crowd on the embankment almost pushed one another off the edge in their
eagerness to watch the white devils climbing up the steps, and hardly
allowed room for the boy and his squad to force a way through them.

Chang-Yuan was a typical example of an inland Chinese town, with dirty,
narrow streets, swarming with human vermin. A throng followed close at
the Americans' heels as they marched to the _erfu_'s house, but quailed
before the bodyguard who rushed out threateningly at them. It took half
an hour before the _erfu_ could receive them and then they were ushered
into a dim room where a flabby old man, with a sly, vacant face sat
crosslegged before a curtain. Through Yen, the boy explained that he had
called as an act of official courtesy, and that he had come to remove
certain American missionaries from danger which he understood existed by
virtue of the proximity of the rebel Wu. The _erfu_ listened without
expression. Then he spoke into the air.

He was much honored at the visit of the American naval officer. But what
could a poor old man like himself do against the great Wu? He had no
soldiers. The townsfolk were ready to join the rebels. It was only a
question of time. He could do nothing. He regretted extremely his
inability to furnish assistance to the Americans.

The boy asked if it was true that the rioters were on their way and
might reach the town that afternoon. The _erfu_ said it was so. Then,
after warning him that the United States Government would hold him
responsible for the lives of its citizens, the boy retired, convinced
that the sooner he got his missionaries away the better it would be for
them.

V

The Rev. Theophilus Newbegin had just concluded divine service upon the
veranda of the mission. Beyond the iron gateway a crowd of twenty or so
onlookers still lingered, commenting upon the performance which they had
witnessed, and jeering at the Chinese women who had just hurried away.
Two of the women were carrying babies and all had had the cholera the
season before. Because they had not died they attended service and were
objects of hatred to their relatives. The Rev. Newbegin closed his Bible
and wiped his broad, shining forehead with a red silk handkerchief. He
was a large man who had once been fat and was now thin. Owing to the
collapse of his too solid flesh his Chinese garments hung baggily upon
his person and gave him an unduly emaciated appearance.

Mrs. Newbegin was still stout. Ten years of mission life had not
disturbed her vague placidity and she sat as contentedly upon the
veranda in Chang-Yuan as she had sat in her garden summer-house in
distant Bangor, Maine, whence she and her husband had come. The fire of
missionary zeal had not diminished in either of them. The word had come
to them one July morning from the lips of an eloquent local preacher,
and full of inspiration they had responded to the call and departed "for
the glory of the Lord."

And China had swallowed them up. Twice a year, sometimes oftener, a
boat brought bundles of newspapers and magazines, and a barrel or two
containing all sorts of valueless odds and ends, antiquated books,
games, and ill-assorted clothing. These barrels were the great annoyance
of their lives. Often as he dug into their variegated contents the meek
soul of the Rev. Theophilus rebelled at being made the repository of
such junk.

"One would think, Henrietta," sadly sighed Newbegin, "that the good
people at home imagined that we spent our time playing parchesi and the
Mansion of Happiness, and reading Sandford and Merton."

Once came a suit of clothes entirely bereft of buttons, and most of the
undergarments were adapted to persons about half the size of the
missionary and his wife, but the Rev. Newbegin had a little private
fortune of his own and it cost very little to live in Chang-Yuan.

The crowd at the gate had been bigger than usual this Sunday, and during
the service had hurled a considerable quantity of mud and sticks and a
few dead animals which now remained in the foreground, but this was due
entirely to the new hatred of the foreign devils engendered by the
rioters, and many of those who to-day howled at the gate of the compound
had been glad enough six months before to creep to the veranda and beg
for medicine and food. Now all was changed. The victorious Wu was coming
to drive these child eaters from the land. Already he had laid the
country waste for miles to the north and west, and had slain three witch
doctors and hung their bodies upon pointed stakes before the temple
gates. He was marching even now with his army from Tung-Kuan--a distance
of fifteen miles. Nominally loyal to the dynasty, the inhabitants of
Chang-Yuan eagerly awaited his coming. The white devils pretended to
heal the sick but in reality they poisoned them and caused the sickness
themselves. Those who survived their potions had an evil spirit. The
crowd at the gate licked its lips at what would take place when Wu
should arrive. There would be a fine bonfire and a great killing of
child eaters. Their hatred even extended to the daughter of the foreign
devil--her whom once they had been wont to call "The Little White
Saint," who had nursed their children through the cholera and brought
them rice and rhubarb during the famine. Wu would come during the day
and then--! The uproar at the gate grew louder. Newbegin laid his moist
hand upon that of his wife and looked warningly at her as there came a
rustle of silk inside the open door and their niece made her appearance.

Margaret Wellington, now eighteen years old, had lived with them at
Chang-Yuan for ten years. Her father, a naval officer, had died the year
they had come out from America and they had picked up the little girl,
the daughter of Newbegin's deceased only sister, at Hong Kong and
brought her with them. Since then she had been as their daughter,
working with them and entering enthusiastically into all their
missionary labors. Sometimes they regretted not being able to give her a
better education, and that she had no white companions but themselves,
but the girl herself never seemed to miss these things and they believed
that what was best for them was best for her. Were they not earning
salvation? And was she not also? Was it not better for her to live in
the Lord than to dwell in the tents of wickedness? Great as was their
love for her it was nothing to their love for the Lord Jesus. For that
they were ready and eager to lay down their lives--and hers.

"Chi says the rioters are coming," said Margaret. Her hair was done in
the Chinese fashion, and she was clad in Chinese dress from head to
foot, for she had outgrown all her English clothes years ago and there
were no others to take their place.

"Yes, dear," answered her aunt, "I am afraid they are."

"He says they will kill us," continued the girl. She articulated her
English words in a way peculiar to herself, due to her strange
up-bringing, but there was no fear in her brown eyes, and the paleness
of her face was due only to the heat.

The mob at the gate set up a renewed yelling at sight of her.

"Dear, dear!" said her uncle irresolutely, "I don't believe it will be
as bad as that. They will calm down by and by." He really felt very
badly about Margaret. To be killed was all in the day's work so far as
Henrietta and he were concerned. They had anticipated it sooner or later
almost as a matter of course, but Margaret----

A stick hurtled across the compound and fell on the veranda at his feet.
He knew that it would take but little to excite the mob at the gate to
frenzy, but he had made no preparations to defend the compound, for it
would have been quite useless. In that swarming city what could one aged
missionary and two women do to protect themselves? Chi, the only male
convert, was hardly to be depended upon and all the rest were women. No,
when the time came they would surrender their lives and accept
martyrdom. It was for that that they had come to China. Newbegin's mind
worked slowly, but he was a man of infinite courage.

"Dear, dear!" he repeated, looking toward the gate.

"Cowards!" cried the girl, her eyes flashing. "Ungrateful people! They
will kill us, and Chi, and Om, and Su, and the other women and their
babies. We must do something to protect them."

"Dear me! Dear me!" stammered her uncle again, rubbing his eyes. The
crowd at the gate had fallen back and a strange vision had taken its
place. Involuntarily he removed his hat. The girl uttered a cry of
astonishment as the gate swung open and a young man in a white duck
uniform entered the compound followed by four erect figures also in
white and carrying rifles on their shoulders.

"Bless me!" exclaimed Newbegin, "it looks like a naval officer!"

The boy came straight to the veranda and touched his cap.

"Are you the Rev. Theophilus Newbegin?" he inquired.

"I am," answered the missionary, holding out his hand.

"I am John Russell, ensign in command of the U. S. gunboat _Dirigo_. I
have been sent by Admiral Wheeler to assist you to leave Chang-Yuan."

"Bless me!" exclaimed the Rev. Theophilus. "Very kind of him, I'm sure!
And you, too, of course, and you, too! Henrietta, let me introduce you
to Ensign Russell. Er--won't those--er--gentlemen come inside and sit
down?" he added, staring vaguely at the squad of bluejackets.

"Oh, they're all right!" said the boy, shaking hands with Mrs. Newbegin,
and wondering what sort of a queer old guy this was whom he had been
sent to rescue. "Beastly hot, isn't it? Do you have it like this
often?"

"Eight months in the year," said Mrs. Newbegin, "but we're used to it."

At this moment the boy became conscious of the presence of one whom he
at first took to be the prettiest Chinese girl he had ever seen.

"Let me present my niece--Ensign Russell," said Newbegin.

The boy held out his hand but the girl only smiled.

"It is very good of you to come so far to help us," said the girl.

"Oh, no trouble at all!" exclaimed the boy without taking his eyes from
her face. "I'm glad I got here in time," he added.

"Did you come on a ship?" asked the girl.

"Just a little gunboat," he answered, "but that makes me think. This
plagued lake is sinking all the time. I got aground in half a dozen
places. We've got to start right along back. I'm by no means sure we can
get out as it is, but it's better than staying here. You'd oblige me by
packing up as quickly as possible."

"Eh?" said the Rev. Theophilus, with something of a start, "what's
that?"

"Why, that we've got to start right along or we'll be stuck here and
won't be able to get away at all."

"But I can't abandon the mission!" said Newbegin in wonder.

"Certainly not!" echoed his wife placidly. "After all these years we
cannot desert our post!"

"But the rioters!" ejaculated the boy. "You'll be murdered! Wu will be
here before night, they tell me, and there was a precious crowd of
ruffians at the gate as I came along. Why, you can't stay to be
killed!"

Newbegin shook his head.

"You do not understand," he said slowly. "We came out here to rescue
these people from idolatry. Some of them have adopted Christianity.
There are forty women and children converts. There are others who are
almost persuaded; if we abandon them now we shall undo all our labor.
No! we must stay with them, and die with them, if necessary, but we
cannot go away now."

"Great Scott!" cried the boy, "do you mean to say that----"

"We cannot desert our post," repeated Mrs. Newbegin, looking fondly at
her husband.

"But--but--" began the boy.

"Even if we die, there is the example," said Newbegin.

The boy was puzzled. Of missionaries he had a poor enough opinion in
general, and this one looked like a great oaf and so did his fat wife,
but in the most ordinary way and with the commonest of accents he was
talking of "dying for the example." Then his eyes returned to the girl
who had been watching him intently all the time.

"But," he exclaimed, "certainly you won't place your niece in such
danger?"

"No," said Newbegin, "that would not be right."

"No," repeated the wife, "she had better go back."

"I will not go back," cried the girl, "unless you go, too! This is my
home. Your work is my work. I cannot leave Om and Su and their babies."

"Good God!" muttered the boy hopelessly. "Don't you see you _must_ come?
You _can't_ stay here to be murdered by the rioters! I can't _let_ you!
On the other hand, I can only stay here an hour or two at the most. The
_Dirigo_ is almost aground as it is and we shall have the dev--deuce of
a time getting out of the lake."

"Well," said Newbegin calmly, "I have told you that we cannot accept
your offer. We are very grateful, of course, but it's impossible. It
would not do; no, it would not do. A missionary expects this kind of a
thing. I wish Margaret would go, but what can I do, if she won't go? I
can't make her go."

"I want to stay with you," said Margaret, taking his hand. "I will never
leave you and Aunt Henrietta."

The boy swore roundly to himself. The crowd of Chinese had returned to
the gate, and the air of the compound stank in his nostrils. He took out
his watch.

"It's eleven o'clock," he said firmly. "At five I shall leave
Chang-Yuan; till then you have to make up your minds. I will return in
an hour or so."

Newbegin shook his head.

"Our answer will be the same. We are very grateful. I am sorry not to
seem more hospitable. Have you seen the temple and the pagoda?"

"No," answered the boy. "I suppose I might as well do the town, now I'm
here."

"I will show you the temple," said Margaret timidly. "They know me
there, I nursed the child of the old priest. I will take you."

"Yes," said Newbegin, "they all like Margaret, and I seem to be
unpopular now. Will you not take dinner with us?"

"Thank you," said the boy, "take dinner with _me_. Perhaps Mrs. Newbegin
would like to see the gunboat, and I have some photographs of the new
cruisers."

Margaret gazed beseechingly at her.

"Very well," said Newbegin, "if you will stop for us on your way back
from the temple we shall be quite ready, but I must return at once after
dinner in order to assemble the members of the mission."

The girl led the way to the gate.

"I'm sure you will not need the soldiers," she said; "it is but a short
distance." The crowd, observing that the bluejackets had remained inside
the compound, crowded close at the boy's heels as they threaded the
streets to the temple.

"I spend a good deal of time here," said the girl; "sometimes it is the
only cool place."

The boy paid the small charge for admission and followed his guide up
the dim, winding stairs. It was dank and quiet; the priest had remained
at the gate. From the blue-green shadows of the recesses upon the
landings a score of Buddhas stared at them with sightless eyes. Suddenly
they emerged into the clear air upon the platform of the top story and
the girl spoke for the first time since they had entered.

"There is Chang-Yuan," she said.

The boy gazed down curiously. Below them blazed thousands of highly
finished roofs, picturesque enough from this height, while beyond the
town the soup-colored waters of the lake stretched limitless to the
horizon. He could see the embankment and the little _Dirigo_ at anchor,
the _sampans_ still swarming around it. To the south lay a country of
swamps and of paddy fields; to the north the line of hills and the smoke
of the burning towns.

They sat down on a stone bench and gazed together at the uninviting
prospect. He was beset with curiosity to ask her a thousand questions
about herself, yet he did not know how to begin. She solved the problem
for him, however.

"I have lived here since I was eight years old," she remarked,
apparently being unable to think of anything else to say.

The boy whistled between his teeth.

"Do you enjoy it?" he asked.

"I don't know," she replied, "I don't know anything else. Sometimes it
seems dull and one has to work very hard, but I think I like it."

"But what do you do," he inquired, "to amuse yourself?"

"I read," she said, "and play with Om and Su. I have taught them some
American games. Do you know parchesi and the Mansion of Happiness?"

"Yes, I've played them," he admitted cautiously. "But do you never see
any white people except your uncle and aunt?"

