THE RED CROSS GIRL

The Novels And Stories Of Richard Harding Davis

By Richard Harding Davis

With An Introduction By Gouverneur Morris

CONTENTS:

 Introduction by Gouverneur Morris

 1. THE RED CROSS GIRL

 2. THE GRAND CROSS OF THE CRESCENT

 3. THE INVASION OF ENGLAND

 4. BLOOD WILL TELL

 5. THE SAILORMAN

 6. THE MIND READER

 7. THE NAKED MAN

 8. THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF

 9. THE CARD-SHARP

INTRODUCTION

 R. H. D. 

 "And they rise to their feet as he passes, gentlemen unafraid. "

He was almost too good to be true. In addition, the gods loved him, andso he had to die young. Some people think that a man of fifty-two ismiddle-aged. But if R. H. D. Had lived to be a hundred, he would neverhave grown old. It is not generally known that the name of his otherbrother was Peter Pan. 

Within the year we have played at pirates together, at the taking ofsperm whales; and we have ransacked the Westchester Hills for gunsitesagainst the Mexican invasion. And we have made lists of guns, andmedicines, and tinned things, in case we should ever happen to goelephant shooting in Africa. But we weren't going to hurt the elephants. Once R. H. D. Shot a hippopotamus and he was always ashamed and sorry. Ithink he never killed anything else. He wasn't that kind of a sportsman. Of hunting, as of many other things, he has said the last word. Do youremember the Happy Hunting Ground in "The Bar Sinister"?--"Where nobodyhunts us, and there is nothing to hunt. "

Experienced persons tell us that a man-hunt is the most exciting of allsports. R. H. D. Hunted men in Cuba. He hunted for wounded men who wereout in front of the trenches and still under fire, and found some ofthem and brought them in. The Rough Riders didn't make him an honorarymember of their regiment just because he was charming and a faithfulfriend, but largely because they were a lot of daredevils and he wasanother. 

To hear him talk you wouldn't have thought that he had ever done a bravething in his life. He talked a great deal, and he talked even betterthan he wrote (at his best he wrote like an angel), but I have dustedevery corner of my memory and cannot recall any story of his in which heplayed a heroic or successful part. Always he was running at top speed, or hiding behind a tree, or lying face down in a foot of water (forhours!) so as not to be seen. Always he was getting the worst of it. Butabout the other fellows he told the whole truth with lightning flashesof wit and character building and admiration or contempt. Until theinvention of moving pictures the world had nothing in the least like histalk. His eye had photographed, his mind had developed and prepared theslides, his words sent the light through them, and lo and behold, theywere reproduced on the screen of your own mind, exact in drawing andcolor. With the written word or the spoken word he was the greatestrecorder and reporter of things that he had seen of any man, perhaps, that ever lived. The history of the last thirty years, its mannersand customs and its leading events and inventions, cannot be writtentruthfully without reference to the records which he has left, tohis special articles and to his letters. Read over again the Queen'sJubilee, the Czar's Coronation, the March of the Germans throughBrussels, and see for yourself if I speak too zealously, even for afriend, to whom, now that R. H. D. Is dead, the world can never be thesame again. 

But I did not set out to estimate his genius. That matter will come indue time before the unerring tribunal of posterity. 

One secret of Mr. Roosevelt's hold upon those who come into contactwith him is his energy. Retaining enough for his own use (he uses agood deal, because every day he does the work of five or six men), hedistributes the inexhaustible remainder among those who most need it. Men go to him tired and discouraged, he sends them away glad to bealive, still gladder that he is alive, and ready to fight the devilhimself in a good cause. Upon his friends R. H. D. Had the same effect. And it was not only in proximity that he could distribute energy, butfrom afar, by letter and cable. He had some intuitive way ofknowing just when you were slipping into a slough of laziness anddiscouragement. And at such times he either appeared suddenly upon thescene, or there came a boy on a bicycle, with a yellow envelope and abook to sign, or the postman in his buggy, or the telephone rang andfrom the receiver there poured into you affection and encouragement. 

But the great times, of course, were when he came in person, and thetemperature of the house, which a moment before had been too hot ortoo cold, became just right, and a sense of cheerfulness and well-beinginvaded the hearts of the master and the mistress and of the servantsin the house and in the yard. And the older daughter ran to him, andthe baby, who had been fretting because nobody would give her adouble-barrelled shotgun, climbed upon his knee and forgot all about thedisappointments of this uncompromising world. 

He was touchingly sweet with children. I think he was a little afraidof them. He was afraid perhaps that they wouldn't find out how muchhe loved them. But when they showed him that they trusted him, and, unsolicited, climbed upon him and laid their cheeks against his, thenthe loveliest expression came over his face, and you knew that the greatheart, which the other day ceased to beat, throbbed with an exquisitebliss, akin to anguish. 

One of the happiest days I remember was when I and mine received atelegram saying that he had a baby of his own. And I thank God thatlittle Miss Hope is too young to know what an appalling loss she hassuffered.... 

Perhaps he stayed to dine. Then perhaps the older daughter was allowedto sit up an extra half-hour so that she could wait on the table (andthough I say it, that shouldn't, she could do this beautifully, withdignity and without giggling), and perhaps the dinner was good, or R. H. D. Thought it was, and in that event he must abandon his place and stormthe kitchen to tell the cook all about it. Perhaps the gardener wastaking life easy on the kitchen porch. He, too, came in for praise. R. H. D. Had never seen our Japanese iris so beautiful; as for his, theywouldn't grow at all. It wasn't the iris, it was the man behind theiris. And then back he would come to us, with a wonderful story of hisadventures in the pantry on his way to the kitchen, and leaving behindhim a cook to whom there had been issued a new lease of life, and agardener who blushed and smiled in the darkness under the Actinidiavines. 

It was in our little house at Aiken, in South Carolina, that he waswith us most and we learned to know him best, and that he and I becamedependent upon each other in many ways. 

Events, into which I shall not go, had made his life very difficult andcomplicated. And he who had given so much friendship to so many peopleneeded a little friendship in return, and perhaps, too, he needed for atime to live in a house whose master and mistress loved each other, andwhere there were children. Before he came that first year our house hadno name. Now it is called "Let's Pretend. "

Now the chimney in the living-room draws, but in those first days of thebuilt-over house it didn't. At least, it didn't draw all the time, butwe pretended that it did, and with much pretense came faith. From thefireplace that smoked to the serious things of life we extended ourpretendings, until real troubles went down before them--down and out. 

It was one of Aiken's very best winters, and the earliest spring I everlived anywhere. R. H. D. Came shortly after Christmas. The spireas werein bloom, and the monthly roses; you could always find a sweet violet ortwo somewhere in the yard; here and there splotches of deep pink againstgray cabin walls proved that precocious peach-trees were in bloom. Itnever rained. At night it was cold enough for fires. In the middle ofthe day it was hot. The wind never blew, and every morning we had a fourfor tennis and every afternoon we rode in the woods. And every night wesat in front of the fire (that didn't smoke because of pretending) andtalked until the next morning. 

He was one of those rarely gifted men who find their chiefest pleasurenot in looking backward or forward, but in what is going on at themoment. Weeks did not have to pass before it was forced upon hisknowledge that Tuesday, the fourteenth (let us say), had been a goodTuesday. He knew it the moment he waked at 7 A. M. And perceived theTuesday sunshine making patterns of bright light upon the floor. Thesunshine rejoiced him and the knowledge that even before breakfastthere was vouchsafed to him a whole hour of life. That day began withattentions to his physical well-being. There were exercises conductedwith great vigor and rejoicing, followed by a tub, artesian cold, and aloud and joyous singing of ballads. 

At fifty R. H. D. Might have posed to some Praxiteles and, copied inmarble, gone down the ages as "statue of a young athlete. " He stoodsix feet and over, straight as a Sioux chief, a noble and leoninehead carried by a splendid torso. His skin was as fine and clean as achild's. He weighed nearly two hundred pounds and had no fat on him. Hewas the weight-throwing rather than the running type of athlete, but sotenaciously had he clung to the suppleness of his adolescent days thathe could stand stiff-legged and lay his hands flat upon the floor. 

