. In fact, Windy was the only parentEmily ever knew, she having been left a helpless orphan on account of arailroad wreck to the old Van Orten shows back yonder ineighteen-eighty-something. So Windy, he took her as a prattling infantin arms when she didn't weigh an ounce over a ton and a half, and headopted her and educated her and pampered her and treated her as amember of his own family, only better, until she repaid him by becomingnot only the largest bull in the business but the most highlycultivated. 

"Emily knew nearly everything there was to know, and what she didn'tknow she suspected very strongly. Likewise, as I came to find out later, she was extremely grateful for small favours and most affectionate bynature. To be sure, being affectionate with a bull about the size andgeneral specifications of a furniture-car had its drawbacks. She wasliable to lean up against you in a playful, kittenish kind of a way, andcave in most of your ribs. It was like having a violent flirtation witha landslide to venture up clost to Emily when she was in one of hertomboy moods. I've know' her to nudge a friend with one of her frontelbows and put both his shoulder-blades out of socket. But she nevermeant no harm by it, never. It was just a little way she had. 

"It seems like Windy and Emily were aiming to join out that season witha tent-show, but the deal fell through some way, and for the past fewweeks Windy had been infesting a lodging-house for members of theprofession over here on East Eleventh Street, and Emily had been in alivery barn down in Greenwich Village, just naturally eating her oldIndia-rubber head off. Windy, having run low as to coin, wasn't able topay up Emily's back board, and the liveryman was holding her for thebill. 

"So, hearing some way that I'm fairly well upholstered with currency, hecomes to me and suggests that if I'll dig up what's necessary to getEmily out of hock, he can snare a line of bookings in vaudeville, andwe'll all three go out on the two-a-day together, him as trainer and meas manager and Emily as the principal attraction. The proceeds is to becut up fifty-fifty as between me and him. 

"The notion don't sound like such a bad one. That was back in the dayswhen refined vaudeville was running very strongly to trained-animal actsand leading ladies that had quit leading but hadn't found out about ityet. Nowadays them ex-queens of tragedy can go into the movies and drawdown so much money that if they only get half as much as they saythey're getting, they're getting almost twice as much as anybody wouldgive 'em; but them times, vaudeville was their one best bet. And next toemotional actrines who could emosh twicet daily for twenty minutes on astretch, without giving way anywhere, a good trained-animal turn had thecall. It might be a troupe of educated Potomac shad or an educated apeor a city-broke Gila monster or a talking horse or what not. In our case'twas Emily, the bull. 

"First thing, we goes down to the livery-stable where Emily is spendingthe Indian summer and consuming half her weight in dry provender everytwenty-four hours. The proprietor of this here fodder-emporium is namedMcGuire, and when I tells him I'm there to settle Emily's account infull, he carries on as though entirely overcome by joyfulness--not thathe's got any grudge against Emily, understand, but for other good andabundant sufficiencies. He states that so far as Emily's personalconduct is concerned, during her enforced sojourn in his midst, she'salways deported herself like a perfect lady. But she takes up an awfullot of room, and one of the hands is now on the verge of nervousprostration from overexertions incurred in packing hay to her, and, itseems she's addicted to nightmares. She gets to dreaming that a mousenearly an inch and a half long is after her, --all bulls is terribleafraid, you know, that some day a mouse is going to come along and eat'em, --and when she has them kind of delusions, she cries out in hersleep and tosses around and maybe knocks down a couple of steel beams orbusts in a row of box-stalls or something trivial like that. Then, righton top of them petty annoyances, McGuire some days previous has made themistake of feeding Emily peanuts, which peanuts, as he then finds out, is her favourite tidbit. 

"'Gents, ' says McGuire to me and Windy Jordan, 'I shore did make theerror of my life when I done that act of kindness. I merely meant thempeanuts as a special treat, but Emily figures it out that they're thestart of a fixed habit, ' he says. 'Ever since then, if I forget to bringher in her one five-cent bag of peanuts per diem, per day, she callspersonally to inquire into the oversight. She waits very patient andladylike until about eleven o'clock in the morning, and if I ain't madegood by then, she just pulls up her leg hobble by the roots and drops inon me to find out what's the meaning of the delay. 