"Why, no," she said. "Two summers ago, after the cholera, we visited Dr.
Ferguson at Chang-Wing--that is over there. He is a medical missionary,
but I did not like him because he asked me to marry him. He was sixty
years old. Do you think it was right?"

"Right!" cried the boy. "It was a wicked sin."

"Well, he is the only white man I have met except you," said the girl.
"Of course, I can remember a little playing with boys and girls a long,
long time ago. Where is your ship?"

"That little white one down there. Can you see?" said the boy, pointing.

"Oh, is that it?" she asked. "Where are its sails?"

"There aren't any," he answered; "it goes by steam."

"I have read the 'Voyage of the Sunbeam,'" she said, "it is a beautiful
book. It came out last year in a box. I have nearly twenty books in
all."

The boy bit his lips. He was getting angry--angry that an American girl
should have been imprisoned in such a hole all her young life--such a
girl, too! What right had an elderly man and woman, even though they
enjoyed the privilege of consanguinity, to exile a beautiful child from
her native country and bring her up for the glory of God in a stewing,
stinking, cholera-infested, famine-ridden Chinese village?

"It is strange to find you here," he said finally. "I expected only some
freckle-faced, jimmy-jawed, psalm-singing woman, who would tumble all
over herself to get away."

She looked at him puzzled for a moment and then burst into a ripple of
laughter.

"What funny things you say!" she cried. "I suppose it is strange to find
me here, but why should I have freckles or a--what did you call it--a
jimmy-jaw? I do sing psalms. But my being here is no stranger than that
you should be here. I have often wished some young man would come. You
are the first I have known. I am tired of only women."

For a moment he was almost shocked at the open implication, but her
frank eyes and matter-of-fact tone told him that the girl could not
flirt. It was out of her sphere of existence.

"Would you like to get married?" he hazarded.

"Oh, yes!" she cried. "To a young man!"

"But suppose you had to go away?"

She looked a little puzzled for a moment.

"Of course, I should not like to leave Om and Su, and I wouldn't leave
uncle and aunt, but sometimes--sometimes I have wondered if one couldn't
serve God in a pleasanter place and do just as much good."

"Are there any men converts?" he asked.

"Only Chi," she replied, "and I am quite sure he is an idolater at
heart. Besides," she added, with a droll look in her eyes, "Chi is a
gambler and is always drinking _samshu_. He had been drinking it this
morning. I have often spoken to uncle about it, but he has not got the
heart to send him away."

The boy laughed.

"I have a certain amount of sympathy with Chi," said he. "If I lived
here I should be as bad as he is. I should think you would die of the
heat and the smells, and never seeing anybody."

"Oh, it's not so bad," she said spiritlessly. "You see, I have to work
pretty hard. There are nearly twenty families now where there is
sickness, and in case of anything contagious I go there and nurse.
Sometimes I get very tired, but it keeps me occupied and so I suppose I
don't think about--other things."

"It's terrible to think of leaving you here," he said. "Can't you
persuade your uncle and aunt that their duty does not require them to
lay down their lives needlessly?"

"No," she answered, "nothing would persuade them that it was not their
duty to remain; nothing could persuade _me_ of that."

"And you would not leave them?" he urged, almost tenderly.

"Oh, how _could_ I? I must stay with them! Don't you see?" She took hold
of his hand and held it. It was quite natural and totally unconscious.
"That is what missionaries are for."

A thrill traveled up the nerves of his arm and accelerated the motion of
his heart.

"That is not what _you_ are for," he said quietly.

"I must! I must!" she repeated. "Oh, I should like to go with you, but I
can't."

"But think of yourself!" he cried harshly. "Your uncle and aunt can die
for the glory of God if they choose, but they've no right to let you
die, too, just out of loyalty to them. It's cruel and wrong. It makes me
sick to think of you penned up here in this nasty, yellow place all
these years when you ought to have been going to school, and riding and
sailing, and playing tennis, and having a good time."

"Oh!" she protested.

"No, hear me out," he insisted, "and having a good time! You can serve
God and yet be happy, can't you? And your place isn't here in the midst
of cholera and famine and malaria. It's different with people who have
lived their lives, but with you, so young and fresh and pretty."

"Oh!" she cried joyfully, "do you think I am pretty? I'm so glad!"

"Do I!" he replied hotly. "Too pretty to be allowed to go wandering
around these crooked Chinese streets--" he checked himself. "I say it's
a shame! And now to stay here, after all, to be butchered!" He jumped to
his feet and ground his teeth.

She gazed at him, startled, and said reproachfully:

"I don't think it is right for you to say things like that. 'Whoso
loseth his life for my sake shall find it.' Don't you remember?"

He made no reply, realizing the hopelessness of his position.

"Come," he said, "let us go back."

She was afraid she had offended him but was too timid to do more than to
take his hand and let him lead her gently down the winding stairs.

At the gate of the temple they found the crowd augmented by several
hundred persons, who closed in behind and marched along to the compound.

Mr. and Mrs. Newbegin were waiting on the veranda and the marines had
been having a little _samshu_. The boy was by no means sorry to have the
company of his escort for the rest of their walk, and the party made
good time to the _Dirigo_. The _bund_ was alive with spectators and so
was the whole long line of shore. There were Chinese everywhere, on the
beach, on rafts, in _sampans_, swimming in the water, all around,
wherever you looked there were a dozen yellow faces--waiting--waiting
for something. Even in the broil of that inland sun the chills crept up
the boy's spine.

The Rev. Theophilus and his wife were much pleased with the gunboat and
sat in the cabin in the draught of the two electric fans sipping
lemonade, while the boy showed the girl over the _Dirigo_. He had made
one last passionate appeal to the missionary and his wife, who had again
flatly refused to leave the city. Margaret had likewise reasserted her
determination not to desert them. The boy was in despair and cursed them
to himself for stupid, bigoted fools. He was showing the girl his little
stateroom with its tiny bookcase and pictures and she had paused
fascinated before one which showed a group of young people gathered on a
smooth lawn with tennis rackets in their hands. All were smiling or
laughing. Margaret could not tear herself away from it.

"How happy they look!" she whispered. "How fresh and clean and cool
everything is! What are those things in their hands?"

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"The round things that look like nets," she explained.

The boy gasped.

"Tennis rackets! Do you mean to say you've never seen a tennis racket?"

"I don't think so." She hesitated. "Perhaps ever so long ago when I was
a little girl, but I've forgotten."

The boy's anger flamed to a white heat as he glanced out through the
stateroom door to where the Rev. Theophilus and wife sat stolidly
luxuriating in the artificial draught.

"When I was a child we lived for a while in Shanghai. My father's ship
was there," she added.

"Your father in the navy?" cried the boy hoarsely. "What was his name?"

"Wellington," she answered. "He was a commander. He died at Hong Kong
ten years ago."

"Wellington! Richard Wellington? He was in my father's class at
Annapolis!" cried the boy. Then he groaned and bit his lips. "Oh!--oh!
it's a crime!"

He dropped on one knee and took her hands.

"Poor little girl!" he almost sobbed, "poor little girl! Think of it!
Ten years! Poor child!"

Margaret laid one hand on his head.

"I am quite happy," she said calmly.

"Happy!" He gave a half-hysterical laugh and shook his fist at the door.
Then he leaned over and whispered eagerly:

"You're tired, dear. Lie down for a few minutes and rest. Do--to please
me."

She smiled. "To please you," she repeated, as she leaned back among the
cushions which he placed for her, and he closed the door.

"Your niece is going to take a little nap," he explained to the
missionary. "Here are some prints of the new battleships. I must ask you
to excuse me for a moment. Saki will serve dinner directly."

"Oh, certainly--of course," murmured Newbegin, recovering from
semi-consciousness.

The boy sprang up the hatch.

"Here, McGaw!" he ejaculated, rushing to where his midshipman stood
watching the swarm of _sampans_ that covered the lake around the
_Dirigo_. "Get up steam! Do you hear? Get up steam as fast as you can!
I'm going to hike out of this!"

"All right, sir," replied McGaw in a rather surprised tone. "We can't
get off any too soon to please me. Did you ever see such a hole? Hello!
What's all that?" He pointed to a highly decorated _sampan_ coming
rapidly toward them, before which the others parted of their own accord,
making a broad line of water to the _Dirigo_.

"By Godfrey! It's the mandarin!" cried the boy. "Where's Yen? Here you,
Yen! Go make mucha laugh for the _erfu_!"

The _sampan_, however, turned out not to contain the _erfu_. A small,
fat Chinaman in the mandarin's livery stood up and bawled to Yen through
his hands.

"He say," translated Yen over his shoulder, "Wu no come. Viceroy soldier
man make big fight--kill plenty--Wu finish. Allight now everybody.
Missionary come back. Wu no make smoke, anyway. He long, long way off.
This fella lika Melican naval officer maka lil _kumsha_[2] for good
news. _Kumsha_ for maka mucha laugh."

[Footnote 2: Present, gratuity.]

"What!" roared the boy. "Pay him! Tell him to go to hell!"

McGaw watched the boy as he stamped up and down the deck running his
hands through his hair and wondered if he had a touch of sun. The
mandarin's messenger still remained in an attitude of expectancy in the
bow of the _sampan_. Suddenly the midshipman saw his superior officer
rush to the side of the _Dirigo_ and throw a Mexican silver dollar at
the Chinaman, who caught it with surprising dexterity.

"Tell him," shouted the boy to Yen, "to say to the _erfu_ that he could
not find us, that we had gone away before he could deliver his message!"

The fat Chinaman prostrated himself in the _sampan_.

"He say allight," remarked Yen.

"Do you believe what he said?" demanded the boy threateningly of McGaw.

"Sure," said the midshipman, "that's right enough! That old friend of
Yen's was out here again about an hour ago, snooping around, drunk as a
lord. He'd been loading up on _samshu_ ever since he went ashore. He
says that Wu was killed over a month ago, that his head is on a temple
gate five hundred miles north of here, and that the smoke over there is
caused by burning brush on the hillsides. The rebellion is all over
until next year. It's a great note for us, isn't it?"

But the boy made no reply. He was staring straight through McGaw out
across the lake. Suddenly he stepped close to the midshipman and
muttered quietly:

"Say, old man, for the sake of old times, can you forget all that?"

"Sure," gasped McGaw, convinced that his previous suspicions had been
correct.

"Then forget it and get up steam!" said the boy, turning sharply on his
heel.

VI

The click of the anchor engine was followed by the throbbing of the
_Dirigo_'s screw, but both the Rev. Theophilus and wife supposed them to
be the whirr of an unseen electric fan. Saki's dinner was exceptionally
good, and there was a cold bottle of vichy for the missionary, who
lingered a long time after the coffee to tell about the ravages of the
cholera the year before. When at last they ascended to the deck there
was nothing to be seen of Chang-Yuan but a glare of tile roofs on the
distant horizon.

"Bless me!" remarked the Rev. Theophilus, gazing stupidly at the
coffee-colored waves about them. "What is the meaning of all this? Where
are we going? I must go ashore. I have no time for pleasure sailing!"

"Certainly not!" echoed his wife. "Kindly return at once! Why, we are
miles from Chang-Yuan!"

And then it was, according to McGaw, that the boy more than rose to the
occasion and verified the prophecy of the Admiral, though under a
somewhat different interpretation, that he would "make good," for,
standing by Margaret's side, he saluted the missionary and with eyes
straight to the front delivered himself of the following preposterous
statement:

"I exceedingly regret that my orders do not permit me to exercise the
discretion necessary to return as you request. The Admiral commanding
the Asiatic squadron specifically directed me to proceed at once to
this place and rescue the Rev. Theophilus Newbegin and wife. I was given
no option in the matter. I was to _rescue_ you, that is all. I received
no instructions as to what to do in the event that you preferred not to
be rescued, and I interpret my orders to mean that I am to rescue you
whether you like it or not. Everything will be done for your entire
comfort and Saki has already prepared my stateroom for Mrs. Newbegin. I
trust that you will not blame me for obeying my orders."

"Bless me!" stammered the Rev. Theophilus. "Dear me! I really do not
know what to say! I am exceedingly disturbed. It seems to me like an
unwarrantable interference--not on your part, of course, but on that of
the Government. But," he added apologetically, "we cannot blame you for
obeying your orders, can we, Henrietta?"

But Mrs. Newbegin's ordinarily vacuous face bore a new and radiant
expression.

"I see the hand of Providence in this, Theophilus!" she said.

"Yes--yes!" he answered, wiping his forehead. "God moves in a mysterious
way--in an astonishing way, I might say." He looked regretfully over his
shoulder toward the fast-vanishing Chang-Yuan.

Margaret slipped her hand into his and laid her head on his arm. "I am
so glad, uncle!" she whispered. He patted her cheek.

"Yes, yes, it is probably better this way," he sighed. "Henrietta, let
us retire to the cabin and consider what has happened. My young friend,
be assured we bear you no ill will for your involuntary action in this
matter."

Four evenings later under the snapping stars of the midsummer heaven
Margaret Wellington and Jack Russell sat side by side in two camp chairs
on the bridge of the _Dirigo_. The gunboat was sweeping round the great
curve of the Yang-tse above Hankow and to starboard the pagodas of
Wu-chang rose dimly through the lights of the city. Below in the hot
cabin sat the Rev. Theophilus and his wife reading "The Spirit of
Missions."

"And now," said the boy, as he drew her hand through his, "you are going
to be happy forever and always. The world is full of wonderful things
and nice, kind people who are trying to do good and yet have a jolly
time while they are doing it. And you will have the dearest mother a
girl ever had. How proud she'll be of you! Now promise to forgive me;
you know why I did it! Do you suppose I'd have dared to do it if I
hadn't?"

"Yes," she answered happily, "I knew why you did it and I forgive you,
only, of course, it really was very wicked. But----"

The sentence was never finished--to the delight of the government pilot
behind them.

"What do you think my uncle will say when we tell him?" she laughed.

"He'll say, 'Bless me! Dear me! I don't know!'" answered the boy, and
they both giggled hysterically.