The singing over, silence reigned. But if you had listened at his dooryou must have heard a pen going, swiftly and boldly. He was hard atwork, doing unto others what others had done unto him. You were astranger to him; some magazine had accepted a story that you had writtenand published it. R. H. D. Had found something to like and admire inthat story (very little perhaps), and it was his duty and pleasureto tell you so. If he had liked the story very much he would sendyou instead of a note a telegram. Or it might be that you had drawna picture, or, as a cub reporter, had shown golden promise in a halfcolumn of unsigned print, R. H. D. Would find you out, and find time topraise you and help you. So it was that when he emerged from his roomat sharp eight o'clock, he was wide-awake and happy and hungry, andwhistled and double-shuffled with his feet, out of excessive energy, andcarried in his hands a whole sheaf of notes and letters and telegrams. 

Breakfast with him was not the usual American breakfast, a sullen, dyspeptic gathering of persons who only the night before had rejoicedin each other's society. With him it was the time when the mind is, or ought to be, at its best, the body at its freshest and hungriest. Discussions of the latest plays and novels, the doings and undoings ofstatesmen, laughter and sentiment--to him, at breakfast, these thingswere as important as sausages and thick cream. 

Breakfast over, there was no dawdling and putting off of the day'swork (else how, at eleven sharp, could tennis be played with a freeconscience?). Loving, as he did, everything connected with a newspaper, he would now pass by those on the hall-table with never so much as awistful glance, and hurry to his workroom. 

He wrote sitting down. He wrote standing up. And, almost you may say, hewrote walking up and down. Some people, accustomed to the delicious easeand clarity of his style, imagine that he wrote very easily. He did andhe didn't. Letters, easy, clear, to the point, and gorgeouslyhuman, flowed from him without let or hindrance. That masterpiece ofcorresponding, "The German March Through Brussels, " was probably writtenalmost as fast as he could talk (next to Phillips Brooks, he was thefastest talker I ever heard), but when it came to fiction he had nofacility at all. Perhaps I should say that he held in contempt anyfacility that he may have had. It was owing to his incomparable energyand Joblike patience that he ever gave us any fiction at all. Everyphrase in his fiction was, of all the myriad phrases he could think of, the fittest in his relentless judgment to survive. Phrases, paragraphs, pages, whole stories even, were written over and over again. He workedupon a principle of elimination. If he wished to describe an automobileturning in at a gate, he made first a long and elaborate descriptionfrom which there was omitted no detail, which the most observant pairof eyes in Christendom had ever noted with reference to just such aturning. Thereupon he would begin a process of omitting one by onethose details which he had been at such pains to recall; and after eachomission he would ask himself: "Does the picture remain?" If it did not, he restored the detail which he had just omitted, and experimented withthe sacrifice of some other, and so on, and so on, until after Herculeanlabor there remained for the reader one of those swiftly flashed, ice-clear pictures (complete in every detail) with which his tales andromances are so delightfully and continuously adorned. 

But it is quarter to eleven, and, this being a time of holiday, R. H. D. Emerges from his workroom happy to think that he has placed one hundredand seven words between himself and the wolf who hangs about everywriter's door. He isn't satisfied with those hundred and seven words. Henever was in the least satisfied with anything that he wrote, but hehas searched his mind and his conscience and he believes that under thecircumstances they are the very best that he can do. Anyway, they canstand in their present order until--after lunch. 

A sign of his youth was the fact that to the day of his death he haddenied himself the luxury and slothfulness of habits. I have never seenhim smoke automatically as most men do. He had too much respect for hisown powers of enjoyment and for the sensibilities, perhaps, of the bestHavana tobacco. At a time of his own deliberate choosing, often aftermany hours of hankering and renunciation, he smoked his cigar. He smokedit with delight, with a sense of being rewarded, and he used all thesmoke there was in it. 

He dearly loved the best food, the best champagne, and the best Scotchwhiskey. But these things were friends to him, and not enemies. He hadtoward food and drink the Continental attitude; namely, that quality isfar more important than quantity; and he got his exhilaration from thefact that he was drinking champagne and not from the champagne. PerhapsI shall do well to say that on questions of right and wrong he had awill of iron. All his life he moved resolutely in whichever directionhis conscience pointed; and, although that ever present and neverobtrusive conscience of his made mistakes of judgment now and then, asmust all consciences, I think it can never once have tricked him intoany action that was impure or unclean. Some critics maintain that theheroes and heroines of his books are impossibly pure and innocent youngpeople. R. H. D. Never called upon his characters for any trait ofvirtue, or renunciation, or self-mastery of which his own life could notfurnish examples. 

Fortunately, he did not have for his friends the same conscience that hehad for himself. His great gift of eyesight and observation failed himin his judgments upon his friends. If only you loved him, you could getyour biggest failures of conduct somewhat more than forgiven, withoutany trouble at all. And of your mole-hill virtues he made splendidmountains. He only interfered with you when he was afraid that you weregoing to hurt some one else whom he also loved. Once I had a telegramfrom him which urged me for heaven's sake not to forget that the nextday was my wife's birthday. Whether I had forgotten it or not is myown private affair. And when I declared that I had read a story which Iliked very, very much and was going to write to the author to tell himso, he always kept at me till the letter was written. 

Have I said that he had no habits? Every day, when he was away from her, he wrote a letter to his mother, and no swift scrawl at that, for, nomatter how crowded and eventful the day, he wrote her the best letterthat he could write. That was the only habit he had. He was a slave toit. 

Once I saw R. H. D. Greet his old mother after an absence. They threwtheir arms about each other and rocked to and fro for a long time. Andit hadn't been a long absence at that. No ocean had been between them;her heart had not been in her mouth with the thought that he was underfire, or about to become a victim of jungle fever. He had only been awayupon a little expedition, a mere matter of digging for buried treasure. We had found the treasure, part of it a chipmunk's skull and a brokenarrow-head, and R. H. D. Had been absent from his mother for nearly twohours and a half. 

I set about this article with the knowledge that I must fail to givemore than a few hints of what he was like. There isn't much more spaceat my command, and there were so many sides to him that to touchupon them all would fill a volume. There were the patriotism and theAmericanism, as much a part of him as the marrow of his bones, and fromwhich sprang all those brilliant headlong letters to the newspapers;those trenchant assaults upon evil-doers in public office, thosequixotic efforts to redress wrongs, and those simple and dexterousexposures of this and that, from an absolutely unexpected point of view. He was a quickener of the public conscience. That people are beginningto think tolerantly of preparedness, that a nation which at one timelooked yellow as a dandelion is beginning to turn Red, White, and Blueis owing in some measure to him. 

R. H. D. Thought that war was unspeakably terrible. He thought thatpeace at the price which our country has been forced to pay for it wasinfinitely worse. And he was one of those who have gradually taught thiscountry to see the matter in the same way. 

I must come to a close now, and I have hardly scratched the surfaceof my subject. And that is a failure which I feel keenly but whichwas inevitable. As R. H. D. Himself used to say of those deplorable"personal interviews" which appear in the newspapers, and in which theimportant person interviewed is made by the cub reporter to say thingswhich he never said, or thought, or dreamed of--"You can't expect afifteen-dollar-a-week brain to describe a thousand-dollar-a-week brain. "

There is, however, one question which I should attempt to answer. No twomen are alike. In what one salient thing did R. H. D. Differ from othermen--differ in his personal character and in the character of his work?And that question I can answer offhand, without taking thought, and besure that I am right. 

An analysis of his works, a study of that book which the RecordingAngel keeps will show one dominant characteristic to which even hisbrilliancy, his clarity of style, his excellent mechanism as a writerare subordinate; and to which, as a man, even his sense of duty, hispowers of affection, of forgiveness, of loving-kindness are subordinate, too; and that characteristic is cleanliness. 

The biggest force for cleanliness that was in the world has gone out ofthe world--gone to that Happy Hunting Ground where "Nobody hunts us andthere is nothing to hunt. "

GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

Chapter 1. THE RED CROSS GIRL

When Spencer Flagg laid the foundation-stone for the new million-dollarwing he was adding to the Flagg Home for Convalescents, on the hillsabove Greenwich, the New York REPUBLIC sent Sam Ward to cover the story, and with him Redding to take photographs. It was a crisp, beautiful dayin October, full of sunshine and the joy of living, and from the greatlawn in front of the Home you could see half over Connecticut and acrossthe waters of the Sound to Oyster Bay. 