"'She ain't never rough nor overbearing, but it interferes with tradefor me to be sitting here in my office at the front of the stabletalking business with somebody, and all of a sudden the front half ofthe largest East Indian elephant in the world shoves three or fourthousand pounds of herself in at that side door and begins waving hertrunk around in the air, meanwhile uttering fretful, complaining sounds. I've lost two or three customers that way, ' he says. 'They get right upand go away sudden, ' he says, 'and they don't never come back no more, not even for their hats and umbrellas. They send for 'em. 

"'That ain't the worst of it, ' he says. Yesterday, ' he says, 'I rentedout my whole string of coaches and teams for a burial turnout over hereon McDougal Street. Being as it's a big occasion, I'm driving the firstcarriage containing the sorrowing family of deceased. Naturally, with ajob like that on my hands, I don't think about Emily at all; my mind'sall occupied up with making the affair pass off in a tasty and pleasantfashion for all concerned. Well, the cortege is just leaving the lateresidence of the remainders, when around the corner comes bulging Emily, followed at a suitable distance by eight or nine thousand of thepopulace. She's missed me, and she wants her peanuts, and she's beentrailing me; and now, by heck, she's found me. 

"'Emily gives a loud, glad snort of recognition, wheels herself aroundand then falls in alongside the front hack and gets ready to accompanyus, all the time poking her snout over at me and uttering plaintiveremarks in East Indian to me. Gents, ' he says, 'you can see foryourselves, a thing like that, occurring right at the beginning of afuneral procession, is calculated to distract popular attention awayfrom the main attraction. Under the circumstances I wouldn't blame nocorpse on earth for feeling jealous--let alone a popular and prominentcorpse like this here one was, a party that had been a district leaderat Tammany Hall in his day, and after that the owner of the mostfashionable retail liquor store in the entire neighbourhood, and who'snow riding along with solid silver handles up and down both sides, andstyle just wrote all over him. Here, with an utter disregard forexpense, he's putting on all this dog for his last public appearance, and a strange elephant comes along and grabs the show right away fromhim. 

"'The bereaved family don't care for it, neither. I gathers as much fromthe remarks they're making out of the windows of the coach. But Emilyjust won't take a hint. She sticks along until I stops the processionand goes in a guinea fruitstore on the next block and buys her a bag ofpeanuts. That's all she wants. She takes it, and she leaves us and goeson back to the stable. 

"'But, as the feller says, it practically ruined the entire day for themberefts. I lost their patronage right there--and them a nice sicklyfamily, too. A lot of the friends and relatives also resented it; theywere telling me so all the way back from the cemet'ry. There ain't noreal harm in Emily, and I've got powerfully attached to her, but takingone thing with another, I ain't regretting none that you've come downall organised financially to take her out of pawn. You have my bestwishes, and so has she. '

"So we settles up the account to date, which the same makes quite a nickin the bank-roll, and then we goes back to the rear of the stable whereEmily is quartered, and she falls on Windy's neck, mighty nighdislocating it, and he introduces me to Emily, and we shakes handstogether, --I means trunks, --and then Windy unshackles her, and shefollows us along just as gentle as a kitten to them freight-yards overon Tenth Avenue where her future travelling home is waiting for her. It's a box-car, with one end rigged up with bunks as a boudoir for meand Windy, and the rest of it fitted out as a private stateroom forEmily. 

"From that time on, for quite a spell, we're just the same as one bighappy family, as we goes a-jauntily touring from place to place. 

"We're playin' the Big Time, which means week stands and no hard jumps. Emily's a hit, a knock-out and a riot wherever she appears. She knows ittoo, but success don't go to her head, and she don't never get noattacks of this here complaint which they calls temper'ment. I alwaysfiggered out that temper'ment, when a grand wopra singster has it, isjust plain old temper when it afflicts a bricklayer. I don't know whatform it would take if it should seize on a bull, but Emily appears to beabsolutely immune. Give her a ton of hay and one sack of peanuts a day, and she's just as placid as a great gross of guinea pigs. Behind thescenes she never makes no trouble, but chums with the stage-hands andeven sometimes with the actors, thus proving that she ain't stuck up. 