Abaft the black shadow of the smokestack Yen and the Shan-si man stood
in silence watching the two on the bridge. The Shan-si man raised his
arm once more in the direction of Wu-chang and made a joke.

"Above is Heaven's Hall!" said he. "Below are--the two most foolish
things in all the world--a boy and a girl!"

THE VAGABOND

      "There is no essential incongruity between crime and
      culture."
                    --_Oscar Wilde, "The Decay of Lying."_

It was five o'clock, Sunday afternoon, and the slanting sunbeams had
crawled across the bed and up the walls and vanished somehow into the
ceiling when Voltaire McCartney came to himself, kicked off the
patchwork quilt, elevated his torso upon one elbow and took an
observation out of the dingy window. The prospect of the Palisades to
the northwest was undimmed, for the wind was blowing fresh from the sea
and the smoke from the glucose factory on the Jersey side was making
straight up the river in a long, black horizontal bar, behind which the
horizon glowed in a brilliant, translucent mass of cloud. McCartney
swung his thin legs clear of the bed and fumbled with his left hand in
the pocket of a plaid waistcoat dangling from the iron post. The act was
unconscious, equivalent to the automatic groping for one's slippers
which perchance the reader's own well-regulated feet perform on similar
occasions. The pocket in question yielded a square of white tissue,
which the fingers deftly folded, transferred to the other hand, and then
filled with tobacco. Like others nourished upon stimulants and
narcotics, McCartney awoke _absolutely_, without a trace of drowsiness,
nervously ready to do the next thing, whatever that might chance to be.
His first act was to pull on his shoes, the second to slip his
suspenders over his rather narrow shoulders, and the third to light the
cigarette. Then he sauntered across the room to the window sill, upon
which slept profoundly a small tortoise-shell cat, and picked up a
pocket volume, well worn, which he shook open at a point designated by a
safety match. For several moments he devoured the page with his eyes,
his hollow face filled with peculiar exaltation. Then he expelled a
cloud of smoke sucked from the glowing end of his cigarette, tossed away
the butt, and thrust the book into his hip pocket.

    "O would there were a heaven to hear!
    O would there were a hell to fear!
    Ah, welcome fire, eternal fire,
    To burn forever and not tire!

    "Better Ixion's whirling wheel,
    And still at any cost to feel!
    Dear Son of God, in mercy give
    My soul to flames, but--let me _live_!"

He turned away from the window, and pale against the gaudy west his
profile shone drawn and haggard. Restlessly he filched his pocket for
another cigarette, and tossed himself wearily into a painted rocker. The
cat awakened, elongated herself in a prodigious and voluptuous yawn of
her whole body, dropped to the floor and leaped with a single spring
into her master's lap. He stroked her sadly.

"Isabeau! My poor Isabeau! I envy you--creature perfect in symmetry,
perfect in feeling!"

The cat rubbed her head against the buttons of his coat. McCartney
leaned back his head. The little room was bare of ornament or of
furniture other than the chair, save for a deal table at the foot of the
bed, bearing a litter of newspapers and yellow pad paper.

    "I am discouraged by the street,
    The pacing of monotonous feet!"

murmured the man in the rocker. The light died out above the Palisades;
the cat snuggled down between her master's legs.

    "Dear Son of God, in mercy give
    My soul to flames, but let me _live_!"

he added softly. Then he lifted the cat gently to the floor, threw on a
short, faded reefer coat, and opened the door.

"Well, Isabeau, it's time for us to go out and earn our supper!"

McCartney gazed solemnly down from the small rostrum upon which he was
standing at the end of the saloon without so much as a smile in answer
to the roar of appreciation with which his time-worn anecdote had been
received.

"Dot's goot!" shouted an abdominal "Dutchman," pounding the table with
his beer mug. "Gif us 'n odder!"

"Ya!" exclaimed his _confrère_. "Dot feller, he was a corker, eh?" He
put up his hands and making a trumpet of them bawled at McCartney:
"Here, kommen sie unt haf a glass bier mit us!"

Three teamsters, a card sharp, a porter, two cabbies, and a dozen
unclassables nodded their heads and stamped, while the bartender passed
up a foaming stein to the performer. McCartney blew off the froth, bowed
with easy grace to the assembled company, and drank. Then he descended
to the table occupied by the Germans.

"May you all have better luck than the gentleman in my story," he
remarked. "But I for one shall go straight to the other place. Heaven
for climate--hell for society, eh? Hoch der Kaiser!"

The Germans threw back their heads and laughed boisterously.

"Make that beer a sandwich, will you? Here, Bill, bring me a slice of
cold beef and a cheese sandwich!"

The bartender opened a small ice chest and produced the desired edibles,
to which variation in their offered hospitality the two interposed no
objection, being in fact somewhat in awe of their intellectual, if not
distinguished, guest. As McCartney ate he produced a handful of
transparent dice.

"Ever see any dice like those?" he asked, rolling them across the wet
table. The first German examined them with approval.

"Dose is pooty, eh?" he remarked to his neighbor. "I trow you for die
Schnapps, eh?"

McCartney watched them covetously as they emptied the leathern shaker,
solemnly counting the spots at the conclusion of each cast.

"Here, let me show you how," volunteered their guest. "Poker hands." He
rattled the dice and poured them forth. They came up indiscriminately.

"Not so goot, eh?" commented the German. "I'll trow you. I'll trow
ennyboty mit _clear_ dice. Venn dey ain't loated I can trow mit
ennyboty." He held them up to the light. "Dese is clear--goot."

"Three times for a dollar," said McCartney.

"So," answered the German. He threw carefully, and counted two sixes, an
ace, a three, and a five. He left in the sixes and threw the others.
This time he got an ace and two fives. Once more he put them back, but
accomplished no better result.

"Now, I'll show you," said McCartney, and emptied the shaker. The dice
tumbled upon the table to the tune of two aces, two deuces, and a five.
He put back the deuces and the five and threw another ace, a three, and
a five.

"I win," he remarked. "You don't know how!"

"Vat's dot? Don't know how, eh!" roared the other. "I trow you for fife
dollars, see? Gif me dose leetle dice." He threw with a heavy bang that
shook the table. This time he got two sixes, two aces, and a five, and
put back the latter. Securing another ace he leaned back and took a
heavy draught of beer. "Full house! Beat dat eef you can!"

McCartney tossed the dice carelessly upon the board for two fours, one
ace, and two fives. To the amazement of the Germans, he left in the ace
and returned the other four to the shaker. This time he got two more
aces. His last throw gave him another ace and a five.

"Zum teuffel!" growled the German, thrusting his hand into his pocket
and drawing forth a dirty wad of bills. "Here, take your money!" He
handed McCartney six dollars.

"Kind sirs, good night," remarked McCartney, thrusting the bills into
his waistcoat pocket and arising from his place. "I must betake me
hence. Experience is the only teacher. Let me advise you never to play
games of chance with strangers."

The two Germans stared at him stupidly.

"You don't understand? Permit me. You saw the dice were not loaded? Very
good! You examined them? Very good again. Your powers of observation are
uncultivated, merely. The stern mother of invention--that is to say
necessity--has obeyed the law of evolution. Three of the dice in my
pocket bear no even numbers. The information is well worth your six
dollars. Again, good night."

"Betrüger!" cried the loser of the six dollars, arising heavily and
upsetting his beer. "Dot feller skivinded us mit dice geloaded! _Sheet!
Sheet!_"

They blundered toward the side entrance, while McCartney side-stepped
into an adjacent portal. Long Acre Square gleamed from end to end. Above
him an electric display, momentarily vanishing and reappearing, heralded
the attributes of the cigar sacred to the Scottish bard. Peering through
the haze generated by the countless lights a few tiny stars repaid
diligent search. A scanty number of pedestrians was abroad. The pantheon
of delights shone silent save for an occasional clanging car. The
Germans passed in search of an officer, excitedly jabbering about the
"sheet," their angry expressions reverberating along the concrete,
fading gradually into the hum of the lower town.

Then slowly into view crept one of those anachronisms of the
metropolis--a huge, shaggy horse slowly stalking northward, dragging a
rickety express wagon whereon reposed a semisomnolent yokel. Hitched by
its shafts to the tail of the wagon trailed a decrepit brougham
(destined, probably, for country-depot service), behind this a
debilitated Stanhope buggy, followed by a dogcart, a phaeton, a
buckboard, with last of all a hoodless Victoria. This picturesquely
mournful procession of vanished respectability staggered hesitatingly
past our hero, who regarded it with vast amusement. To his fanciful
imagination it appeared like the fleshless vertebræ of a sea serpent
slowly writhing into the obscurity of the night. Occasionally one of the
component dorsals would strike an inequality in the pavement and start
upon a brief frolic of its own, swinging out of line at a tangent until
hauled back into place again by the pull of the shaggy horse. Sometimes
all started in different directions at one and the same time, and the
semblance to a skeleton snake was heightened--even the ominous rattle
was not wanting. The Victoria looked restful to McCartney, whose legs
were always tired.

    "Why should we fret that others ride?
    Perhaps dull care sits by their side,
    And leaves us foot-men free!"

he hummed to himself, recollecting an old college glee.

"All the same that old bandbox looks not uncomfortable. How long is it
since I have used a cushion! Poverty makes a poor bedfellow!"

As the last equipage swung by, McCartney took a few steps in the same
direction and clambered in. He had become a "foot-man" in fact, but a
very undignified and luxurious one, who lay back with his feet crossed
against the box in front of him. Of all the lights on Broadway none
glowed so comfortingly for McCartney as the tip of his cigarette.

"My prayer is answered," he remarked softly to himself. "Thus do I
escape the 'monotonous feet.' Had I only Isabeau I should have attained
the height of human happiness--to have dined, to smoke, to ride on
cushions under the starlight, to have six dollars, and not to know
where one is going--a plethora of gifts. So I can spare Isabeau for the
nonce. Doubtless she would not particularly care for the delights of
locomotion."

Thus Voltaire sailed northward, noticed only by solitary policemen and
lonely wayfarers. Near Eightieth Street his eye caught the burning
circle of a clock pointing at half-past nine, and he stretched himself
and yawned again. They were passing the vestibule of an old church which
contrasted quaintly with the more ambitious modern architecture of the
neighborhood. From the interior floated out the gray unison of a hymn.
McCartney swung himself to the ground and listened while the skeleton
rattled up the avenue.

"Egad!" thought he, "yon prayerful folk are not troubled with my
disorder. Hell is for them what Jersey City is for me--a vital reality."

A woman, her head shrouded in a worn gray shawl, approached timidly and
stationed herself near the door. McCartney could see that she was
weeping and that she had a baby in her arms. He grumbled a bit to
himself at this business. It did not suit his fancy--his scheme. Having
planned a continuation of this night of comedy so auspiciously begun, he
disliked any incongruity.

"Broke?" he inquired without rising. The woman nodded.

"What's the matter?"

"Dan cleared out the flat and skipped yesterday afternoon. We've had
nothing to eat--me and the kid--all day."

"Let's look at your hands."

The woman held out a thin, rough, red hand. McCartney gave it a glance
and continued:

"What's your kid's name?"

"Catherine."

McCartney gazed at her intently.

"Look here, do you think those folks in there would help you?"

"I don't know. It's better than the Island."

"Don't try it," advised McCartney. "They'd think you were working some
game on 'em. Leave this graft to me."

The woman started back, half frightened, but McCartney's smile reassured
her.

"Here's yours on account." He handed her the five-dollar bill he had
secured from the Germans. "_I_ know how. _You_ don't. _You_ need it. _I_
don't." He waved aside her thanks. "Now go home, and, listen to me,
don't take Dan back--he's no good."

The woman hurried away, and with her departure silence fell again.

McCartney seated himself upon the curb and lit still another cigarette,
eying the door expectantly. Once he arose and dropped a piece of silver
into the poorbox inside the porch, listening intently to the loud rattle
it made in falling. It was clearly the sole occupant, for no answering
clink came in response.

    "Alas for the rarity
    Of Christian charity
      Under the sun,"

softly murmured McCartney.

"You will be lonely in there all by yourself, little one. Here's a
brother to keep you company," said he, pushing in another.

The hymn ceased and the congregation began to pass out. McCartney
retired into the darkness of a corner, scrutinizing every face among the
worshipers. Last of all came a little old man scuffling along with the
aid of a cane. His snowy beard gave him an aspect singularly benign.
McCartney laughed to himself.

"Grandpapa, I trust we shall become better acquainted," he remarked
under his breath, as he followed the old fellow down the street.

The loud vibrations of the bell in the deserted rooms of the floor below
brought no immediate response, and instead of a brighter blaze of
hospitality, the light in the hall was hurriedly extinguished. McCartney
only pressed his thumb to the round receptacle of the bell the more
assiduously, repeating the process at varying intervals until the light
again illumined the door. A shadow hesitated upon the lace curtain, then
the door itself was slowly, doubtfully opened, and the old man shuffled
into the vestibule, peering suspiciously through the iron fretwork.
McCartney, without going too close--he knew well the dread of human
eyes, face to face--looked nonchalantly up and down the street,
realizing that he must give his quarry time to regain the
self-possession this midnight visit had shattered. After a pause the
bolt was shot and the door opened upon its chain.

"Was that you ringing? What do you want?"

"Yes, it was I who rang. I trust you'll excuse the lateness of my call.
It's imperative for me to see you."

"Who are you? And what do you want to see me about?"

"My name is Blake. Blake of the _Daily Dial_. It is a personal matter."

"Don't know you. Don't know any Blake. Don't read the _Dial_. What is
the personal matter?"

"For God's sake, sir, let me speak with you! It's a matter of life and
death. Don't deny me, sir. Hear me first."

The little old man closed the door a couple of inches.

"Want money, eh?"

"Help, sir. Only a word of sympathy. I've a dying child----"

"Can't you come round in the morning?"