Upon Sam Ward, however, the beauties of Nature were wasted. When, thenight previous, he had been given the assignment he had sulked, and hewas still sulking. Only a year before he had graduated into New Yorkfrom a small up-state college and a small up-state newspaper, butalready he was a "star" man, and Hewitt, the city editor, humored him. 

"What's the matter with the story?" asked the city editor. "With thespeeches and lists of names it ought to run to two columns. "

"Suppose it does!" exclaimed Ward; "anybody can collect type-writtenspeeches and lists of names. That's a messenger boy's job. Where's thereany heart-interest in a Wall Street broker like Flagg waving a silvertrowel and singing, 'See what a good boy am!' and a lot of grownup menin pinafores saying, 'This stone is well and truly laid. ' Where's thestory in that?"

"When I was a reporter, " declared the city editor, "I used to be glad toget a day in the country. "

"Because you'd never lived in the country, " returned Sam. "If you'dwasted twenty-six years in the backwoods, as I did, you'd know thatevery minute you spend outside of New York you're robbing yourself. "

"Of what?" demanded the city editor. "There's nothing to New York exceptcement, iron girders, noise, and zinc garbage cans. You never see thesun in New York; you never see the moon unless you stand in the middleof the street and bend backward. We never see flowers in New York excepton the women's hats. We never see the women except in cages in theelevators--they spend their lives shooting up and down elevator shaftsin department stores, in apartment houses, in office buildings. And wenever see children in New York because the janitors won't let the womenwho live in elevators have children! Don't talk to me! New York's aLittle Nemo nightmare. It's a joke. It's an insult!"

"How curious!" said Sam. "Now I see why they took you off the street andmade you a city editor. I don't agree with anything you say. Especiallyare you wrong about the women. They ought to be caged in elevators, butthey're not. Instead, they flash past you in the street; they shine uponyou from boxes in the theatre; they frown at you from the tops of buses;they smile at you from the cushions of a taxi, across restaurant tablesunder red candle shades, when you offer them a seat in the subway. Theyare the only thing in New York that gives me any trouble. "

The city editor sighed. "How young you are!" he exclaimed. "However, to-morrow you will be free from your only trouble. There will befew women at the celebration, and they will be interested only inconvalescents--and you do not look like a convalescent. "

Sam Ward sat at the outer edge of the crowd of overdressed females andoverfed men, and, with a sardonic smile, listened to Flagg telling hisassembled friends and sycophants how glad he was they were there to seehim give away a million dollars. 

"Aren't you going to get his speech?", asked Redding, the staffphotographer. 

"Get HIS speech!" said Sam. "They have Pinkertons all over the groundsto see that you don't escape with less than three copies. I'm waiting tohear the ritual they always have, and then I'm going to sprint for thefirst train back to the centre of civilization. "

"There's going to be a fine lunch, " said Redding, "and reporters areexpected. I asked the policeman if we were, and he said we were. "

Sam rose, shook his trousers into place, stuck his stick under hisarmpit and smoothed his yellow gloves. He was very thoughtful of hisclothes and always treated them with courtesy. 

"You can have my share, " he said. "I cannot forget that I am fifty-fiveminutes from Broadway. And even if I were starving I would rather havea club sandwich in New York than a Thanksgiving turkey dinner in NewRochelle. "

He nodded and with eager, athletic strides started toward the irongates; but he did not reach the iron gates, for on the instant troublebarred his way. Trouble came to him wearing the blue cambric uniformof a nursing sister, with a red cross on her arm, with a white collarturned down, white cuffs turned back, and a tiny black velvet bonnet. A bow of white lawn chucked her impudently under the chin. She hadhair like golden-rod and eyes as blue as flax, and a complexion of suchhealth and cleanliness and dewiness as blooms only on trained nurses. 

She was so lovely that Redding swung his hooded camera at her as swiftlyas a cowboy could have covered her with his gun. 

Reporters become star reporters because they observe things thatother people miss and because they do not let it appear that they haveobserved them. When the great man who is being interviewed blurts outthat which is indiscreet but most important, the cub reporter says:"That's most interesting, sir. I'll make a note of that. " And sowarns the great man into silence. But the star reporter receives theindiscreet utterance as though it bored him; and the great man doesnot know he has blundered until he reads of it the next morning underscreaming headlines. 

Other men, on being suddenly confronted by Sister Anne, which was theofficial title of the nursing sister, would have fallen backward, orswooned, or gazed at her with soulful, worshipping eyes; or, were theythat sort of beast, would have ogled her with impertinent approval. NowSam, because he was a star reporter, observed that the lady before himwas the most beautiful young woman he had ever seen; but no one wouldhave guessed that he observed that--least of all Sister Anne. He stoodin her way and lifted his hat, and even looked into the eyes of blue asimpersonally and as calmly as though she were his great-aunt--as thoughhis heart was not beating so fast that it choked him. 

"I am from the REPUBLIC, " he said. "Everybody is so busy here to-daythat I'm not able to get what I need about the Home. It seems a pity, "he added disappointedly, "because it's so well done that people oughtto know about it. " He frowned at the big hospital buildings. It wasapparent that the ignorance of the public concerning their excellencegreatly annoyed him. 

When again he looked at Sister Anne she was regarding him inalarm--obviously she was upon the point of instant flight. 

"You are a reporter?" she said. 

Some people like to place themselves in the hands of a reporter becausethey hope he will print their names in black letters; a few others--onlyreporters know how few--would as soon place themselves in the hands of adentist. 

"A reporter from the REPUBLIC, " repeated Sam. 

"But why ask ME?" demanded Sister Anne. 

Sam could see no reason for her question; in extenuation and explanationhe glanced at her uniform. 

"I thought you were at work here, " he said simply. "I beg your pardon. "

He stepped aside as though he meant to leave her. In giving thatimpression he was distinctly dishonest. 

"There was no other reason, " persisted Sister Anne. "I mean for speakingto me?"

The reason for speaking to her was so obvious that Sam wondered whetherthis could be the height of innocence or the most banal coquetry. Thehostile look in the eyes of the lady proved it could not be coquetry. 

"I am sorry, " said Sam. "I mistook you for one of the nurses here; and, as you didn't seem busy, I thought you might give me some statisticsabout the Home not really statistics, you know, but local color. "

Sister Anne returned his look with one as steady as his own. Apparentlyshe was weighing his statement. She seemed to disbelieve it. Inwardlyhe was asking himself what could be the dark secret in the past of thisyoung woman that at the mere approach of a reporter--even of such anice-looking reporter as himself--she should shake and shudder. "Ifthat's what you really want to know, " said Sister Anne doubtfully, "I'lltry and help you; but, " she added, looking at him as one who issues anultimatum, "you must not say anything about me!"

Sam knew that a woman of the self-advertising, club-organizing classwill always say that to a reporter at the time she gives him her card sothat he can spell her name correctly; but Sam recognized that this youngwoman meant it. Besides, what was there that he could write about her?Much as he might like to do so, he could not begin his story with: "TheFlagg Home for Convalescents is also the home of the most beautifulof all living women. " No copy editor would let that get by him. So, asthere was nothing to say that he would be allowed to say, he promised tosay nothing. Sister Anne smiled; and it seemed to Sam that she smiled, not because his promise had set her mind at ease, but because thepromise amused her. Sam wondered why. 

Sister Anne fell into step beside him and led him through the wards ofthe hospital. He found that it existed for and revolved entirely aboutone person. He found that a million dollars and some acres of buildings, containing sun-rooms and hundreds of rigid white beds, had been donatedby Spencer Flagg only to provide a background for Sister Anne--onlyto exhibit the depth of her charity, the kindness of her heart, theunselfishness of her nature. 

"Do you really scrub the floors?" he demanded--"I mean youyourself--down on your knees, with a pail and water and scrubbingbrush?"

Sister Anne raised her beautiful eyebrows and laughed at him. 

"We do that when we first come here, " she said--"when we areprobationers. Is there a newer way of scrubbing floors?"

"And these awful patients, " demanded Sam--"do you wait on them? Do youhave to submit to their complaints and whinings and ingratitude?" Heglared at the unhappy convalescents as though by that glance he wouldannihilate them. "It's not fair!" exclaimed Sam. "It's ridiculous. I'dlike to choke them!"