"When the time comes for Emily to do her turn, she just goes ambling onbehind Windy and cuts up more didoes than any trick-mule that everlived. She smokes a pipe, and she toots on a brass horn, and waits ontable while Windy pretends to eat, and stands on her head, and playsbaseball with him and so forth and so on, for fifteen minutes, windingup by waving the Amurikin flag over her head. But all this time she'skeeping one eye on me, where I'm standing in the wings with a sack ofpeanuts in my pocket waiting for her to come off. Every time she worksover toward my side of the stage, she makes little hoydenish remarks tome in her native language. It ain't long until I can make out everythingshe says. I've been pedling the bull too long not to be able tounderstand it when spoke by a native. 

"For upwards of two months things goes along just beautiful. Then westrikes a town out in Illinois where business ain't what it used to be, if indeed it ever was. Along about the middle of the week the youngfeller that's doing the press-work for the house comes to me and asks meif I ain't got an idea in my system that might make a good press-stunt. 

"There's an inspiration comes to me and I suggests to him that maybe hemight go ahead and make an announcement that following the Saturdaymatinêe, Emily the Pluperfect, Ponderous, Pachydermical Performer, direct from the court of the reigning Roger of Simla County, India, willhold a reception on the stage to meet her little friends, each and everyone of whom will be expected to bring her a bag of peanuts. 

"'That listens all right, ' says this lad, 'providing she likes peanuts. '

"'Providing she likes 'em?' I says. 'Son, ' I says, 'if that bull everhas to take the cure for the drug-habit, it'll be on account of peanuts. If you don't think she likes peanuts, a dime will win you a trip to theHoly Lands, ' I says. 'Why, ' I says, 'Emily's middle name is _Peanuts_. Offhand, ' I says, 'I don't know precisely how many peanuts there are, ' Isays, 'because if I ever heard the exact figures, I've forgot 'em, butI'd like to lay you a little eight to five that Emily can chamber allthe peanuts in the world and then set down right where she happens tobe, to wait for next year's crop to come onto the market. That's howmuch she cares for peanuts, ' I says. 

"Well, that convinces him, and he hurries off to write his little pieceabout Emily's peanut reception. The next day, which is Friday, theannouncement is in both the papers. Saturday after lunch when I strollsround to the show-shop for the matinêe, one glance around the cornerfrom the stage entrance proves to me that our little social function iscertainly starting out to be a success. The street in front is lined onboth sides with dagos with peanut-stands, selling peanuts to thepopulation as fast as they can pass 'em out; and there's a long line, mainly kids, at the box-office. I goes on in and takes a flash at thefront of the house through the peephole in the curtain, and the place isalready jam full. If there's one kid out there, there's a thousand, andevery tiny tot has got a sack of peanuts clutched in his or her chubbyfist, as the case may be. And say, listen: there's a smell in the airlike a prairie fire running through a Georgia goober-king's plantation. 

"I goes back to where Emily is hitched, and she's weaving to and fro onher legs and watering at the mouth until she just naturally can'tcontrol her own riparian rights. She's done smelt that smell too. 

"'Honey gal, ' I says to her, 'it shore looks to me like you're due toget your fullupances of the succulential ground-pea of the SunnySouthland this day. '

"She's so grateful she tries to kiss me, but I ducks. All through herturn she dribbles from the chin like a defective fire-hydrant, and Ican tell that she ain't got her mind on her business. She's too busythinking about peanuts. When she's got through and taken her bows, themanager leaves the curtain up and Emily steps back behind a rope that acouple of the hands stretches acrosst the stage, with me standing on oneside of her and Windy on the other; and then a couple more hands shovesa wooden runway acrosst the orchestra rail down into one of the sideaisles; and then the house-manager invites Emily's young friends tomarch up the runway and crosst over from left to right, handing outtheir free-will offerings to her as they pass. 

"During this pleasant scene, as the manager explains, Emily's dauntlessowner, the world-famous Professor Zendavesta Jordan, meaning Windy, willlecture on the size, dimensions, habits and quaint peculiarities of thiswondrous creature. That last part suits Windy right down to the ground, him being, as I told you before, the kind of party who's never so happyas when he's started his mouth and gone away and left it running. 