"It will be too late then. I implore you to listen to me for only a few
moments. I've been waiting two hours upon the sidewalk for you to
return, and it's too late for me to go elsewhere."

The door opened sufficiently for the old man to thrust his face close to
the crack and inspect his visitor from head to heels. Evidently
McCartney's appearance and the manner of his speech had made an
impression which was now struggling with prudence and common sense. The
deacon, moreover, had a reputation to support. It would not do to turn
an applicant away who might be in dire extremity--and who might go
elsewhere and carry the tale with him.

"Won't a bed ticket do you, eh? And come in the morning?"

McCartney saw the vacillation in the other's mind.

"I'm sorry, but I must see you now, if at all. To-morrow might be too
late."

The owner of the house closed the door, unslipped the chain and
retreated inside the hall to the foot of the stairs, leaving the way
free for his visitor to follow. McCartney entered, hat in hand, and
shut the door behind him, catching at a glance the austerity of the
furniture and walls. To him every inch of the Brussels carpet, the
ponderous, polished walnut hatrack, the massive blue china stand with
its lonely umbrella and stout bamboo cane, and the heavily framed oil
copy of St. John spoke eloquently.

"I must ask your pardon again, sir, for disturbing you. But a man of
your character, as you have no doubt discovered, must suffer for the
sake of his reputation. I----"

McCartney swayed and seized a yellow-plush _portière_ for support. In a
moment he had regained control of himself--apparently.

"A touch of faintness. I haven't eaten since morning." He looked around
for a chair. The old man made a show of concern.

"Nothing to eat! Dear me! Well, well! Come in and sit down. Perhaps I
can find something."

Deacon Andrews led the way past the stairs and swung open the door to
the dining room. It had a musty smell, just a hint of the prison pen at
noon time, and McCartney shuddered. The old man disappeared into the
darkness, struck a sulphur match, a fact noted by his guest, and with
some difficulty lighted a gas jet in a grotesquely proportioned
chandelier. The gas, which had blazed up, he turned down to half its
original volume.

"There, sit down," said he, pointing to a mahogany chair shrouded in a
ticking cover, and settled himself in another on the opposite side of a
great desert of table. McCartney did as he was bidden, mentally
tabulating the additional facts offered to his observation by the
remainder of the room. There was evident the same bare vastness as in
the outer hall. Two more oils, one of mythological, the other of
religious purport, balanced each other over the wings of a huge black
carven sideboard. For the rest the yellow and brown wall paper repeated
itself interminably into the shadow.

"Feel better?" asked the deacon.

"Yes, much," answered McCartney. "I'm used to going without food. The
body can stand suffering better than the mind--and the heart."

"Let's try and fix up the body first," remarked the deacon, opening a
compartment beneath the sideboard. "Here, try some of these," and he
placed a plate of water biscuits upon the table.

McCartney essayed more or less successfully to eat one, while the old
man retreated into the pantry and, after a hollow ringing of water upon
an empty sink, returned with a thick tumbler of Croton.

"Good, eh? Nothing like plain flour food and Adam's ale! Now, what is it
you want to say? I must be getting to bed."

McCartney hastily swallowed the last of the biscuit and leaned forward.

"If I could be sure my dear wife and child could have this to-night, I
should be happy indeed. Oh, sir, poverty can be borne--but to see those
whom we love suffer and be powerless to help them--I can hardly address
myself to you, sir. I have never asked for charity before. I'm a
hard-working man. I had a good position, a little home of my own, and a
wife and child whom I loved devotedly. I care for nothing else in the
world. Then came the chance that ended so disastrously for us. I thought
it was the tide in my affairs, you know, that might lead on to fortune.
My wife was offered a position in a traveling company at sixteen
dollars a week, and they agreed to take me with them as press agent at
thirty-five--fifty dollars a week all told. Can you blame us?"

"I don't approve of play acting," said the deacon.

"Don't think the less of my wife for that. She meant it for the best."
McCartney's face worked and he brushed his eyes with the back of his
hand.

"Look here, what's the use wasting time," interrupted the deacon. "How
do I know who you are?"

"You have only my word, sir, that is true."

"What did you say you did for a living?"

"I'm a reporter. I live by my pen, sir, and I write articles on various
subjects for the newspapers. I have even written a very modest book. But
the modern public has crude taste in literature," sighed McCartney.

"Well, go on, now, and tell me about your trip or whatever it was," said
the deacon.

"I gave up for the time, as I said, the precarious livelihood of a space
writer. We sublet our rooms. I spent what little money I had saved upon
a costume for my wife, and we started out making one-night stands."

"What was the name of your play?" inquired the deacon abruptly.

"'The two Orphans,'" replied McCartney without hesitation. "We got along
well enough until we reached Rochester, and there the show broke
down--went to the wall. We were stranded, without a cent, in a
theatrical boarding house. My wife was taken down with pneumonia and
little Cathie----"

"Little what?" asked the deacon.

"Short for Catherine--caught the croup. We had nowhere to turn. I pawned
my watch to pay our board bill. We were sleeping in a single room--the
three of us. For days I tramped the streets of Rochester looking for
some work to do, but I was absolutely friendless and could find nothing.
My wife got a little better, but little Catherine seemed to grow worse.
I pawned my wife's wedding ring, all my clothes but those I have on,
even my baby's tiny little bracelet we bought for her on her second
birthday--O God, how I suffered! We talked it all over and decided that
as New York was the only place where I was known, I had better return
and earn enough money to send for them as soon as I could. The manager
let me use his pass back to the city. I reached here three days ago, but
I have found no work of any sort. Some of the press boys have shared
their meals with me, but for the moment I'm penniless. Meantime my wife
is lying sick in a strange household and my little girl may be dying!"
McCartney sobbed brokenly. "I'm at my last gasp. I've nowhere to sleep
to-night. No money to buy breakfast. I can't even pay for a postage
stamp to write to them!"

"What street did you stay in at Rochester?"

"1421 Maple Avenue," shot back McCartney. "I wish you could see my
little Catherine--she's such a tiny ball of sunshine. Every morning she
used to come and wake me, and say, 'Come, daddy, come to breaf-crust!'
She couldn't pronounce the word right--I hope she never will. She called
the little dog I gave her a fox 'terrial' dog. Some people say children
are all alike. If they could only see _her_--if she's still alive. Why
_I_ wouldn't give ten cents to live if I could only make sure Edith
would have enough to get along on and give Catherine a decent education.
I want that girl to grow up into a fine noble woman like her mother. And
to think the last time I saw her she was lying in a stuffy hall bedroom
in a third-class lodging house, her little forehead burning with fever,
with my poor sick wife stretched beside her, fearing to move lest she
should wake the child. She may be dead by this time, for I've had no
work for three days, and I've been able to send them nothing--nothing!
They may have been turned out into the streets, for the board bill was a
week overdue when I left them. Don't you see it drives me nearly mad?
I'm worse off a thousand times than if I stayed there with them.
Sometimes I think there can't be any God, for if there was He'd never
let me suffer so. And all for a little money--just because I can't pay
the fare back to my sick wife and dying baby--my poor, sweet, little
baby!"

McCartney's voice broke and he buried his haggard face on his arms. For
a moment or two neither spoke, then the deacon sighed deeply.

"You do seem to have had hard luck," he remarked awkwardly. McCartney
was still too overcome with emotion to reply.

"I reckon I'll have to break my rule and help you without references. I
don't believe in giving, as a rule, unless you know who you are giving
to."

He put his hand in his pocket.

"But I'll do it this time." He placed two quarters upon the table.

"There, half a dollar'll keep you nicely for a while. Of course, there's
no use sendin' money to Rochester. Your landlady can't turn sick folks
into the street, and if she does they can go to the hospital----"

He paused, startled by the look on McCartney's face, for the latter had
risen like an avenging angel, white and trembling. Pointing at the two
harmless coins, he cried:

"Is that your answer to the appeal of a starving man? Is that all your
religion has done for you? Is that how you obey your Lord's teachings?
'Cup of cold water' indeed! Cold water! Cold water! That's what you've
got instead of blood; you withered old epidermis! You miserable,
dried-up apology for a human being!" He paused for breath, sweeping the
room with indignant scorn.

"I know your kind! You old Christian Shylock! You bought those chromos
at an auction! You took that old sideboard for a debt--yes, a debt at
eighteen per cent interest. You don't pay a cent of taxes. You sing
psalms and bag your trousers with kneeling on the platforms at prayer
meetings and then loan out the church's money to yourself on worthless
securities. You're too mean to keep a cat, for the cost of her milk. You
read a penny newspaper and take books out of a circulating library. You
put a petticoat on these chairs so your miserly little body won't wear
out the seats."

The lean vagabond half shouted his anathema, the pallor of his face and
brow darkening red from the violence of his passion. It was the very
ecstasy of anger. Before it the little man with the white hair shrank
into himself, diminishing into his chair, seeking moral opportunity of
escape.

McCartney looked at the two coins contemptuously.

"Bah!" he exclaimed in disgust. "Half a dollar for a dying child and a
starving woman, to say nothing of a shelterless man!" He broke into a
mirthless laugh. "Allow me to return your generous answer to my
application for assistance. A code of morals of my own, which doubtless
you would not appreciate, compels me to restore what is obviously ten
times more precious to the donor than to the recipient."

He filliped the two coins across the table into the lap of his host, who
still crouched furtively with his head near the table.

"It makes me sick to look at you! Who could gaze without disgust upon
the spectacle of an ossified creature like yourself, creeping through
bare, deserted old age toward a grave mortgaged to the devil? Ugh! It is
the horridest spectacle I have seen in a month."

"You're mad!" muttered the old man with hoarse fearfulness.

"Sometimes, but not now!" retorted McCartney. "I'll hold my evening
session for Misers a moment longer. I pity you, Lord Pinhead Penurious!
I pity you that you should have gone through life, a small term of say
sixty years, in such stupidity. Sixty years of grubbing, of weighing
meat and adding figures, of watching the prices fools pay for stocks,
and how many days of _life_? How many good deeds? Oh, marvelous lack of
wit! What know you of real happiness? Let me introduce myself, since
you're so blind. What do you think I am, my good old Noddy Numbskull?"

"Crazy!" gasped the old man. "Do be quiet! Let me get you something more
to eat."

"A thief, at your service. Oh, don't start! I'll not carry away your
mahogany sideboard nor your bronze chandelier. I steal only to keep
myself in purse--to eat. You dig to add to the column of figures in your
pass book. I walk among the gods. My brain is worth twenty gray bags
like yours. I have thoughts and dreams in terms to you unintelligible. I
can live more in a week than haply you have done in the course of your
whole crawling existence. What do you know of the spirit? Behind your
altar sits a calf of gold. You grovel before it and slip out at the
bottom the shekels you drop in at the top. To you the moon will always
be made of green cheese, that 'orbed maiden with white fire laden'! Your
hands are callous from counting money, your brain is----"

The old fellow arose. "Leave my house! Get out of here!"

He was an absurd figure, not more than five feet high, in his black
broadcloth suit and string tie, as he faced McCartney's blazing eyes,
and the latter laughed at him.

"I will fast enough. But you see I'm having a sensation--_living_. I'm
doing good. Oh, yes, I am. If not to you, at least to myself. Do you
think I'll ever forget little 'Cathie'? God! How I could have loved a
real child! And I've only a cat." He laughed again. "I don't blame you
for thinking me crazy--even you. Come, now, wasn't my picture of the
phthisic wife and moaning child worth a place on the line--I mean,
wasn't it good, eh? Worth more than two beggarly quarters? It gave me a
thrill--what I need--it'll keep me alive for another twenty-four hours,
without this." He held up a nickel-plated hypodermic syringe. It shone
in the gaslight, and the old man started back and held out his hands.

"Don't shoot!" he cried in senile terror.

"Carrion!" cried McCartney. "Why do I waste my time on you? Why? Because
I'm in your debt. I owe you little Catherine. I shall never forget her.
And you, you--you are her foster father! God forbid!"

The old man sat down resignedly at the extreme side of the table.

"By God, I pity you!" exclaimed the lean man. "Do you hear that? _I_
pity _you_--_I_!--a wretched, drugged, wilted, useless bundle of nerves
twisted into the image of a man; a chap born with a silver spoon, with
gifts, who tossed them all into the gutter--threw 'a pearl away richer
than all his tribe'; a miserable creature who can't live without this"
(he pressed the needles into his wrist), "and yet I wouldn't change with
you! I'm more of a man than you. My very wants are sweeter than any joys
your brutish senses can ever feel.

    "O would there were a heaven to hear!
    O would there were a hell to fear!
    Dear Son of God, in mercy give
    My soul to flames, but let me live!

"You don't know what that means! Haven't the vaguest idea. You're a
mummy. You'll be the same ten thousand years from now. I suppose you
think I made it up, eh?

    "I am discouraged by the street,
    The pacing of monotonous feet.

"That's all _you_ want. You couldn't understand anything else, and yet
it's my torture, and my salvation!"

The glow came back into McCartney's eyes and he repeated:

"Yes, that picture of little Catherine was worth more than two quarters.
It ought to have been good for twenty dollars. It's worth more than that
to me."

McCartney's voice had grown strong and clear.

The old fellow looked at him sharply and changed his tone. He must get
this madman out of his house. He must humor him.

"Come, come, that's all right. Cheer up! Why, I had a little girl of my
own once."

McCartney pierced him through and through with swimming eyes.

"And her memory was only worth two miserable quarters? You lie, you
wretched old man, you lie!"

The old fellow started back. The door banged. McCartney was gone.

THE MAN HUNT

      _Note._--Action takes place about the year 1915.

Ralston strode briskly up Fifth Avenue, conscious all about him of the
electric pressure of War. It was six o'clock--the hour when the hard
outlines of the tops of office buildings and the prosaic steeples of
contemporary religion, flushed with rose, and "fretted with golden
fire," melt with a glow of unreality into the darkening blue. Here and
there in the eastern sky tiny points trembled elusively, and a molten
crescent followed him along the housetops, its pale disk growing each
instant brighter.