"That's not exactly the object of a home for convalescents, " said SisterAnne. 

"You know perfectly well what I mean, " said Sam. "Here are you--ifyou'll allow me to say so--a magnificent, splendid, healthy youngperson, wearing out your young life over a lot of lame ducks, failures, and cripples. "

"Nor is that quite the way we look at, " said Sister Anne. 

"We?" demanded Sam. 

Sister Anne nodded toward a group of nurse

"I'm not the only nurse here, " she said "There are over forty. "

"You are the only one here, " said Sam, "who is not! That's Just whatI mean--I appreciate the work of a trained nurse; I understand theministering angel part of it; but you--I'm not talking about anybodyelse; I'm talking about you--you are too young! Somehow you aredifferent; you are not meant to wear yourself out fighting disease andsickness, measuring beef broth and making beds. "

Sister Anne laughed with delight. 

"I beg your pardon, " said Sam stiffly. 

"No--pardon me, " said Sister Anne; "but your ideas of the duties of anurse are so quaint. "

"No matter what the duties are, " declared Sam; "You should not be here!"

Sister Anne shrugged her shoulders; they were charming shoulders--asdelicate as the pinions of a bird. 

"One must live, " said Sister Anne. 

They had passed through the last cold corridor, between the last rowsof rigid white cots, and had come out into the sunshine. Below themstretched Connecticut, painted in autumn colors. Sister Anne seatedherself upon the marble railing of the terrace and looked down upon theflashing waters of the Sound. 

"Yes; that's it, " she repeated softly--"one must live. "

Sam looked at her--but, finding that to do so made speech difficult, looked hurriedly away. He admitted to himself that it was one of thoseoccasions, only too frequent with him, when his indignant sympathy washeightened by the fact that "the woman was very fair. " He concededthat. He was not going to pretend to himself that he was not prejudicedby the outrageous beauty of Sister Anne, by the assault upon hisfeelings made by her uniform--made by the appeal of her profession, thegentlest and most gracious of all professions. He was honestly disturbedthat this young girl should devote her life to the service of selfishsick people. 

"If you do it because you must live, then it can easily be arranged; forthere are other ways of earning a living. "

The girl looked at him quickly, but he was quite sincere--and again shesmiled. 

"Now what would you suggest?" she asked. "You see, " she said, "I have noone to advise me--no man of my own age. I have no brothers to go to. I have a father, but it was his idea that I should come here; and soI doubt if he would approve of my changing to any other work. Your ownwork must make you acquainted with many women who earn their own living. Maybe you could advise me?"

Sam did not at once answer. He was calculating hastily how far hissalary would go toward supporting a wife. He was trying to rememberwhich of the men in the office were married, and whether they werethose whose salaries were smaller than his own. Collins, one of the copyeditors, he knew, was very ill-paid; but Sam also knew that Collins wasmarried, because his wife used to wait for him in the office to takeher to the theatre, and often Sam had thought she was extremely welldressed. Of course Sister Anne was so beautiful that what she might wearwould be a matter of indifference; but then women did not always lookat it that way. Sam was so long considering offering Sister Anne a lifeposition that his silence had become significant; and to cover his realthoughts he said hurriedly:

"Take type-writing, for instance. That pays very well. The hours are notdifficult. "

"And manicuring?" suggested Sister Anne. 

Sam exclaimed in horror. 

"You!" he cried roughly. "For you! Quite impossible!"

"Why for me?" said the girl. 

In the distress at the thought Sam was jabbing his stick into the gravelwalk as though driving the manicuring idea into a deep grave. He did notsee that the girl was smiling at him mockingly. 

"You?" protested Sam. "You in a barber's shop washing men's fingers whoare not fit to wash the streets you walk on I Good Lord!" His vehemencewas quite honest. The girl ceased smiling. Sam was still jabbing at thegravel walk, his profile toward her--and, unobserved, she could studyhis face. It was an attractive face strong, clever, almost illegallygood-looking. It explained why, as, he had complained to the cityeditor, his chief trouble in New York was with the women. With his eyesfull of concern, Sam turned to her abruptly. "How much do they give youa month?" "Forty dollars, " answered Sister Anne. "This is what hurts meabout it, " said Sam. 

"It is that you should have to work and wait on other people when thereare so many strong, hulking men who would count it God's blessing towork for you, to wait on you, and give their lives for you. However, probably you know that better than I do. "

"No; I don't know that, " said Sister Anne. 

Sam recognized that it was quite absurd that it should be so, but thisstatement gave him a sense of great elation, a delightful thrill ofrelief. There was every reason why the girl should not confide in acomplete stranger--even to deceive him was quite within her rights; but, though Sam appreciated this, he preferred to be deceived. 

"I think you are working too hard, " he said, smiling happily. "I thinkyou ought to have a change. You ought to take a day off! Do they evergive you a day off?"

"Next Saturday, " said Sister Anne. "Why?"

"Because, " explained Sam, "if you won't think it too presumptuous, I wasgoing to prescribe a day off for you--a day entirely away from iodoformand white enamelled cots. It is what you need, a day in the city and alunch where they have music; and a matinee, where you can laugh--or cry, if you like that better--and then, maybe, some fresh air in the park ina taxi; and after that dinner and more theatre, and then I'll see yousafe on the train for Greenwich. Before you answer, " he added hurriedly, "I want to explain that I contemplate taking a day off myself and doingall these things with you, and that if you want to bring any of theother forty nurses along as a chaperon, I hope you will. Only, honestly, I hope you won't!"

The proposal apparently gave Sister Anne much pleasure. She did notsay so, but her eyes shone and when she looked at Sam she was almostlaughing with happiness. 

"I think that would be quite delightful, " said Sister Anne, "--quitedelightful! Only it would be frightfully expensive; even if I don'tbring another girl, which I certainly would not, it would cost a greatdeal of money. I think we might cut out the taxicab--and walk in thepark and feed the squirrels. "

"Oh!" exclaimed Sam in disappointment, --"then you know Central Park?"

Sister Anne's eyes grew quite expressionless. 

"I once lived near there, " she said. 

"In Harlem?"

"Not exactly in Harlem, but near it. I was quite young, " said SisterAnne. "Since then I have always lived in the country or in--otherplaces. "

Sam's heart was singing with pleasure. 

"It's so kind of you to consent, " he cried. "Indeed, you are the kindestperson in all the world. I thought so when I saw you bending over thesesick people, and, now I know. "

"It is you who are kind, " protested Sister Anne, "to take pity on me. "

"Pity on you!" laughed Sam. "You can't pity a person who can do morewith a smile than old man Flagg can do with all his millions. Now, " hedemanded in happy anticipation, "where are we to meet?"

"That's it, " said Sister Anne. "Where are we to meet?"

"Let it be at the Grand Central Station. The day can't begin too soon, "said Sam; "and before then telephone me what theatre and restaurants youwant and I'll reserve seats and tables. Oh, " exclaimed Sam joyfully, "itwill be a wonderful day--a wonderful day!"

Sister Anne looked at him curiously and, so, it seemed, a littlewistfully. She held out her hand. 

"I must go back to my duties, " she said. "Good-by. "

"Not good-by, " said Sam heartily, "only until Saturday--and my name'sSam Ward and my address is the city room of the REPUBLIC. What's yourname?"

"Sister Anne, " said the girl. "In the nursing order to which I belong wehave no last names. "

"So, " asked Sam, "I'll call you Sister Anne?"

"No; just Sister, " said the girl. 

"Sister!" repeated Sam, "Sister!" He breathed the word rather than spokeit; and the way he said it and the way he looked when he said it madeit carry almost the touch of a caress. It was as if he had said"Sweetheart!" or "Beloved!" "I'll not forget, " said Sam. 

Sister Anne gave an impatient, annoyed laugh. 

"Nor I, " she said. 

Sam returned to New York in the smoking-car, puffing feverishly at hiscigar and glaring dreamily at the smoke. He was living the day overagain and, in anticipation, the day off, still to come. He rehearsedtheir next meeting at the station; he considered whether or not he wouldmeet her with a huge bunch of violets or would have it brought to herwhen they were at luncheon by the head waiter. He decided the latter waywould be more of a pleasant surprise. He planned the luncheon. It was tobe the most marvellous repast he could evolve; and, lest there should bethe slightest error, he would have it prepared in advance--and it shouldcost half his week's salary. 