"For maybe a half a minute after the house-manager finishes his littlespiel, the kids sort of hang back. Then the rush starts; and take itfrom me, little one, it's some considerable rush. Here they come up thatrunway--tiny tots in blue, and tiny tots in red, and tiny tots in white;tiny tots with their parents, guardians or nurses, and tiny totswithout none; tiny tots that are beginning to outgrow the tiny totteringstage, and other varieties of tiny tots too numerous to mention. Andclutched in each and every tiny tot's chubby hand is a bag of peanuts, five-cent size or ten-cent size, but mostly five-cent size. As Emilysees 'em coming, she smiles until she looks in the face like one ofthese here old-fashioned red-brick Colonial fireplaces, with anovergrown black Christmas stocking hanging down from the centre of themantel. 

"Up comes the first and foremost of the tiny tots. The Santy Clausstocking reaches out and annexes the free-will offering. There's a faintcrunching sound; that there sack of peanuts has went to the bourne fromout which no peanut, up until that time, has ever been known to return;and Emily is smiling benevolently and reaching out for the next sack. And behind the second kid is the third kid, and behind the third kidstill more kids, and as far as the human eye can reach, there ain'tnothing on the horizon of that show-shop but just kids--kids andpeanuts. 

"It certainly was a beauteous spectacle to behold so many of the dearlittle ones advancing up that runway with peanuts. To myself I says: 'Iguess I'm a bad little suggester, eh, what? Here's Emily getting allthis free provender and Windy talking his fool head off and the housegetting all this advertising and none of us out a cent for any part ofit. '

"In about ten minutes, though, I'm struck by the fact that Emily'soriginal outburst of enthusiasm appears slightly on the wane. It seemsto me she ain't reaching out for the free-will offerings with quite somuch eagersomeness as she was displaying a spell back. Also I takesnotice that the wrinkles in her tum-tum are filling out so that she'sbeginning to lose some of that deflated or punctured look so commonamongst bulls. 

"Still, I don't have no apprehensions, but thinks to myself that anybull which can eat half a ton of hay for breakfast certainly iscompetent to take in a couple of wagon-loads of peanuts for five o'clocktea. Even at that I figgers that it won't do no harm to coach Emilyalong a little. 

"'Go to it, baby mine, ' I says to her. 'You ain't hardly started. Here'sa chance, ' I says, 'to establish a new world's record for peanuts. '

"That remark appears to spur her up for a minute or so, but somethingseems to keep on warning me that her heart ain't in the work to theextent it has been. Windy don't see nothing out of the way, he beingcongenially engaged in shooting off his face, but I'm more or lessconcerned by certain mighty significant facts. For one thing, Emilyain't eatin' sacks and all any more; she's emptying the peanuts out andthrowing the paper bags aside. Likewise her work ain't clean and smoothlike it was. Her underlip is swinging down, and she's beginning todrool loose goobers off the lower end of it, and her low but intelligentforehead is all furrowed up as if with deep thought. 

"Observing all of which, I says to myself, I says: 'If ever Emily shouldstart to cramp, the world's cramping record is also in a fair way to bebusted this afternoon. I certainly do hope, ' I says, 'that Emily don'tgo and get herself overextended. '

"You see, I'm trusting for the best, because I realises that it wouldn'tdo to call off the reception right in the middle of it on account of thedisappointment amongst the tiny tots that ain't passed in review yet andthe general ill-feeling that's sure to follow. 

"I should say about two hundred tiny tots have gone by, with maybe fivehundred more still in line waiting their turn, when there halts in frontof Emily a fancy-dressed tiny tot which he must've been the favouritetiny tot of the richest man in town, because he's holding in his hands abag of peanuts fully a foot deep. It couldn't of cost a cent less'n halfa dollar, that bag. Emily reaches for the contribution, fondles it for asecond or two and starts to upend it down her throat; and then with alow, sad, hopeless cry she drops it on the stage and sort of shrugs herfront legs forward and stands there with her head bent and her earstwitching same as if she's listening for something that's still a longways off but coming closter fast. And at that precise instant I sees thefirst cramp start from behind her right-hand shoulder-blade and beginto work south. Say, it was just like being present at the birth of anearthquake. 