Wheel traffic on the avenue, between the hours of nine and seven, had
been suspended, and many pedestrians preferred the icy inequality of the
street to the crowds upon the pavements. For the most part the movement
was northward, meeting at the corners transverse streams of clerks and
salesgirls jostling one another, arm in arm, down the side streets. Here
and there could be seen an officer in service coat, with sword dangling
beneath, and occasional knots of soldier boys in the uniform of the
National Guard.

A little lad with an air of vast importance ran just ahead of Ralston,
unlocking the bases of the electric lights and, in some mysterious way,
turning them on. To his intense gratification he had succeeded in
distancing his fellow across the way by half a block. Above the shuffle
of feet could be heard the cries of the newsmen, "Extra! Extra!
President calls for twenty new regiments! Latest extra! Twelfth to the
front." These, clutching huge bundles of papers to their breasts, hurled
themselves against the tide of humanity, appearing from all directions
and sweeping down like vultures upon any individual wayfarer so
unfortunate as to have his hand momentarily in his pocket. Their bundles
quickly disappeared. Then they would run panting to the corners where
the paper wagons were in waiting. It was a scene full of inspiration to
Ralston, but it impressed him that, after all, the crowd seemed
primarily interested in its own affairs--its business, its cold ears,
its suppers.

For the newspapers the war had created a fierce, insatiable public maw.
Circulations sprang by leaps into the millions. Extras followed one
another by minutes. For the people in the shops it meant night work and
longer hours; for society, something new to talk about; for the
theaters, packed houses which roared at topical songs in which "war"
rhymed with "bore," "rations" with "nations," "company" with "bump any,"
"foes" with "toes," "sword" with "board," and gloried in "Eddie" Foy and
"Jo" Weber dressed as major generals. "Light Cavalry" and "Dixie" had
superseded all other selections upon the musical programmes, and special
rows of seats were reserved for "officers in uniform." The bars were
jammed, traveling men sat in more thickly serried ranks than usual in
the hotel windows, and Slosson's Billiard Parlors were lined with
standing spectators. The commercial life of the city boiled over. Only
the brokers came home early.

As Ralston entered Madison Square he found himself entangled in a dense
throng wedged around an improvised scaffolding, upon which was displayed
the electric-lighted bulletin of one of the big dailies. A man in a
yellow-and-black-striped sweater was rapidly painting with a brush upon
a blackboard in some white liquid the latest marching orders:

     "_Twelfth Regiment leaves via Penn. R. R. to-morrow 7 A.M._"

     "_Terrible Riots in Tokio._"

     "_R. W. Ralston appointed Second Assistant Secretary of
     the Navy._"

As he fought his way through the crush he heard his name repeated on all
sides, and a strange exaltation took possession of him. He had a curious
desire to call out: "Yes. I'm Ralston! The Ralston up there! I'm he!
That one! I'm Ralston!"

He felt like a prince suddenly called from seclusion to rule his people.
He was going to do things which these garlic-breathing folk would spell
out and marvel at. How often his name would flash across the square or
play duskily upon the curtains at the theaters, linked with generals and
"fighting" admirals. He laughed with the joy of it, that he, the
settled-down man of the world, the hunter, the manager of estates, the
student of literature, the lover of poetry, was going to play the
popular hero.

He broke through the outer ring of the crowd and made for the park. A
huge flag draped the porch of the Fifth Avenue Hotel. The flush in the
west had faded to a streaky white and the stars had sprung from behind
their curtains. A white beam of light played steadily from the tower of
the Garden into the north. When it should swing to the south actual
hostilities would have commenced. All the windows in the office
buildings gleamed with activity. As he looked back he could see the man
in the sweater erasing his name with a sponge, and his heart sank with
momentary disappointment. Some new thing was coming over the wires hot
with the fire of war. At the same moment he heard up the avenue the
faint tapping of drums and the shriek of the fifes.

A line of mounted police burst into the square. The throng in front of
the bulletin board surged over to the park. Then with a clash of cymbals
and a prolonged rattle from the drums a full band burst into "There'll
be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-night." The regimental flags came into
view. In the light of the stars, in the dying of the day, in the moment
of his exaltation, Ralston recognized the colors of his old regiment.
Had he chosen he might have been marching at the head of his company
even then. The crowd, cheering, forced him to the curb and into the
street. With brimming eyes he doffed his hat and saluted the colors.

As he did so a sudden wild yell went up from the multitude. From one
side of the square to the other reigned pandemonium. The very sound of
the band was drowned in the uproar. From the top of the Flatiron
Building a stream of rockets broke into the sky, and with a single
movement the throng turned and gazed tensely at the Garden Tower, as the
white shaft of light slowly swung into the south.

II

The little white house on East Twenty-fifth Street was ablaze with light
as Ralston eagerly mounted the low stoop and pressed the bell. The
visitor knocked the slush from his overshoes, slapped the left pocket of
his coat as if to make certain that something was still safely there,
stepped quickly across the threshold when the butler opened the door,
handed the man his hat, threw off his fur coat upon an ebony chair, and
only paused, and that but for a moment, at the entrance of the
drawing-room. He was a tall, clean-built, brisk young man, thoroughly
American in type, with an alert face, which, if not handsome, was
nevertheless agreeable and attractive--a man, in a word, whom one would
not hesitate to address upon the street, provided the question was
pertinent and the information essential.

It was clear from his manner that he was no stranger, but to-day there
were more women than usual at Miss Evarts's Monday afternoon, and the
lights and chatter seemed a bit confusing to one whose mind was charged
with the importance of a newly acquired responsibility. Miss Evarts was
an old friend of his mother's, who, somewhat to his amused annoyance,
took it upon herself to assume toward him a sort of sisterly attitude,
which allowed her the privileges of relationship without prejudice to a
certain degree of elderly sentiment. Attendance upon her selectly
Bohemian gatherings was a duty which he performed when in town, with a
regularity attributable less to a regard for Miss Evarts herself than to
the fact that Ellen Ferguson was usually to be found there presiding
over the tea table and ready for a brisk walk uptown afterwards.

"Ha! There he is now!" exclaimed a middle-aged man, with iron-gray hair
and pointed mustaches, as the newcomer parted the _portières_.

The group about the warrior turned with one accord and stared, at
present teacups, in his direction.

"Good afternoon, ladies and soldier," said Ralston. "I am the
torchbearer of war. Firing has begun. The searchlight on the Garden is
leveled south--like the lance of the horseman on the tower in Irving's
'Legend of the Arabian Astrologer.'"

The colonel set down his cup and pulled his mustaches with a heavy
frown. He took pains to let it be seen that he was overcome with
conflicting emotions--that stern duty summoned him from home and dear
ones, but that his heart was throbbing to avenge his country's honor.
They all looked toward him as if expecting a few appropriate remarks.
The colonel's hands trembled, the veins upon his forehead swelled, and
he seemed about to speak. Then he did.

"You don't say!" he remarked.

There was a sigh of disappointment from the ladies, and in the hiatus
which followed Miss Evarts shook hands with Ralston and introduced him
to the others as "the newly appointed secretary, you know." Which, or
what of, she did not disclose.

"I always thought Ralston was cast for a topliner," continued the
hostess, as he modestly evaded their congratulations.

"It's about time I left the chorus," answered her guest, adapting his
language to Miss Evarts's open predilection for the footlights.

"Kicked your way up?" inquired, in a hoarse voice, a stout lady of stage
traditions, who was clad in a wall-paper effect of gay brocade.

"My dear Mrs. Vokes, don't judge everybody by your own professional
experience," remarked a young lady in brown, whose aquiline features
were accounted "perfectly lovely" by a large suburban, theater-going
public.

"Come! Come!" interrupted Miss Evarts loudly. "Miss Warren, order
yourself more humbly before your betters."

The two popular favorites glared at one another defiantly.

"Well, in any event, Colonel Duer, he'll soon be giving you your sealed
orders," said Miss Evarts, thus disposing of a situation which might
have become awkward.

"Not unless the colonel gets a transfer. I'm steering the navy, not the
army," laughed Ralston.

"The man behind!" murmured Mrs. Vokes.

Ralston bowed. "Very good, Mrs. Vokes," said he. "Yes, too far behind!"

"The navy, of course," Miss Evarts corrected herself, letting fall a
lump of sugar and following it with an attenuated rivulet of cream.
"Just a drop, as usual?"

"Did you read the President's proclamation?" asked a young girl in a
gray picture hat. "Wasn't it splendid?"

"Mr. Ralston will probably write the next one," interjected another.

"No, only correct the proof," amended the hostess.

"And point it with 'Maxims'?" ventured the Vokes, now restored to
complete good humor.

"Very sweet of you, Mrs. Vokes," said Ralston, recognizing the
artificial dove of theatrical peace.

"You leave very soon, don't you, colonel?" asked Miss Evarts. "Is your
kit-bag ready?"

"Yes, we leave by the Pennsylvania, at seven o'clock. The armory's a
perfect bedlam. It looks as if every man in New York had collected all
his worldly goods and chattels and dumped them on the tan bark," replied
the colonel.

"The confusion must be something delightful. I suppose you have plenty
of canned peaches?" inquired the brown girl innocently. "I understand
that they are the staple food of heroes."

"They're certainly an indispensable stage property," admitted the
colonel with something of an effort, recalling various evaporated
valiants of the Cuban campaign.

During this profound discussion Ralston's eyes had been wandering from
group to group, and at this moment the object of their search herself
joined the party upon the other side of the table.

"Have another cup of tea, Ellen," urged Miss Evarts.

"I can't, positively, Aunt Bess," responded the girl; "I must go
presently."

"How are things?" said the girl in brown, looking significantly at the
colonel. "Have all your officers turned up?"

"Ye-es," he replied. "Constructively."

"Constructively?" persisted his inquisitor. "What a queer way to be
present! Rather bad for an officer in a swell regiment to be dilatory,
isn't it?"

"Every man has shown up," replied the rather nettled veteran, "except
one, and he'll be along, all right."

"Oh, of course!" murmured the girl. "By the way, have you seen John
Steadman? My cousin Fred, you know, is an officer in the same company,
and he said last night at dinner that he hadn't seen him at the armory.
Some one was mean enough to suggest that these ferocious military men
aren't always 'warlike.'"

"There are no tin soldiers in my regiment," answered the colonel
severely, turning for reënforcement to Mrs. Vokes.

Ellen Ferguson bit her lip, flashed a glance at the girl in brown and
pulling her chinchilla boa into place departed with her nose in the air
toward the next room. She paused for a moment to read the faded
inscription, framed and hanging beneath an old cavalry saber on the
opposite wall, then turning toward Ralston, raised her eyebrows
inquiringly as if to ask how long he was going to occupy himself with
fat old ladies and cheap actresses, and vanished. But the brown girl
turned her guns on Ralston again before he could get away.

"I didn't know you had any drag at Washington," she remarked. "Who have
you got on your staff--a senator or just a common garden M.C.?"

"Neither," he answered politely. "I don't know either of our senators,
and I couldn't name a single congressman from the State."

"And then you have been away so long," added Miss Evarts. "Why, it's
eight months, isn't it? If you ever had any pull I should think it would
have faded away long ago."

"I was certainly the most surprised of all," said Ralston. "I haven't a
blessed qualification for the job. I suppose the fact that I've just
come from the Philippines and have seen something of the Asiatic
Squadron may have had a little to do with it."

"For the navy as against the army, perhaps," said the brown girl. "But
it doesn't explain your getting an appointment in the first place. You
must be a politician in sheep's clothing."

"Well, to be perfectly frank," answered Ralston, seeing that he was in
for it, "a year ago last September, when I was shooting out at Jackson's
Hole, I ran across the President and saw something of him for a week or
so. I was able to help him in a matter of no importance, and you know he
isn't the kind that forgets anything. He's a good fellow!"

"Just like him," commented the young lady. "Now, why didn't he give it
to my brother George, who got nervous prostration making stump speeches
for him at the last election?"

"Oh, I admit it's entirely undeserved, but I must plead guilty to being
glad of a branch office in the White House and of a chance to be one of
the boys in the conning tower," answered Ralston.

"Well, you're only an assistant secretary, anyway," said the girl. "I'm
green with jealousy as it is. But aren't you sorry not to be going with
your old company?"

"Don't!" he exclaimed. "You make me feel as if I belonged to the Home
Guard. Honestly, I'd rather be back with the regiment, but, you see, I
had served my five years ages before you were born. I ought to give the
younger fellows a chance."

"I see," said the girl. "When do you go?"

"To-morrow morning at ten. I reach Washington in time to dine at the
White House."

Several of the women arose and the group about the table gradually
drifted away. The crowd was thinning out. Ralston, knowing very well
that Ellen would be waiting for him, mumbled something to Miss Evarts
and escaped.

"Well!" he exclaimed, entering the other room, and seizing her hands as
she stood with her back to the fire. "Pretty good, isn't it?"

"I should say it was!" she cried delightedly. "Why, Dick, it's the
chance of your life. If you make good only a little bit you may get
anywhere. It's perfectly splendid! I'm so glad!"

Genuine pleasure shone in her eyes. Ralston's heart beat faster. Of
course she cared for him. She must care for him. There was a tide in the
affairs of men which, taken at the flood-- He stepped closer and bent
his head toward hers.

"Nell--" he began.

But she apparently was not listening, and the glad look had quickly
given place to another. He paused, wondering at the change. Her dark
eyes, with their Oriental, upturned corners, were half veiled and her
high-arched brows were contracted in a frown. He drew back and pulled
out his cigarette case.

"Dick," she cried suddenly, "I want to tell you something! I'm sorry to
bother you when you're so happy, and I'm so proud of you, but I'm
terribly worried about something."

"Dear! Dear!" laughed Ralston, striking a match and seeing that his
opportunity had somehow vanished. "What's up? Been losing at bridge?"

She smiled faintly.