The place where they were to dine he would leave to her, because hehad observed that women had strange ideas about clothes--some of themthinking that certain clothes must go with certain restaurants. Someof them seemed to believe that, instead of their conferring distinctionupon the restaurant, the restaurant conferred distinction upon them. Hewas sure Sister Anne would not be so foolish, but it might be that shemust always wear her nurse's uniform and that she would prefer not to beconspicuous; so he decided that the choice of where they would dine hewould leave to her. He calculated that the whole day ought to cost abouteighty dollars, which, as star reporter, was what he was then earningeach week. That was little enough to give for a day that would be thebirthday of his life! No, he contradicted--the day he had first met hermust always be the birthday of his life; for never had he met onelike her and he was sure there never would be one like her. She wasso entirely superior to all the others, so fine, so difficult--in hermanner there was something that rendered her unapproachable. Even hersimple nurse's gown was worn with a difference. She might have been aprincess in fancy dress. And yet, how humble she had been when he beggedher to let him for one day personally conduct her over the great city!"You are so kind to take pity on me, " she had said. He thought of manyclever, pretty speeches he might have made. He was so annoyed he hadnot thought of them at the time that he kicked violently at the seat infront of him. 

He wondered what her history might be; he was sure it was full ofbeautiful courage and self-sacrifice. It certainly was outrageousthat one so glorious must work for her living, and for such a paltryliving--forty dollars a month! It was worth that merely to have hersit in the flat where one could look at her; for already he had decidedthat, when they were married, they would live in a flat--probably inone overlooking Central Park, on Central Park West. He knew of severalattractive suites there at thirty-five dollars a week--or, if shepreferred the suburbs, he would forsake his beloved New York and returnto the country. In his gratitude to her for being what she was, heconceded even that sacrifice. 

When he reached New York, from the speculators he bought front-row seatsat five dollars for the two most popular plays in town. He put them awaycarefully in his waistcoat pocket. Possession of them made him feel thatalready he had obtained an option on six hours of complete happiness. 

After she left Sam, Sister Anne passed hurriedly through the hospital tothe matron's room and, wrapping herself in a raccoon coat, made her wayto a waiting motor car and said, "Home!" to the chauffeur. He droveher to the Flagg family vault, as Flagg's envious millionaire neighborscalled the pile of white marble that topped the highest hill aboveGreenwich, and which for years had served as a landfall to mariners onthe Sound. 

There were a number of people at tea when she arrived and they greetedher noisily. 

"I have had a most splendid adventure!" said Sister Anne. "There weresix of us, you know, dressed up as Red Cross nurses, and we gave awayprogrammes. Well, one of the New York reporters thought I was a realnurse and interviewed me about the Home. Of course I knew enough aboutit to keep it up, and I kept it up so well that he was terribly sorryfor me; and.... "

One of the tea drinkers was little Hollis Holworthy, who prided himselfon knowing who's who in New York. He had met Sam Ward at first nightsand prize fights. He laughed scornfully. 

"Don't you believe it!" he interrupted. "That man who was talking to youwas Sam Ward. He's the smartest newspaper man in New York; he wasjust leading you on. Do you suppose there's a reporter in America whowouldn't know you in the dark? Wait until you see the Sunday paper. "

Sister Anne exclaimed indignantly. 

"He did not know me!" she protested. "It quite upset him that I shouldbe wasting my life measuring out medicines and making beds. "

There was a shriek of disbelief and laughter. 

"I told him, " continued Sister Anne, "that I got forty dollars a month, and he said I could make more as a typewriter; and I said I preferred tobe a manicurist. "

"Oh, Anita!" protested the admiring chorus. 

"And he was most indignant. He absolutely refused to allow me to be amanicurist. And he asked me to take a day off with him and let him showme New York. And he offered, as attractions, moving-picture shows and adrive on a Fifth Avenue bus, and feeding peanuts to the animals in thepark. And if I insisted upon a chaperon I might bring one of the nurses. We're to meet at the soda-water fountain in the Grand Central Station. He said, 'The day cannot begin too soon. '"

"Oh, Anita!" shrieked the chorus. 

Lord Deptford, who as the newspapers had repeatedly informed theAmerican public, had come to the Flaggs' country-place to try to marryAnita Flagg, was amused. 

"What an awfully jolly rag!" he cried. "And what are you going to doabout it?"

"Nothing, " said Anita Flagg. "The reporters have been making meridiculous for the last three years; now I have got back at one of them!And, " she added, "that's all there is to that!"

That night, however, when the house party was making toward bed, SisterAnne stopped by the stairs and said to Lord Deptford: "I want to hearyou call me Sister. "

"Call you what?" exclaimed the young man. "I will tell you, " hewhispered, "what I'd like to call you!"

"You will not!" interrupted Anita. "Do as I tell you and say Sisteronce. Say it as though you meant it. "

"But I don't mean it, " protested his lordship. "I've said already whatI.... "

"Never mind what you've said already, " commanded Miss Flagg. "I've heardthat from a lot of people. Say Sister just once. "

His lordship frowned in embarrassment. 

"Sister!" he exclaimed. It sounded like the pop of a cork. 

Anita Flagg laughed unkindly and her beautiful shoulders shivered asthough she were cold. 

"Not a bit like it, Deptford, " she said. "Good-night. "

Later Helen Page, who came to her room to ask her about a horse she wasto ride in the morning, found her ready for bed but standing by the openwindow looking out toward the great city to the south. 

When she turned Miss Page saw something in her eyes that caused thatyoung woman to shriek with amazement. 

"Anita!" she exclaimed. "You crying! What in Heaven's name can make youcry?"

It was not a kind speech, nor did Miss Flagg receive it kindly. Sheturned upon the tactless intruder. 

"Suppose, " cried Anita fiercely, "a man thought you were worth fortydollars a month--honestly didn't know!--honestly believed you were poorand worked for your living, and still said your smile was worth morethan all of old man Flagg's millions, not knowing they were YOURmillions. Suppose he didn't ask any money of you, but just to take careof you, to slave for you--only wanted to keep your pretty hands fromworking, and your pretty eyes from seeing sickness and pain. Suppose youmet that man among this rotten lot, what would you do? What wouldn't youdo?"

"Why, Anita!" exclaimed Miss Page. 

"What would you do?" demanded Anita Flagg. "This is what you'd do: You'dgo down on your knees to that man and say: 'Take me away! Take me awayfrom them, and pity me, and be sorry for me, and love me--and loveme--and love me!"

"And why don't you?" cried Helen Page. 

"Because I'm as rotten as the rest of them!" cried Anita Flagg. "BecauseI'm a coward. And that's why I'm crying. Haven't I the right to cry?"

At the exact moment Miss Flagg was proclaiming herself a moral coward, in the local room of the REPUBLIC Collins, the copy editor, was editingSam's story' of the laying of the corner-stone. The copy editor's cigarwas tilted near his left eyebrow; his blue pencil, like a guillotineready to fall upon the guilty word or paragraph, was suspended inmid-air; and continually, like a hawk preparing to strike, the bluepencil swooped and circled. But page after page fell softly to the deskand the blue pencil remained inactive. As he read, the voice of Collinsrose in muttered ejaculations; and, as he continued to read, theseexplosions grew louder and more amazed. At last he could endure nomore and, swinging swiftly in his revolving chair, his glance swept theoffice. "In the name of Mike!" he shouted. "What IS this?"

The reporters nearest him, busy with pencil and typewriters, frowned inimpatient protest. Sam Ward, swinging his legs from the top of a table, was gazing at the ceiling, wrapped in dreams and tobacco smoke. Upon hisclever, clean-cut features the expression was far-away and beatific. Hecame back to earth. 

"What's what?" Sam demanded. 

At that moment Elliott, the managing editor, was passing through theroom his hands filled with freshly pulled proofs. He swung towardCollins quickly and snatched up Sam's copy. The story already waslate--and it was important. 

"What's wrong?" he demanded. Over the room there fell a sudden hush. 