"Moving slow and deliberate, Emily turns around in her tracks, shiveringall over, and then I sees the cramp ripple along until it reaches hercargo-hold and strikes inward. It lifts all four of her feet clean offthe floor, and when she comes down again, she comes down travelling. There's some scenery in her way, and some furniture and props and onething and other, but she don't trouble to go round 'em. She goes through'em, as being a more simple and direct way, and a minute later she stepsout through the stage entrance into the crowded marts of trade with halfof a centre door fancy hung around her neck. Me and Windy is trailingalong, urging her to be ca'm but keeping at a reasonably safe distancewhile doing so. Behind us as we comes forth we can hear the voices ofmany tiny tots upraised in skeered cries. 

"Being a Saturday afternoon, the business section is fairly well crowdedwith people, and I suppose it's only natural that the unexpectedappearance upon the main street of the largest bull in captivity, wearing part of a cottage set for a collar and making sounds through hersnout like a switch-engine in distress, should cause some surprisedcomment amongst the populace. In fact, I should say the surprisedcomment might of been heard for fully half a mile away. 

"Emily hesitates as she reaches the sidewalk, as though she ain'tdecided yet in her own mind just where she'll go, and then her agonisedeye falls on all them peanut-roasters standing in a double row alongsidethe curbings on both sides of the street. The Italian and Greek gentswho owns 'em are already departing hence in a hurried manner, butthey've left their outfits behind, and right away it's made plain to meby her actions that Emily regards the sight as a part of a generalconspiracy to feed her some peanuts when she already has more peanutsthan what she really required for personal use. She reaches out for thefirst peanut-machine in the row, curls her trunk around it and slams itagainst a brick wall so hard that it immediately begins to looksomething like a flivver car which has been in a severe collision andsomething like a tin accordion that's had hard treatment from a carelessowner. With this for a beginning, Emily starts in to get real rough withthem roasters. For about three minutes it's rainin' hot charcoal and hotpeanuts and wooden wheels and metal cranks and sheet-iron drums all overthat part of the fair city. 

"Having put the enemy's batteries out of commission, Emily now swingsaround and heads back in the opposite direction with everybody givingher plenty of room. I heard afterward that some citizens went miles outof their way in order to give her room. Emily's snout is aimed straightup as though she's craving air, and her tail is standing straight outbehind, stiff as a poker except that about every few seconds a painfulquiver runs through it from the end that's nearest Emily to the endthat's furtherest away from her. Windy is hoofing it along about fiftyfeet back of her, uttering soothing remarks and entreating her to listento reason, and I'm trailing Windy; but for oncet Emily don't hearkennone to her master's voice. 

"Out of the tail of my eye I see a fat lady start to faint, and whenshe's right in the middle of the faint, change her mind about it and doa back flip into a plumber's shop, the purtiest you ever seen. I see apoliceman dodge out from behind a lamp-post as Emily approaches, andreach for his gun. I yells to him not to shoot, but it's unnecessaryadvice, because he's only chucking his hardware away so's to lighten himup for a couple of hundred yards of straightaway sprinting. I see Emilymake a side-swipe with her nozzle at a stout gent who's in the act ofclimbing a telegraph-pole hand over hand. She misses the seat of hispants by a fraction of an inch, and as he reaches the first cross-armout of her reach, and drapes his form acrosst it, the reason for hersudden animosity towards him is explained. A glass jar falls out of oneof his hip pockets and is dashed to fragments on the cruel bricks farbelow, and its contents is then seen to be peanut butter. 

"I sees these things as if in a troubled dream, and then, all of asudden, me and Emily are all alone in a deserted city. Exceptin' for ustwo, there ain't a soul in sight nowheres. Even Windy has mysteriouslyvanished. And now Emily, in passing along, happens to look inside afruitstore, and through the window her unhappy glance rests upon a binfull of peanuts. So she just presses her face against the pane like_Little Mary_ in the po'm, and at that the entire front end of thatestablishment seems to give away in a very simultaneous manner, andEmily reaches in through the orifices and plucks out the contents ofthat there store, including stock, fixtures and good will, and throws'em backward over her shoulder in a petulant and hurried way. But Itakes notice that she throws the bin of peanuts much farther than thegrapefruit or the pineapples or the glass show-cases containing thestick candy. The proprietor must of been down in the cellar at themoment, else I judge she'd of fetched him forth too. 