"Don't make fun of me," she replied. "No, I'm really bothered." She put
her hand to her forehead and pushed back her hair. "I'm afraid one of my
friends isn't-- Oh, I don't know how to explain it!"

A momentary suspicion flashed across his mind.

"Do you think I ought to go to the front?" he asked, relieved.

She gave a little laugh.

"You? What a goose! Of course not!"

Ralston experienced a shock of disappointment.

"What is it, then?"

"Dick," said she in quick, subdued tones, "I can't help speaking about
it, and you're the best friend I've got. It's about John."

Ralston moved uneasily.

"John Steadman?"

"We're old friends, you know."

"Yes, I remember."

"I don't suppose you've seen him?"

"Not since I came back. Before that, often."

Ellen again passed her hand wearily across her forehead and turned
abruptly away from the fire. The action was unconscious, involuntary. He
had never associated Ellen with Steadman.

"What is it?" he asked sympathetically.

"Oh, nothing definite. Only he's been a little irregular of late. I
haven't seen him for over a week. I don't think anybody has."

"He's a captain in the Twelfth, isn't he?"

"Yes. O Dick! You heard what that spiteful Warren girl said about tin
soldiers?"

"Of course. Nonsense!"

"I can't help it. It's _Honor_, you know!"

"You mean you think he mayn't turn up?"

"I can't--I won't think that."

"But he hasn't?--and they're beginning to talk?"

"You heard for yourself."

"Oh, _that_!"

"Some people never live down less."

"But if he does turn up, why there's an end to it," he said.

"But why isn't he here?" she cried.

"How do I know? He may be on a business trip."

"Of course I thought of that," she replied.

"Oh, he'll be there, all right, when the time comes."

She began arranging her furs. One thing Ralston always admired about her
was her care in dress. He did not know how few clothes she really had.
She seemed always elegantly, if not luxuriously, clad.

They strolled slowly toward the door.

"Well," he said, "I'm awfully sorry you're upset. I'm sure he'll turn up
all right. A man couldn't afford not to. Don't worry. If there was
anything that I could do, no matter what, you know I'd be glad to do it
for your sake, Ellen."

"Thank you, Dick. I know that," she answered.

"Well, good-by," said he. "Say good night to Miss Evarts for me, will
you? I've got to run. I'm late for dinner as it is."

She gave him her hand and he held it for a moment. As he did so he
looked her full in the face.

"Ellen," said he, "tell me something. Do you care about--Steadman?"

She turned her head slightly from him before replying. Then she looked
back again and answered hesitatingly:

"I think--I care."

As she spoke the words she withdrew her hand. Then she flushed and her
eyes brightened.

"Dick," she said slowly, in a voice that trembled a little, "I _know_ I
care."

The _portières_ fell behind him. Mechanically he put on his overcoat and
left the house, pausing for a moment at the top of the steps. A little
smile hovered on his lips, but his eyes were very sad.

Ralston walked as far as the Twenty-eighth Street subway station, where
he caught a local for Forty-second Street. Thence he hurried to
Delmonico's. It was now seven o'clock, and already the restaurant was
nearly full.

"Philip, have you seen Mr. Scott?" he asked of the doorman.

"In the palm room, Mr. Ralston," answered the servant at once. "The head
waiter told me to say that your dinner was ready."

Ralston checked his coat, and soon caught sight of his newly engaged
private secretary at a small table in a corner. They shook hands, and
Scott pointed to a pile of letters and papers beside him.

"This stuff came while you were out. I thought I'd better bring it along
to save time."

"Good!" commented Ralston. "What is most of it?"

"Eight letters of congratulation, which I listed. A long letter from
some old lady friend of yours when you were in Exeter----"

"I know--Mrs. Gorringe."

"Then that power of attorney from Bee, Single & Quick, that you
expected. Oh, I don't know--a lot of circulars: 'Red Cross,' 'Special
Relief,' 'Society for Assisting Wives and Children of Enlisted Men.'"

"Send 'em twenty-five apiece."

Mr. Scott took out his notebook and made an entry.

"How about that power of attorney?"

"It seemed all right. I don't know. We never had anything just like it
in the law school."

Ralston burst out laughing.

"How old are you, Jim?"

"Twenty-five."

"Well, just wait ten years, and if you ever see a legal paper that looks
like anything but a page out of Doomsday call my attention to it, will
you?"

"Well, it's got a seal, anyway."

"How about those antelope heads from Livingston that were being
mounted?"

"Wilcox telephoned they'd be shipped to-morrow."

By this time the soup had arrived, and both fell to with appetites born
of a hard day's labor. The waiters were apparently serving "extras" with
every course, and more than half the men at the tables were in uniform.
Flags hung everywhere, and at each plate a _papier-maché_ cannon held
the customary bonbons. In the extreme eastern corner the Hungarians were
playing "Dixie," "Old Kentucky Home," "Maryland," "Star-Spangled
Banner," "Suwanee River," "A Hot Time," and other patriotic airs, one
after the other, the conclusion of each being marked by loud applause
from all sides.

"Isn't it great!" exclaimed Scott. "You know my governor thinks my going
down with you is out of sight. He'd hate to have me enlist. Of course,
I'd rather really, but in the long run I fancy there'll be more doin'
right in Washington."

"You'll be busy, all right," said Ralston. "Has Thompson packed all the
trunks?"

"Sure; ages ago."

"And did you buy the tickets?"

Scott produced the tickets with obvious pride.

"Well, you're satisfactory so far. By the way, what are you going to do
to-night?"

"Mrs. Patterson's theater party--'The Martial Maid.'"

"And you skipped the dinner?"

"To dine with my chief. Orders, you know. Duty before pleasure."

"Good boy!" said Ralston. "How did you fix it?"

"Why, I spoke to Ellen and she managed it for me. Of course, if it was
for you anything would go with her. Isn't she a stunner?"

"You spoke to Ellen, did you? Well, you have a confidence born of your
newly acquired elevation. I saw her at Miss Evarts's this afternoon. She
didn't mention you, however."

"Do you know a fellow named Steadman?" continued Scott. "Good-looking
chap, but a 'weak sister,' I think."

"Yes, I know him. Why?"

"Oh, nothing. He's around with her a good deal."

"Well?"

"Well, I hate to see a girl like that throw herself away, that's all,"
burst out the secretary with energy.

"Why, Steadman used to be a decent fellow enough," said Ralston,
thinking rapidly. "Anything the matter with him that you know of?"

"He bats an awful lot."

"Something new?"

"Yes; within six months. Uncle died and left him a lot of loose change.
He's been blowing it in."

"How? Of course, it's on the quiet?"

"Oh, yes! He's at church every Sunday."

"Yesterday?"

"No. I meant metaphorically."

By eight o'clock dinner had been entirely served, and Scott had received
all his instructions.

"Guess I'll step over to the Pattersons' now for a short cigar," he
remarked, "and pick up the crowd. See you to-morrow at eight-thirty."

"Good night. Have a good time," called Ralston after him, as the
youthful figure passed out. He was very fond of Scott. He wondered if
what the boy had said about Steadman was true. A fellow could go down a
lot in six months, or in less. Steadman had always had a weakness.
Ralston had never liked him, though forced to be in his company on many
occasions.

"I'll smoke at the room," he thought, and paid his bill. "I'm going off
to Washington, William, so I'd better settle," he remarked to the old
waiter.

From Delmonico's he crossed the avenue, walked north for two blocks, and
turned into his rooms, which were situated in a small, new bachelor
apartment house. He found everything in confusion and Thompson hard at
work packing books.

He shed his frock coat for a smoking jacket, and took his seat at a low
desk with a drop light, having brought his letters with him from the
restaurant. First he rapidly answered his notes of congratulation,
following a set form, then hastily read the power of attorney from his
lawyers, and signed it, after which he O. K.'d a pile of bills, gave
some instructions to Thompson about his library, wrote a long letter to
his mother, who was spending the winter in Italy, then took up the
letter from the "old lady in Exeter," and threw himself back into a
chair before the fire.

It was eighteen years since he had seen her, the woman who had kept the
boarding house in which he had lived at school--who had mended his
clothes, lent him small sums of money, brought him his meals when sick,
served him for a temporary mother, lied for him when necessary, and been
rewarded with the real affection of her young lodger. This was the first
letter she had ever written him. In the left-hand corner of the white,
blue-lined paper was an embossed reproduction of the State House in
Boston, and the shaking penmanship filled every inch of space and ran
back to the front page again.

      EXETER, March 5, 19--.

      DEAR RICHARD

      You must forgive an old woman calling you Richard, who
      worked so hard for you when you was a boy. You must be
      quite a man by this time to be made Secretary of the
      Navy as I was told by Deacon Stillwater. I am proud of
      you, Richard, and so is everybody here, that one of my
      boys should rise so high, whom I never thought of
      except throwing apples at Mrs. Abbott's goat and
      playing baseball in the middle of the street. I was
      hoping to hear from you that you had married some
      lovely young lady in New York. Don't put it off too
      long. If you are not going to fight you would not even
      have to wait until after the war. I am glad you are
      not going to fight and yet will serve the country.
      Think how long it is since I lost my dear husband at
      Antietam--nearly fifty years. I am an old woman,
      Richard, and shall not live long. I am going to leave
      you my chest of drawers with brass handles you used to
      like--you remember you used to keep chestnuts in the
      bottom. Be a good boy. If you can spare the time from
      your duties I shall be pleased to hear from you.

      Your old friend,

      SARAH GORRINGE.

"Dear old soul!" he sighed, staring into the fire. "What a brute I am
never to have written to her after all she did for me. The good woman's
reward!"

For nearly a half hour he sat thinking of his life at Exeter and of the
changes time had wrought in his existence. Then he arose, carefully
selected some writing materials, and wrote for some time without
finishing his letter. Once he got up, crossed to the fire and studied
for several minutes a photograph which stood on the mantel, after which
he took a few strides around the room and returned to his task.

Twenty minutes later he laid down his pen, and taking the pile of
manuscript in his lap read it over carefully. The last paragraph he
reread several times. Then he placed the whole thing in an envelope and
addressed it--to Exeter, New Hampshire. The little clock on the mantel
pointed to half-past nine as he took off his smoking jacket and called
for his coat and hat. He was tired--very tired--but something made him
restless.

"I'm going to the club for a while," he said to his valet. "I'll be back
in half an hour. Call a hansom."

He waited with his back to the fire, still smoking.

"Second Assistant Secretary to the Navy!" he muttered. "Not bad for
thirty-four! . . . But what does it amount to? . . . What does anything
amount to? . . . Who really cares? . . . It's like making the 'varsity
or your senior society. . . . You always think there's some one--or that
there may be some one . . ."

"Cab's here, sir," said his man.

Ralston gathered up the mail and started down the stairs. At the curb
stood a hansom, the driver cloaked in a heavy waterproof. A fine rain
had begun to fall, making the light from a nearby street lamp seem dim
and uncertain. As Ralston stepped toward the lamp-post to mail his
letters he observed a diminutive messenger boy vainly trying to decipher
the address upon a telegram, which he was holding to the light. Ralston
pushed the letters into the box and closed it with a slam.

"Does Mr. Ralston live here?" asked the boy.

"Right here!" answered Ralston, holding out his hand.

"Please sign."

He scrawled an apology for a signature upon the damp page of the book
and tore the end off the envelope. Then, like the boy, he held the
yellow paper to the light. It bore but nine words:

      Please try to find John for my sake.--E.

He read the words several times and repeated them aloud, as if in doubt
as to their meaning. "Find Steadman!" Where? Find him! How? Why? . . .

The messenger boy had started away, whistling shrilly "Marching Through
Georgia." Ralston wrinkled his forehead. Here was irony of Fate for you!
She called upon him to save the honor of this man, whom he hardly knew,
for whom he cared not a whit, whom by this time he had begun to hate, to
save him--for her. He stood motionless in the rain, the telegram hanging
limply from his fingers. He had not seen Steadman for nine months. Knew
practically nothing of him except from clubroom gossip. And Ellen asked
him to find the man for her, in the seething life of the city--find him
in such a way that, wherever found, his honor would be safe, find him
secretly, surely, and place him upon his feet at the head of his company
before the next morning at seven o'clock. He crumpled the paper into
his pocket and turned to the waiting driver.

"Just drive down the avenue slowly."

"Yes, sir."

He climbed in and threw himself back upon the seat.

"Something of a large order, my dear young lady," he muttered. "If your
attractive friend is to be found, it must be done without publicity. It
would be a great deal worse to find him where he ought not to be, than
not to find him at all. There are many cycles in New York's Inferno. If
it were not for that, my old friend Inspector Donahue could send out a
general alarm and turn him up before daylight. But that won't--no, that
won't do. He's got to be located on the quiet and put into shape to
march respectably off with his company.

"By George!" he exclaimed aloud, "only a woman would think of asking a
chap to set out on such a wild-goose chase! But then I don't suppose she
realizes. She thinks he's playing billiards at the club, or something
like that, maybe!" He set his teeth.

"If she only knew!" he muttered. "Why didn't I speak a little sooner!"

"She _thought_ she cared. . . . She _knew_ she cared!" he whispered to
himself. Then he laughed rather grimly.

And one who had happened to glance into the cab at that moment, as it
passed a lamp, would have seen the gaunt face of a man smiling behind
the tip of a cigar. Farther down the avenue another would have seen the
same face without the cigar--without the smile.

"Jerry's!" said Ralston sharply, through the manhole.

The driver jerked the reins, wheeled his horse round abruptly, and
started on a brisk trot through Forty-fourth Street. Then turning
quickly down Sixth Avenue, he brought the hansom to a sudden stop in
front of a restaurant whose electric lights flared valiantly into the
rain and mist.

There were three doors, but Ralston, without pausing, passed into the
hostelry through the middle one. The cabman waited without orders, well
aware that those who frequent Jerry's presumably desire the means of
transportation therefrom. A bar ranged opposite an oyster counter gave a
narrow passage to the dining room. At the end of the bar was a cashier's
desk.