"Read the opening paragraph, " protested Collins. "It's like that for acolumn! It's all about a girl--about a Red Cross nurse. Not a word aboutFlagg or Lord Deptford. No speeches! No news! It's not a news story atall. It's an editorial, and an essay, and a spring poem. I don't knowwhat it is. And, what's worse, " wailed the copy editor defiantly andto the amazement of all, "it's so darned good that you can't touch it. You've got to let it go or kill it. "

The eyes of the managing editor, masked by his green paper shade, were racing over Sam's written words. He thrust the first page back atCollins. 

"Is it all like that?"

"There's a column like that!"

"Run it just as it is, " commanded the managing editor. "Use it for yourintroduction and get your story from the flimsy. And, in your head, cutout Flagg entirely. Call it 'The Red Cross Girl. ' And play it up strongwith pictures. " He turned on Sam and eyed him curiously. 

"What's the idea, Ward?" he said. "This is a newspaper--not a magazine!"

The click of the typewriters was silent, the hectic rush of the pencilshad ceased, and the staff, expectant, smiled cynically upon the starreporter. Sam shoved his hands into his trousers pockets and alsosmiled, but unhappily. 

"I know it's not news, Sir, " he said; "but that's the way I saw thestory--outside on the lawn, the band playing, and the governor and thegovernor's staff and the clergy burning incense to Flagg; and inside, this girl right on the job--taking care of the sick and wounded. Itseemed to me that a million from a man that won't miss a million didn'tstack up against what this girl was doing for these sick folks! What Iwanted to say, " continued Sam stoutly "was that the moving spirit of thehospital was not in the man who signed the checks, but in these womenwho do the work--the nurses, like the one I wrote about; the one youcalled 'The Red Cross Girl. '"

Collins, strong through many years of faithful service, backed by thetraditions of the profession, snorted scornfully. 

"But it's not news!"

"It's not news, " said Elliott doubtfully; "but it's the kind of storythat made Frank O'Malley famous. It's the kind of story that drivesmen out of this business into the arms of what Kipling calls 'theillegitimate sister. '"

It seldom is granted to a man on the same day to give his whole heart toa girl and to be patted on the back by his managing editor; and it wasthis combination, and not the drinks he dispensed to the staff in returnfor its congratulations, that sent Sam home walking on air. He loved hisbusiness, he was proud of his business; but never before had itserved him so well. It had enabled him to tell the woman he loved, andincidentally a million other people, how deeply he honored her; howclearly he appreciated her power for good. No one would know he meantSister Anne, save two people--Sister Anne and himself; but for her andfor him that was as many as should know. In his story he had used realincidents of the day; he had described her as she passed through thewards of the hospital, cheering and sympathetic; he had told of thelittle acts of consideration that endeared her to the sick people. 

The next morning she would know that it was she of whom he had written;and between the lines she would read that the man who wrote them lovedher. So he fell asleep, impatient for the morning. In the hotel at whichhe lived the REPUBLIC was always placed promptly outside his door; and, after many excursions into the hall, he at last found it. On thefront page was his story, "The Red Cross Girl. " It had the place ofhonor--right-hand column; but more conspicuous than the headlines of hisown story was one of Redding's, photographs. It was the one he had takenof Sister Anne when first she had approached them, in her uniform ofmercy, advancing across the lawn, walking straight into the focus ofthe camera. There was no mistaking her for any other living woman;but beneath the picture, in bold, staring, uncompromising type, was astrange and grotesque legend. 

"Daughter of Millionaire Flagg, " it read, "in a New Role, Miss AnitaFlagg as The Red Cross Girl. "

For a long time Sam looked at the picture, and then, folding the paperso that the picture was hidden, he walked to the open window. Frombelow, Broadway sent up a tumultuous greeting--cable cars jangled, taxishooted; and, on the sidewalks, on their way to work, processions ofshop-girls stepped out briskly. It was the street and the city and thelife he had found fascinating, but now it jarred and affronted him. Agirl he knew had died, had passed out of his life forever--worse thanthat had never existed; and yet the city went or just as though thatmade no difference, or just as little difference as it would have madehad Sister Anne really lived and really died. 

At the same early hour, an hour far too early for the rest of the houseparty, Anita Flagg and Helen Page, booted and riding-habited, sat aloneat the breakfast table, their tea before them; and in the hands of AnitaFlagg was the DAILY REPUBLIC. Miss Page had brought the paper to thetable and, with affected indignation at the impertinence of the press, had pointed at the front-page photograph; but Miss Flagg was not lookingat the photograph, or drinking her tea, or showing in her immediatesurroundings any interest whatsoever. Instead, her lovely eyes werefastened with fascination upon the column under the heading "The RedCross Girl"; and, as she read, the lovely eyes lost all trace of recentslumber, her lovely lips parted breathlessly, and on her lovely cheeksthe color flowed and faded and glowed and bloomed. When she had readas far as a paragraph beginning, "When Sister Anne walked between themthose who suffered raised their eyes to hers as flowers lift their facesto the rain, " she dropped the paper and started for telephone. 

"Any man, " cried she, to the mutual discomfort of Helen Page and theservants, "who thinks I'm like that mustn't get away! I'm not like thatand I know it; but if he thinks so that's all I want. And maybe I mightbe like that--if any man would help. "

She gave her attention to the telephone and "Information. " She demandedto be instantly put into communication with the DAILY REPUBLIC and Mr. Sam Ward. She turned again upon Helen Page. 

"I'm tired of being called a good sport, " she protested, "by men whoaren't half so good sports as I am. I'm tired of being talked to aboutmoney--as though I were a stock-broker. This man's got a head onhis shoulders, and he's got the shoulders too; and he's got a darnedgood-looking head; and he thinks I'm a ministering angel and a saint;and he put me up on a pedestal and made me dizzy--and I like being madedizzy; and I'm for him! And I'm going after him!"

"Be still!" implored Helen Page. "Any one might think you meant it!" Shenodded violently at the discreet backs of the men-servants. 

"Ye gods, Parker!" cried Anita Flagg. "Does it take three of you to poura cup of tea? Get out of here, and tell everybody that you all threecaught me in the act of proposing to an American gentleman over thetelephone and that the betting is even that I'll make him marry me!"

The faithful and sorely tried domestics fled toward the door. "Andwhat's more, " Anita hurled after them, "get your bets down quick, forafter I meet him the odds will be a hundred to one!"

Had the REPUBLIC been an afternoon paper, Sam might have been at theoffice and might have gone to the telephone, and things might havehappened differently; but, as the REPUBLIC was a morning paper, theonly person in the office was the lady who scrubbed the floors and sherefused to go near the telephone. So Anita Flagg said, "I'll call him uplater, " and went happily on her ride, with her heart warm with love forall the beautiful world; but later it was too late. 

To keep himself fit, Sam Ward always walked to the office. On thisparticular morning Hollis Holworthy was walking uptown and they metopposite the cathedral. 

"You're the very man I want, " said Hollworthy joyously--"you've got todecide a bet. "

He turned and fell into step with Sam. 

"It's one I made last night with Anita Flagg. She thinks you didn't knowwho she was yesterday, and I said that was ridiculous. Of course youknew. I bet her a theatre party. "

To Sam it seemed hardly fair that so soon, before his fresh wound hadeven been dressed, it should be torn open by impertinent fingers; but hehad no right to take offense. How could the man, or any one else, knowwhat Sister Anne had meant to him?

"I'm afraid you lose, " he said. He halted to give Holworthy the hint toleave him, but Holworthy had no such intention. 

"You don't say so!" exclaimed that young man. "Fancy one of you chapsbeing taken in like that. I thought you were taking her in--getting upa story for the Sunday supplement. "

Sam shook his head, nodded, and again moved on; but he was not yetto escape. "And, instead of your fooling her, " exclaimed Holworthyincredulously, "she was having fun, with you!"

With difficulty Sam smiled. 

"So it would seem, " he said. 

"She certainly made an awfully funny story of it!" exclaimed Holworthyadmiringly. "I thought she was making it up--she must have made some ofit up. She said you asked her to take a day off in New York. That isn'tso is it?"

"Yes, that's so. "

"By Jove!" cried Holworthy--"and that you invited her to see themoving-picture shows?"

Sam, conscious of the dearly bought front row seats in his pocket, smiled pleasantly. 

"Did she say I said that--or you?" he asked

"She did. "

"Well, then, I must have said it. "

Holworthy roared with amusement. 

"And that you invited her to feed peanuts to the monkeys at the Zoo?"