"Thus we continues on our way, me and Emily, in the midst of a vast butboisterous solitude, --for while we can't see the inhabitants, we canhear 'em, --until we arrive at the foot of Main Street, and there webeholds the railroad freight-depot looming before us. I can tell thatEmily is wishful to pass through this structure. There ain't no openingon the nigh side of it, but that don't hinder Emily none. She gives oneheave with her shoulders and makes a door and passes on in and out againon the far side by the same methods. I arrives around the end of theshed just in time to see her slide down a steep grade through somebody'struck-garden and sink down upon her heaving flank in a little hollow. AsI halts upon the brow of the hill, she looks up at me very reproachful, and I can see that her prevalent complexion is beginning to turn awfulwan and pale. Son, take it from me, when a full-grown she-bull gets wan, she's probably the wannest thing there is in the world. 

"'Stand back, Scandalous, ' she moans to me in bull-language. 'I don'tbear you no grudge, --it was a mistake in judgment on the part of all ofus, --but stand back and give me room. Up till this time, ' she says, 'I've been po'rly, but something seems to tell me that now I'm about tobe what you might call real indisposed. '

"Which she certainly was. 

"So, after a while, a part of the police force come along, stepping slowand cautious, and they halts themselves in the protecting shadows of thefreight-shed or what's left of it, and they beckon me to come near 'em, and when I responds, they tell me I'm under arrest for inciting riotsand disturbances and desecration of property and various other crimesand misdemeanours. I suggests to 'em that if they're really craving toarrest anybody, they should oughter begin with Emily, but they don'tfall in with the idea. They marches me up to the police-station, lookingover their shoulders at frequent intervals to be sure the anguishedEmily ain't coming too, and when we get there, I find Windy in the actof being forcibly detained in the front office. 

"Immediately after I arrived, the payoff started and continued unabatedfor quite a period of time. First we settled in full with the lateproprietors of them defunct peanut-roasting machines; and then the ownerof the wrecked fruitstore, and the man that owned the opera-house, andthe stout lady who'd fainted from the waist up but was now entirelyrecovered, and the fleshy gent who'd climbed the telegraph-pole, and therailroad agent and some several hundred others who had claims forproperty damage or mental anguish or shockages to their nervous systemsor shortage of breath or loss of trade or other injuries--all these werein line, waiting. 

"We was reduced to a case ten-spot before the depot agent, who camelast, lined up for his'n; but he took one good look and said he wouldn'tbe a hog about it--we could keep that ten-specker, and he'd be satisfiedjust to take over our private car in consideration of the loss inflictedby Emily to his freight-shed. I was trying to tell him how much weappreciated his kindness, but the chief of police wouldn't let mefinish--said he couldn't permit that kind of language to be used in apolice-station, said it might corrupt the morals of some of his youngpolicemen. 

"So everything passed off very pleasant and satisfactory at thepolice-station, but Emily spent the evening and the ensuing night rightwhere she was, voicing her regrets at frequent intervals. Along towardmorning she felt easier, although sadly depleted in general appearance, and about daylight her and Windy bid me good-by and went offacrosst-country afoot, aiming to catch up with Ringbold Brothers'circus, which was reported to be operating somewhere in that vicinity. As for me, I'd had enough for the time being of the refined amusementbusiness. I took my half of that lone sawbuck which was all that wasleft to us from our frittered and dissipated fortunes, and I startedeast, travelling second class and living very frugally on the way. Andthat was about all that happened, worthy of note, with the exception ofa violent personal dispute occurring between me and a train-butch comingout of Ashtabula. "

"What was the cause?" I asked as Scandalous stood up and smoothed downhis waistcoat. 

"I had just one thin dime left, " said Scandalous, "and I explained mypredicament to the butch, saying as how I wanted what was the mostfilling thing he had for the price--and he offered me a sack ofpeanuts!"

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Transcriber's Notes:

 Obvious punctuation errors corrected. 

 Inconsistent hyphenation was retained where a majority consensus could not be ascertained. 

 Page vii, "wrs" changed to "was" (Second was April)

 Page 88, "noisely" changed to "noisily" (noisily up too)