The after-theater crowd had not yet arrived, it was too late for dinner
guests, and few tables were occupied. Ralston, however, had not expected
to find Steadman there. As he reached the desk a well-built, red-cheeked
Irishman stepped forward.

"How are you, Mr. Ralston? Congratulations!"

Our friend grasped the hand of the other cordially.

"How are you, Jerry?"

"You're a bit of a stranger."

"Yes. Something like a year. Been out looking over the Philippines."

"Not so good as the little old place?"

"I should say not. By the way, sit down over here a minute. I want to
speak with you."

Jerry led the way to the rear of the restaurant and offered Ralston a
chair. Then he drew up across the table, while the latter put him a few
brief questions.

"Well, that's what I wanted," said Ralston, as they arose. "Yes, I
remember now, he used to know her. I'll try it!"

"I'm afraid it's the only tip I can give you, Mr. Ralston."

"Thank you very much, Jerry. Remember, now. I haven't seen you--no
matter what happens."

"Not a word!"

"Good night."

"Good night, sir."

Ralston crossed the sidewalk and sprang into the cab.

"The Moonshine--stage," said he shortly.

IV

The party of which Ellen Ferguson was a member did not leave Sherry's
until a comparatively late hour, and, while she was in no mood for
gayety, anything which could fill the hours pending news of Steadman was
a relief. She had found pleasure in talking to Jim Scott, that
good-natured, immature, and loyal son of old Harvard, who had hardly
opened his mouth the entire evening save in eulogy of his new chief.
From the time they had left the house in the omnibus to the moment she
had been deposited at her apartments he had not ceased his pæan of
praise. Ralston was a "corker," a "crackajack," it was a great thing to
be going to work with a man like that--a fellow who had done things, not
one of your sit-in-the-club-window-and-have-a-little-drink style of
chappies (this with a significant glance at a certain Mr. Teadle who
made one of the party), but one who could use a rifle or write a book
with equal skill.

Mr. Teadle saw no particular reason for Ralston's appointment? Jim
supposed sarcastically that the only proper candidate _would_ have been
an absinthe-drinking scribbler of anæmic little poems. For a short time
it looked as if Jim were going to utilize Mr. Teadle as a mop, until
Ellen came to the rescue by entering into a violent flirtation with the
new secretary, who furtively wondered if she really cared for that
Steadman fellow, after all. Miss Ferguson, on her side, like the boy
immensely, but did not stop to analyze her reasons. His freshness and
enthusiasm were enough to account for the attraction.

The Moonshine Theater had suggested a ludicrous parody of Brussels on
the eve of Waterloo, and Scott had loudly regretted that his job did not
carry a uniform with it. There were whole rows of them in the orchestra
and the gallery. For a finale the chorus sang the "Star-Spangled
Banner"--all up, of course, with the whole house cheering and waving
hats and handkerchiefs. Tears were in Ellen's eyes as the party made
their way out of the box, along the side of the house, to the entrance
where the omnibus was waiting. They had piled in, and then, just as they
had started--_Ralston!_

How strange that she should cross him in this fashion at such an hour!
Could he have received her message? Perhaps, even now, a yellow slip was
lying beneath her door marked: "Party not found." But if not on her
mission, what was he doing at the stage entrance of the Moonshine?

All through the supper at Sherry's, with its martial airs, its patriotic
ices and confections, its wine and laughter, she was tormented by
uncertainty. If he had not received the message! Time was flying,
Steadman was not being sought for, Ralston was--dallying.

Her maid removed her cloak and helped her undo her dress.

"Has anything come for me?"

"No, miss."

"Telephone to the Western Union office and ask if my telegram was
delivered."

The maid disappeared, returning presently with the information that it
had been receipted for at nine-thirty o'clock. With a warm wave of
relief flooding her heart Ellen slipped on a light wrapper, and threw
herself into an armchair before the sea-coal fire.

[Illustration: "She studied the faces alternately."]

"You need not wait, Elise. I shall sit up and read."

"Very well, miss. Good night."

"Good night," answered her mistress dreamily.

Outside the rain swept steadily against the glass with a soft, silting
sound. From time to time drops fell down the chimney and hissed for a
moment ere they vanished black splotches upon the vermilion coals.
Behind her an electric lamp of bronze, with an opaque shade, threw a dim
light over her shoulder and lit up the masses of her loosened hair.

Presently she arose slowly and went into an adjoining room, returning
with a large photograph in either hand. They were framed alike. Placing
them side by side upon the rug before her, she locked her hands across
her knee, and studied the faces alternately. One was of a young
man--almost a boy--with a narrow, high-bred face, dark eyes, sallow,
with a mouth curved like a woman's. The other was Dick Ralston, taken
about five years before, although the high cheekbones, the gaunt energy,
the mature thoughtfulness suggested a man much older. That she cared for
Steadman there was no doubt in her own mind. Had she refused to admit it
definitely heretofore, the fact that he was now on the verge of social
and moral annihilation made it no longer a matter of question. She felt
that Steadman's honor was at this moment the most vital thing in her
existence. He had thrown it at her feet after a long and romantic
wooing. Had laid bare his entire past. She was convinced that he loved
her. But at the crucial moment she had hesitated, had not responded in
quite the way she had probably given him reason to expect. She had
asked for time for reflection, and could give no adequate explanation in
answer to his imperative "Why?" When later he had renewed his suit she
had again forced a postponement, and he had departed, annoyed and
perplexed.

It was at this juncture that the money had dropped into his hands and he
had disappeared. Where was he? On a shooting trip? He frankly admitted
caring nothing for sport or hunting. It was not the season for travel,
and his name was not upon the sailing lists. Her instinct told her that
somewhere in the great city Steadman, oblivious to the call of duty, was
living the life from which her influence had called him for a time,
reckless of consequences, disregardful of the beckoning finger of
opportunity. She knew also that this was his last chance.

She realized that she could never marry Steadman disgraced, yet she felt
now that she loved him, and that could she see him and watch him start
for the front with his regiment, she would promise him what he had
asked.

She took Ralston's picture in her hand and held it to the light. It
trembled a little. She knew she could have cared for him--but he was so
stern, so strong, so capable. He had never treated her save as a sort of
younger sister. She had often wondered if he cared or could care for any
woman. With her he was always the same--kindly, sympathetic, obliging,
thoughtful. What must he think of her, sending him forth in the dead of
night to search the city for a man whom he scarcely knew? Her cheeks
burned at the thought of what she had done.

She had hardly known what she was asking when she had sent the message.
It had been done hurriedly, as she was leaving for the Pattersons', on
the impulse of a moment when she felt that, unless John Steadman could
be found, life would cease for her to be worth living--sent in a sort
of hysteria in which she instinctively turned to the one man in all the
world upon whom she could call for any service she might ask. Dear old
Dick! How tired he had looked in the rain! He might be up all night
looking for Steadman, and then not find him! And he was to leave for
Washington to-morrow.

She went to the window, against which the rain drove in a fine shower,
blurring the myriad lights below her that marched in long, straight
lines to north, south, and east. On the Tower the searchlight still
burned steadily. She shivered and went back to the fire. Then she laid
one of the pictures gently against her cheek.

V

The Moonshine Theater blazes its defiance into the night from a gleaming
Broadway promontory, whose cape divides the restless human tide that
rises to its neap every evening about eleven and falls to its ebb in the
neighborhood of two or three in the morning. Through its arched portals
one might drive a hansom cab, and tradition says that the feat has been
accomplished.

Here Mrs. Vokes, under the alias of "Hélène DeLacy," first minced her
way into popularity--but that was in the days of crinoline. The youths
who loitered about its iron-bound stage entrance are gray-headed men
to-day, those of them who are still alive. Only old Vincent remains, as
rugged as a granite cliff, and as impervious to persuasion, bribery, or
anger. "I'm sorry, gents, but it's against my orders," is said as
conclusively to-night as it was twenty years ago. He got as far as:

"I'm sorry, sir, but it's against--" then changed it to a wondering:
"Bless my soul, Mr. Ralston! Is it you?" as he encountered the set face
of our friend.

"Why, Vincent," exclaimed the latter, "you still here? What luck! You
don't look a day older!"

"I can't say the same for you, sir. I understand congratulations are in
order. Oh, I read the papers. But--" he hesitated.

"But you think I'm rather old for 'Johnnying'?" interpolated Ralston.
"You're quite right. I am. But don't be alarmed; this is business. I
want to find a young woman named Ernestine Hudson. I must see her at
once. Can you fix it for me?"

"I think so," answered the guardian of the wings. "I'd do it if I lost
my job. I won't forget in a hurry what you did for my little Bill. Just
step----"

At that instant the door was thrust violently open and a gray-coated
messenger boy, carrying a large oblong box, projected himself violently
against Vincent.

"For Hudson!" he ejaculated shortly.

"Put 'em on that desk," directed Vincent.

"Say, boss, let me take 'em in," pleaded the boy.

"Who do you think you are, anyway?" inquired the doorkeeper. "Get out of
here."

The boy lingered, gazing wistfully down the gas-lighted passage, through
which floated the hum of the orchestra, confused by the shuffle of feet
and inarticulate orders.

Vincent took a threatening step in the direction of the boy, who made a
grimace at him and backed slowly through the door. Ralston smiled and
looked inquiringly at the box.

"It might serve as an introduction," he suggested with a smile.

"You don't need it," said Vincent. "I guess you remember the way. Just
step down the passage, and you'll find the chorus ready to go on for the
second act. Hudson's the wheel horse for the partridges. She has a bunch
of tail sprouts like a feather duster. What fool things the public pay
to see nowadays! Why, they ain't content to let a girl be a girl, but
they have to turn her into a bird, or a dress form, or a wax figger, or
an automobile, or a flower. Now take this show. It's supposed to be a
kind of a 'flag-raiser.' 'Marchin' Through Georgy' and 'Campin'
To-night' and all that, and the chorus is _birds_. Birds! Sparrers,
canaries, and partridges!" he grunted scornfully. "Well, good luck. See
you later."

Ralston walked down the passage and pushed open the skeleton canvas door
that separated him from the wings. The curtain was down, and a small
army of men were noisily pulling enormous flies into place by means of
pulleys. One group in the center of the stage were erecting a "Port
Arthur" bristling with guns, and several with wheelbarrows were bringing
in a foreground of rocks, which others arranged with elaborate
carelessness. Overhead hung a wilderness of ropes and drops, with
sections of scenery suspended in mid-air. Two spiral staircases of iron
sprang from either side and lost themselves in the tangle above.
Ascending and descending were a perpetual stream of heterogeneous
figures, who went up as birds and came down as village maidens, or who
from grand dames of fashion were transformed into Quakeresses or drummer
boys. There was loud chattering on all sides, interspersed with deep
invectives from the coatless hustlers on the stage. Above all shrieked
and rattled the pulleys.

The blinding light and the clouds of dust made the scene utterly
confusing, and for a moment Ralston hesitated vaguely. To his left a
flock of "partridges" clustered about one of the flies, while one little
lady partridge sat apart on a nail keg, and eased her little partridge
foot by loosening her slipper.

To the nearest Ralston turned and inquired for Miss Hudson. The girl
whom he had addressed stared boldly at him, and without replying waved
languidly toward the partridge on the barrel. It was evident that she
took no interest in the friends of Miss Hudson. Ralston turned, and at
the same moment heard a shrill cackle from the group behind him. In
spite of himself he could feel the red coursing up to his ears. The girl
on the barrel had entirely removed her slipper and was stretching her
toes. She did not look up at his approach, having already minutely
studied his make-up under the shelter of her heavily corked eyebrows, as
he emerged from the passage.

"Are you Miss Hudson?"

"Yes," said the partridge, critically examining her instep.

"My name is Ralston," he began rapidly. "I'm looking for a friend of
mine, who must be turned up at once. It's a matter of life and death,
and he's got to be found. I have an idea you know him."

"Have you?" said the partridge innocently.

"The man I refer to is John Steadman. Do you know where he is?"

The girl slowly lifted her head and looked at him rather impudently. She
seemed more like a large doll than a girl.

"I haven't the pleasure of your acquaintance, Mr. Ralston, if that is
your name, and I don't know your friend Steadman."

There was something about her manner that convinced Ralston that she
knew more than she admitted, but it was obvious that for purposes of her
own she had made up her mind to treat him with the scant courtesy
usually extended by show girls to people who are not worth while, and to
people it is worth while to keep for a time at a distance.

"I'm very sorry," said Ralston. "I believed that you were the one
person in New York who could tell me where he was. Of course, you might
know him under some other name."

"Why are you so interested in finding this Mr.--Steadman?" asked the
partridge, studiously inserting her foot in a shoe that seemed all toe.

"Simply for his own sake."

"Don't you ever come behind for yours?" she inquired abstractedly.
Ralston suppressed a smile.

"See here, young lady--" he began, changing his tactics.

"All on for the second!" shouted a big man in a Derby hat. "Here you,
Hudson, stop fooling and get into your place! Clear the wings."

From behind the wall of curtain came the distant crash of the contending
chords of the overture. "Port Arthur" with its rocks was in place, the
Japanese flag flying defiantly in a strong current of air, generated by
a frenzied electric fan held by a "super" in the moat. The chorus
trooped from the flies, and came tumbling down fire escapes and
staircases.

The partridge knocked her heels together and jumped lightly to her feet.

"Peep-peep!" she said. "See you later, old man. Stage door about
eleven-thirty."

She nodded at him and started hopping toward the stage. The other
partridges were forming in long lines, with much jostling of tail
feathers and fluttering of pinions.

"Hurry up there!" shouted the assistant "stage" in Miss Hudson's
direction, and then turned hastily toward the opposite flies where some
mix-up had attracted his attention.

Ralston saw his last clew hopping away from him. A bell rang loudly, and
the orchestra struck up the first few bars of the opening chorus. Hardly
conscious of what he was doing Ralston strode quickly after the
partridge and, grasping her firmly by the wings, drew her back into the
flies.