Sam avoided the little man's prying eyes. 

"Yes; I said that too. "

"And I thought she was making it up!" exclaimed Holworthy. "We didlaugh. You must see the fun of it yourself. "

Lest Sam should fail to do so he proceeded to elaborate. 

"You must see the fun in a man trying to make a date with AnitaFlagg--just as if she were nobody!"

"I don't think, " said Sam, "that was my idea. " He waved his stick at apassing taxi. "I'm late, " he said. He abandoned Hollis on the sidewalk, chuckling and grinning with delight, and unconscious of the mischief hehad made. 

An hour later at the office, when Sam was waiting for an assignment, thetelephone boy hurried to him, his eyes lit with excitement. 

"You're wanted on the 'phone, " he commanded. His voice dropped to anawed whisper. "Miss Anita Flagg wants to speak to you!"

The blood ran leaping to Sam's heart and face. Then he remembered thatthis was not Sister Anne who wanted to speak to him, but a woman he hadnever met. 

"Say you can't find me, " he directed. The boy gasped, fled, and returnedprecipitately. 

"The lady says she wants your telephone number--says she must have it. "

"Tell her you don't know it; tell her it's against the rules--and hangup. "

Ten minutes later the telephone boy, in the strictest confidence, hadinformed every member of the local staff that Anita Flagg--the rich, the beautiful, the daring, the original of the Red Cross story of thatmorning--had twice called up Sam Ward and by that young man had beenthrown down--and thrown hard!

That night Elliott, the managing editor, sent for Sam; and when Samentered his office he found also there Walsh, the foreign editor, withwhom he was acquainted only by sight. 

Elliott introduced them and told Sam to be seated. 

"Ward, " he began abruptly, "I'm sorry to lose you, but you've got to go. It's on account of that story of this morning. "

Sam made no sign, but he was deeply hurt. From a paper he had servedso loyally this seemed scurvy treatment. It struck him also that, considering the spirit in which the story had been written, it wascausing him more kinds of trouble than was quite fair. The loss ofposition did not disturb him. In the last month too many managingeditors had tried to steal him from the REPUBLIC for him to feel anxiousas to the future. So he accepted his dismissal calmly, and could saywithout resentment:

"Last night I thought you liked the story, sir?

"I did, " returned Elliott; "I liked it so much that I'm sending you toa bigger place, where you can get bigger stories. We want you to act asour special correspondent in London. Mr. Walsh will explain the work;and if you'll go you'll sail next Wednesday. "

After his talk with the foreign editor Sam again walked home on air. He could not believe it was real--that it was actually to him it hadhappened; for hereafter he was to witness the march of great events, to come in contact with men of international interests. Instead ofreporting what was of concern only from the Battery to Forty-seventhStreet, he would now tell New York what was of interest in Europe andthe British Empire, and so to the whole world. There was one drawbackonly to his happiness--there was no one with whom he might divide it. He wanted to celebrate his good fortune; he wanted to share it withsome one who would understand how much it meant to him, who would reallycare. Had Sister Anne lived, she would have understood; and he wouldhave laid himself and his new position at her feet and begged her toaccept them--begged her to run away with him to this tremendous andterrifying capital of the world, and start the new life together. 

Among all the women he knew, there was none to take her place. CertainlyAnita Flagg could not take her place. Not because she was rich, notbecause she had jeered at him and made him a laughing-stock, not becausehis admiration--and he blushed when he remembered how openly, howingenuously he had shown it to her--meant nothing; but because the girlhe thought she was, the girl he had made dreams about and wanted tomarry without a moment's notice, would have seen that what he offered, ridiculous as it was when offered to Anita Flagg, was not ridiculouswhen offered sincerely to a tired, nerve-worn, overworked nurse in ahospital. It was because Anita Flagg had not seen that that she couldnot now make up to him for the girl he had lost, even though she herselfhad inspired that girl and for a day given her existence. 

Had he known it, the Anita Flagg of his imagining was just as unlike andas unfair to the real girl as it was possible for two people to be. His Anita Flagg he had created out of the things he had read of her inimpertinent Sunday supplements and from the impression he had been givenof her by the little ass, Holworthy. She was not at all like that. Ever since she had come of age she had been beset by sycophants andflatterers, both old and young, both men and girls, and by men whowanted her money and by men who wanted her. And it was because she gotthe motives of the latter two confused that she was so often hurt andsaid sharp, bitter things that made her appear hard and heartless. 

As a matter of fact, in approaching her in the belief that he wasaddressing an entirely different person, Sam had got nearer to the realAnita Flagg than had any other man. And so--when on arriving at theoffice the next morning, which was a Friday, he received a telegramreading, "Arriving to-morrow nine-thirty from Greenwich; the day cannotbegin too soon; don't forget you promised to meet me. Anita Flagg "--hewas able to reply: "Extremely sorry; but promise made to a differentperson, who unfortunately has since died!"'

When Anita Flagg read this telegram there leaped to her lovely eyestears that sprang from self-pity and wounded feelings. She turnedmiserably, appealingly to Helen Page. 

"But why does he do it to me?" Her tone was that of the bewildered childwho has struck her head against the table, and from the naughty table, without cause or provocation, has received the devil of a bump. 

Before Miss Page could venture upon an explanation, Anita Flagg hadchanged into a very angry young woman. 

"And what's more, " she announced, "he can't do it to me!"

She sent her telegram back again as it was, word for word, but this timeit was signed, "Sister Anne. "

In an hour the answer came: "Sister Anne is the person to whom I refer. She is dead. "

Sam was not altogether at ease at the outcome of his adventure. It wasnot in his nature to be rude--certainly not to a woman, especially notto the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. For, whether her namewas Anita or Anne, about her beauty there could be no argument; but heassured himself that he had acted within his rights. A girl who couldsee in a well-meant offer to be kind only a subject for ridicule wasof no interest to him. Nor did her telegrams insisting upon continuingtheir acquaintance flatter him. As he read them, they showed only thatshe looked upon him as one entirely out of her world--as one with whomshe could do an unconventional thing and make a good story about itlater, knowing that it would be accepted as one of her amusing caprices. 

He was determined he would not lend himself to any such performance. And, besides, he no longer was a foot-loose, happy-go-lucky reporter. Heno longer need seek for experiences and material to turn into copy. He was now a man with a responsible position--one who soon would beconferring with cabinet ministers and putting ambassadors At their ease. He wondered if a beautiful heiress, whose hand was sought in marriageby the nobility of England, would understand the importance of a Londoncorrespondent. He hoped someone would tell her. He liked to think of heras being considerably impressed and a little unhappy. 

Saturday night he went to the theatre for which he had purchasedtickets. And he went alone, for the place that Sister Anne was to haveoccupied could not be filled by any other person. It would have beensacrilege. At least, so it pleased him to pretend. And all throughdinner, which he ate alone at the same restaurant to which he hadintended taking her, he continued, to pretend she was with him. Andat the theatre, where there was going forward the most popular of allmusical comedies, the seat next to him, which to the audience, appearedwastefully empty, was to him filled with her gracious presence. ThatSister Anne was not there--that the pretty romance he had woven abouther had ended in disaster--filled, him with real regret. He was glad hewas leaving New York. He was glad he was going, where nothing wouldremind him of her. And then he glanced up--and looked straight into hereyes!

He was seated in the front row, directly on the aisle. The seat SisterAnne was supposed to be occupying was on his right, and a few seatsfarther to his right rose the stage box and in the stage box, and in thestage box, almost upon the stage, and with the glow of the foot-lightsfull in her face, was Anita Flagg, smiling delightedly down on him. There were others with her. He had a confused impression of bulgingshirt-fronts, and shining silks, and diamonds, and drooping plumes uponenormous hats. He thought he recognized Lord Deptford and Holworthy; butthe only person he distinguished clearly was Anita Flagg. The girl wasall in black velvet, which was drawn to her figure like a wet bathingsuit; round her throat was a single string of pearls, and on her hair ofgolden-rod was a great hat of black velvet, shaped like a bell, with thecurving lips of a lily. And from beneath its brim Anita Flagg, sittingrigidly erect with her white-gloved hands resting lightly on her knee, was gazing down at him, smiling with pleasure, with surprise, withexcitement. 