"Let me go!" she gasped, struggling to free herself. "Let me go! What
are you trying to do? Do you want to get me fined?"

"Keep quiet," whispered Ralston, "I've got to speak to you. Do you
understand? I can't let you go on. I'll stand for any fine, and square
you into the bargain. It's too late, anyway! The curtain's up already."

"Let me go!" she cried, the tears starting into her eyes. "You're
hurting me, you brute! I'll lose my job. The management don't stand for
this kind of thing. You're a fine gentleman, _you_ are! Oh, what shall I
do?"

Ralston's heart smote him. He knew well the hideous uncertainty which
being out of a job means to the chorus girl, and its more hideous
possibilities.

"I'm sorry," he said humbly. "I had to do it, and I promise you shall
lose nothing by it. Now, quick, where can we talk? Not here? The manager
would see you."

The partridge wiped her eyes.

"Do you promise to square the management?"

"I certainly do--on my honor as a gentleman."

"Then come!" Hudson darted quickly back among the scenery, and Ralston
followed her down a flight of iron steps which led beneath the stage.
Pipes ran in all directions, and great heaps of old flies and useless
properties reached toward the low ceiling, between which narrow alleys
led off into the darkness. A smell of mold and of paint filled the air.
Even the scant gas jets seemed to burn with a peculiar dimness in the
damp atmosphere.

"Come along!" whistled the partridge.

Beyond a pile of lumber in a sort of catacomb she stopped. A bead of gas
showed blue against some whitewashed brickwork.

"Turn it up," said Hudson, and Ralston did so.

"Hungry?" she continued. "_I_ could eat anything that 'didn't bite me
first!'"

Ralston laughed.

"Were you in that show?" he asked. "It was a good one. No, I'm not
hungry. Suppose I were?"

"This is our rathskeller," she laughed. "Are you thirsty?"

Ralston admitted to a certain degree of dryness.

"Certainly," he said, "I should like nothing better than a large
schooner of dark, imported beer. What will you have?" he continued,
carrying on the jest.

Hudson, who had seated herself on a low seat by the wall, got up and
struck sharply on the wooden partition with a stick.

"What's that?" asked Ralston.

"Perhaps some beer will come out!" remarked the partridge. "Moses was
not the only one."

A rattling followed, and a square opening appeared in the wall, in which
the shaggy tow-head of a young man was visible.

He grinned at sight of Miss Hudson.

"How vas de shootink?" he inquired. "Does de bartridges vant more vet?
Ha! Ha! You _vas_ a bird!"

"Ya, Fritz. Two schooners and a hot dog. Hustle 'em up."

Fritz closed the slide which covered the opening and the partridge
turned gayly toward Ralston.

"What do you think of that? Pretty good, eh?"

"I don't understand," he replied. "Where did he come from? What is in
there?"

"I'll tell you. When 'Abe' Erlanger built this house there was a row of
old tenements on the side street. Well, Jo Bimberger tore 'em down and
built a rathskeller. While he was doing it one of the girls tipped off
the boss carpenter to leave this place. Ain't it grand? Say, you get
almost dead jumping around on the boards. It looks easy enough, but I
tell you sometimes you're ready to scream."

"Just the thing," answered our friend. "Do the management object?"

"Not a bit. 'Abe' gets a rake-off from the saloon. It's good business."

The slide opened and two dripping glasses made their appearance. Ralston
received them and handed one to Miss Hudson. Then Fritz passed in a
frankfurter about the size of a policeman's night stick.

Ralston drew half a dollar from his pocket and exchanged it for the
sausage.

"That's all right, keep the change," he remarked.

"My, you must have it to throw away!" said Hudson. "Twenty-three for
you, Fritz. Shut the slide."

Ralston took a deep draught of the beer. He could not help smiling as he
thought of the picture he would present could any one of his associates
see him at the moment. What, for instance, would the President have
said? And the Secretary of War! Underneath the stage of a theater,
drinking beer with a chorus girl! He put down the glass and pulled
himself together.

"Now to business!" he exclaimed. "This is jolly good fun, but I've a
long night in front of me, and I've got work to do in it. Where is
Steadman?"

The partridge looked at him inquiringly.

"You don't mean you really are trying to find anyone?"

"Certainly I do."

"Steadman?"

"Yes."

She shrugged her shoulders. It was clear, even to Ralston, that she was
disappointed.

"I can't help you."

"You _know_ him?" Ralston's gaze penetrated her feathers.

"Yes. But I don't know where he is--and what is more, I don't care. He's
a cad."

"Well, let it go at that. But I've got to find him. How long is it since
you've seen him?"

"Three weeks."

"What was he up to?"

"Oh, the usual business. He's badly in. Let him go; he's not worth your
while."

"I didn't say he was. But he must be turned up. Was he drinking?"

"Yes!"

"Ah!" Ralston scowled.

"He's a bad one," continued the partridge. "He began at the bottom and
worked down."

"You must help me to find him. Who is he running with?"

"I don't know anything about him. I've heard he knows a girl named
Florence Davenport. If you can find her she might help you."

"Where does she live?"

"On Forty-sixth Street," and she gave him a number.

Ralston arose and put his hand in his pocket.

"I am very much indebted to you," he said courteously. "You won't mind
if I make good your fine?"

He drew out a bill and placed it in her hand. She raised her eyebrows at
sight of its denomination.

"No," she said, "I haven't done anything for you. I don't want the
money."

"But your fine?"

"That's all right," she replied, shrugging her shoulders. "I could have
gone on--if I'd wanted to. I was merely bluffing. You couldn't have held
me. You're a gentleman, and I don't want the money." She spoke quietly,
and looked him full in the face. Ralston wavered.

"Please don't," said the girl, and held out the bill. Ralston took it
and returned it to his pocket.

"Miss Hudson," said he, "you have placed me under a great obligation,
one that money cannot repay. If I can ever help you in any way let me
know."

The partridge got up and led the way toward the staircase. At the top
she held out her hand and Ralston took it in his.

"He's not worth it," she repeated. "Let him go."

"_Noblesse oblige_," he smiled, looking down at her.

The chorus had filed off the stage and were standing on the other side.

"Here you, Hudson! Where have you been?" whispered the manager hoarsely,
grasping her roughly by the shoulder. "Get over there."

"Leave me alone!" she cried sharply, shaking off his arm. Then, turning
to Ralston:

"Good night, sir," she said.

VI

Outside the Moonshine Ralston found the usual congestion of cabs,
landaus, and wagons. He had delayed to exchange a few reminiscences with
old Vincent, and it was fully ten minutes before he could find his cabby
in the tangle of vehicles. As he stepped into the street, to save the
time requisite for the man to draw to the curb, an omnibus was vainly
trying to force its way through the side street. It had paused for an
instant in front of the stage entrance, and Ralston had caught a glimpse
of Ellen's face inside.

A momentary impulse had seized him to stop the coach and tell her of the
hopelessness of the task upon which she had sent him, but in the instant
of his uncertainty the way had cleared and they had driven on. He had
climbed into his own hansom, little the wiser for his experience at the
Moonshine.

The sidewalks were jammed with the usual after-theater crowd hurrying
either to get home as quickly as possible or to secure seats in
restaurants which pandered less to the taste of the _gourmet_ than to
those of the _roué_. For a solid mile on either side of Broadway
stretched house after house of entertainment, any one of which could
harbor a hundred Steadmans, and for a quarter of a mile on either hand
lay twenty streets, lined with places of a character vastly more likely
to do so. He followed the crowd slowly northward, wondering why so few
of them walked in the opposite direction. Whenever he came to a
well-known hostelry he went in and eagerly scanned the tables, but,
although he recognized many he knew and who knew him, he found naught of
Steadman.

Having visited five "chophouses," a "rathskeller," two "hofbraus," and
several more pretentious places, he abandoned the idea of trying to
stumble upon his man, and returned to his original belief that only by
following some sort of a clew could he succeed. Somewhere in the hot
clasp of the city lay the miserable youth he had promised to find. For a
moment he regretted the answer which he had just sent to Ellen's
apartment--the four words that had pledged him to a fool's errand, the
absurdity of which was now apparent. Then came a realizing sense of the
importance to Ellen of his mission, and a grim determination to find
this man wherever he might be.

He had now reached Forty-second Street, and the crowd divided into two
streams, one moving eastward and the other northward, a part of the
latter to plunge beneath the Times Building into the subway, and the
remainder to add to the already existing congestion in front of the
Hotel Astor, Rector's, Shanley's, and the New York Theater. Longacre
Square boiled with life--a life garish, tawdry, sensual and vulgar,
unlike that of any other city or generation.

The restaurants could seat no more, and a bejeweled, scented throng
stood in the doorways and struggled for the vacant tables. The night
hawks lining the curb peered eagerly at every passer-by to note signs of
intoxication or indecision. Tiny newsboys thrust their bundles of papers
against dress waistcoats and felt for loose watches, ready to dart into
the throng at the first move of suspicion on the part of their victims.
Clerks with their best girls pointed out these and made witticisms upon
them, hoping thus to divert attention from the attractions of the
restaurants, for whose splendors they intended later to substitute the
more substantial, if more economical, pleasures of the dairy lunch.
Automobiles, in which sat supercilious foreign chauffeurs, blocked the
entrances of the pleasure palaces. Streams of country folk poured in and
out of hotels which made a specialty of rural trade, promising to their
patrons, in widely distributed circulars, easy access to everything
"worth seeing." These came, were relieved of their money, and, after
fervid correspondence on the hotel stationery, went home to poison the
minds of their townfolk with descriptions of scenes which existed only
in their imaginations.

For every person on Longacre Square after midnight who is there for an
honest purpose, there are three who are there either to do that which
they should not do or to see that which they should not see. It is the
white light in which the New York moth plays before he plunges into the
withering flame. It was here Steadman had begun, and like enough he was
not far off.

The electric clock above the roof tops moved to a quarter before one as
Ralston turned into Forty-sixth Street, and he looked both ways before
springing from his hansom and dashing up the steps of the number to
which he had been directed. After some time a mulatto maid opened the
door and asked his business. Miss Davenport was out, she said. Ralston
stretched the truth far enough to say that he was a friend. The girl had
no idea where she could be found. Then Ralston also volunteered that he
was a friend of Mr. Steadman's. Still the maid remained imperturbable.
The sight of a bill, however, led to an immediate change of demeanor.

Yes, Miss Davenport had gone out with a gentleman--not Mr.
Steadman--early in the evening. Did she know Mr. Steadman? Yes, she
thought she knew Mr. Steadman--a dark gentleman. She seemed anxious to
help Ralston, but doubtful of success.

As was not unreasonable, Ralston was beginning to be quite disgusted at
the position in which he found himself, a condition which was by no
means relieved by the fact that, as he reached the bottom of the steps,
he found himself face to face with Colonel Duer and a somewhat elderly
lady companion. The new Assistant Secretary felt distinctly
uncomfortable. Another man might have turned away his face, but Ralston
looked steadily into the colonel's under the full light of the street
lamp. Simultaneously he raised his hand to his hat, then crossed the
sidewalk and jumped into the hansom. The cabby lifted the manhole and
looked down the air shaft.

"Huh?" said he. "Where'll I go now?"

"I don't know," said Ralston.

The cabby chuckled. He was satisfied one way quite as well as another.
From his seat of vantage he was able to look down critically upon
mankind in general, and had learned to distinguish "the real thing" when
he saw it. He had no doubts as to Ralston, and no misgivings at all as
to the latter's ability to pay and pay well, and he was as confident
that his tip would be in accordance with the most advanced ideas of
liberality as he was that this same fare of his was quite out of the
ordinary. He had sized Ralston for a thoroughbred from the moment that
he had come downstairs. For one thing he did not waste words, for
another he neither looked at his watch nor inquired the price; for
another--and you could always tell by that--he knew just what he was
doing. Moreover, he was perfectly sober. He belonged to that small and
distinguished body of midnight travelers who realize that they are in a
cab and not in a hammock. Hence Ralston's admission that he did not know
where to go to next struck upon the cabby intelligence in the light of a
joke.

"Huh?" said he again, removing his cigar.

"I said I didn't know," repeated Ralston.

"Up against it!" said cabby with divination.

"Exactly," returned his fare with a slight laugh. "You are a man of
perspicacity."

"Huh?" repeated the cabby.

"I said you were a mind reader," answered Ralston.

"I guess I can see furder'n most," admitted cabby complacently.

Ralston had struck a match and lit a fresh cigar. He was feeling very,
very tired. His watch showed that there were exactly six hours left
before the Twelfth would start--not a minute more.

The cabby was still peering down the manhole and dropping an occasional
sympathetic ash on Ralston's silk hat. His fare interested him--he was
beginning to have a notion that Ralston was somebody. Maybe a big
military gun. He had that clean, hard look those fellers have.

Suddenly the fare spoke again, in an even more amiable tone than before.

"My friend, how long have you been in this business?"

The cabby hesitated while he made an accurate mathematical computation.

"Five years on a percentage--ten years on my own--fifteen years, sir."

"You know the town pretty well, eh?"

"Fairly well, sir."

"Is there a _café_ somewhere a bit out of the way--something quiet, you
know?"

"Sure, across the square. Shall I drive you there?"

"Yes."

The cabby clucked to his horse, and they wheeled about and crossed the
White Way again. The pedestrians were thinning out. The rain had ceased,
the clouds had parted, and the sky was sprinkled with brightly burning
stars. Up in the Times Tower the afternoon before one of the editorial
writers had polished up a "war-whoop" such as, he had said to himself,
would make the Japanese emperor scratch his head. It was a half-column
"drip" in the nature of a "Godspeed" to the first volunteer regiment to
start for the front. He liked the Twelfth, and had been in it himself
under Ralston. The thought had reminded him that he ought to give his
old captain a bit of a send-off as well, and he had penned a dozen lines
to be inserted after the other, and headed "A Wise Appointment," ending
his short paragraph with the words: "The nation is to be sincerely