When she saw that, in spite of her altered appearance, he recognizedher, she bowed so violently and bent her head so eagerly that above herthe ostrich plumes dipped and courtesied like wheat in a storm. But Samneither bowed nor courtesied. Instead, he turned his head slowly overhis left shoulder, as though he thought she was speaking not to him butsome one beyond him, across the aisle. And then his eyes returned to thestage and did not again look toward her. It was not the cut direct, butit was a cut that hurt; and in their turn the eyes of Miss Flagg quicklysought the stage. At the moment, the people in the audience happened tobe laughing; and she forced a smile and then laughed with them. 

Out of the corner of his eye Sam could not help seeing her profileexposed pitilessly in the glow of the foot-lights; saw her lips tremblelike those of a child about to cry; and then saw the forced, hardsmile--and heard her laugh lightly and mechanically. 

"That's all she cares. " he told himself. 

It seemed to him that in all he heard of her, in everything she did, she kept robbing him still further of all that was dear to him in SisterAnne. 

For five minutes, conscious of the foot-lights, Miss Flagg maintainedupon her lovely face a fixed and intent expression, and then slowlyand unobtrusively drew back to a seat in the rear of the box. In the'darkest recesses she found Holworthy, shut off from a view of the stageby a barrier of women's hats. 

"Your friend Mr. Ward, " she began abruptly, in a whisper, "is therudest, most ill-bred person I ever met. When I talked to him theother day I thought he was nice. He was nice, But he has behavedabominably--like a boor--like a sulky child. Has he no sense of humor?Because I played a joke on him, is that any reason why he should hurtme?"

"Hurt you?" exclaimed little Holworthy in amazement. "Don't beridiculous! How could he hurt you? Why should you care how rude he is?Ward's a clever fellow, but he fancies himself. He's conceited. He's toogood-looking; and a lot of silly women have made such a fuss over him. So when one of them laughs at him he can't understand it. That's thetrouble. I could see that when I was telling him. "

"Telling him!" repeated Miss Flagg--"Telling him what?"

"About what a funny story you made of it, " explained Holworthy. "Abouthis having the nerve to ask you to feed the monkeys and to lunch withhim. "

Miss Flagg interrupted with a gasping intake of her breath. 

"Oh!" she said softly. "So-so you told him that, did you? And--what elsedid you tell him?"

"Only what you told us--that he said 'the day could not begin too soon';that he said he wouldn't let you be a manicure and wash the hands of menwho weren't fit to wash the streets you walked on. "

There was a pause. 

"Did I tell you he said that?" breathed Anita Flagg. 

"You know you did, " said Holworthy. 

There was another pause. 

"I must have been mad!" said the girl. 

There was a longer pause and Holworthy shifted uneasily. 

"I'm afraid you are angry, " he ventured. 

"Angry!" exclaimed Miss Flagg. "I should say I was angry, but not withyou. I'm very much pleased with you. At the end of the act I'm going tolet you take me out into the lobby. "

With his arms tightly folded, Sam sat staring unhappily at the stageand seeing nothing. He was sorry for himself because Anita Flagg haddestroyed his ideal of a sweet and noble woman--and he was sorry forMiss Flagg because a man had been rude to her. That he happened to bethat man did not make his sorrow and indignation the less intense; and, indeed, so miserable was he and so miserable were his looks, that hisfriends on the stage considered sending him a note, offering, if hewould take himself out of the front row, to give him back his money atthe box office. Sam certainly wished to take himself away; but he didnot want to admit that he was miserable, that he had behaved ill, thatthe presence of Anita Flagg could spoil his evening--could, in theslightest degree affect him. So he sat, completely wretched, feelingthat he was in a false position; that if he were it was his own fault;that he had acted like an ass and a brute. It was not a cheerfulfeeling. 

When the curtain fell he still remained seated. He knew before thesecond act there was an interminable wait; but he did not want to chancerunning into Holworthy in the lobby and he told himself it would be rudeto abandon Sister Anne. But he now was not so conscious of the imaginarySister Anne as of the actual box party on his near right, who werelaughing and chattering volubly. He wondered whether they laughed athim--whether Miss Flagg were again entertaining them at his expense;again making his advances appear ridiculous. He was so sure of it thathe flushed indignantly. He was glad he had been rude. 

And then, at his elbow, there was the rustle of silk; and a beautifulfigure, all in black velvet, towered above him, then crowded pasthim, and sank into the empty seat at his side. He was too startled tospeak--and Miss Anita Flagg seemed to understand that and to wish togive him time; for, without regarding him in the least, and as thoughto establish the fact that she had come to stay, she began calmly anddeliberately to remove the bell-like hat. This accomplished, she benttoward him, her eyes looking straight into his, her smile reproachinghim. In the familiar tone of an old and dear friend she said to himgently:

"This is the day you planned for me. Don't you think you've wasted quiteenough of it?"

Sam looked back into the eyes, and saw in them no trace of laughter orof mockery, but, instead, gentle reproof and appeal--and something elsethat, in turn, begged of him to be gentle. 

For a moment, too disturbed to speak, he looked at her, miserably, remorsefully. 

"It's not Anita Flagg at all, " he said. "It's Sister Anne come back tolife again!" The girl shook her head. 

"No; it's Anita Flagg. I'm not a bit like the girl you thought you metand I did say all the things Holworthy told you I said; but thatwas before I understood--before I read what you wrote about SisterAnne--about the kind of me you thought you'd met. When I read that Iknew what sort of a man you were. I knew you had been really kind andgentle, and I knew you had dug out something that I did not know wasthere--that no one else had found. And I remembered how you called meSister. I mean the way you said it. And I wanted to hear it again. Iwanted you to say it. "

She lifted her face to his. She was very near him--so near that hershoulder brushed against his arm. In the box above them her friends, scandalized and amused, were watching her with the greatest interest. Half of the people in the now half-empty house were watching them withthe greatest interest. To them, between reading advertisements on theprogramme and watching Anita Flagg making desperate love to a luckyyouth in the front row, there was no question of which to choose. 

The young people in the front row did not know they were observed. They were alone--as much alone as though they were seated in a biplane, sweeping above the clouds. 

"Say it again, " prompted Anita Flagg "Sister. "

"I will not!" returned the young man firmly. "But I'll say this, " hewhispered: "I'll say you're the most wonderful, the most beautiful, andthe finest woman who has ever lived!"

Anita Flagg's eyes left his quickly; and, with her head bent, she staredat the bass drum in the orchestra. 

"I don't know, " she said, "but that sounds just as good. "

When the curtain was about to rise she told him to take her back to herbox, so that he could meet her friends and go on with them to supper;but when they reached the rear of the house she halted. 

"We can see this act, " she said, "or--my car's in front of thetheatre--we might go to the park and take a turn or two or three. Whichwould you prefer?"

"Don't make me laugh!" said Sam. 

As they sat all together at supper with those of the box party, butpaying no attention to them whatsoever, Anita Flagg sighed contentedly. 

"There's only one thing, " she said to Sam, "that is making me unhappy;and because it is such sad news I haven't told you. It is this: I amleaving America. I am going to spend the winter in London. I sail nextWednesday. "

"My business is to gather news, " said Sam, "but in all my life I nevergathered such good news as that. "

"Good news!" exclaimed Anita. 

"Because, " explained Sam, "I am leaving, America--am spending the winterin England. I am sailing on Wednesday. No; I also am unhappy; but thatis not what makes me unhappy. "

"Tell me, " begged Anita. 

"Some day, " said Sam. 

The day he chose to tell her was the first day they were at sea--as theyleaned upon the rail, watching Fire Island disappear. 

"This is my unhappiness, " said Sam--and he pointed to a name on thepassenger list. It was: "The Earl of Deptford, and valet. " "And becausehe is on board!"

Anita Flagg gazed with interest at a pursuing sea-gull. 

"He is not on board, " she said. "He changed to another boat. "

Sam felt that by a word from her a great weight might be lifted from hissoul. He looked at her appealingly--hungrily. 

"Why did he change?" he begged. 

Anita Flagg shook her head in wonder. She smiled at him with amuseddespair. 

"Is that all that is worrying you?" she said. 

Chapter 2. THE GRAND CROSS OF THE CRESCENT

Of some college students it has been said that, in order to pass theirexaminations, they will deceive and cheat their kind professors. Thismay or may not be true. One only can shudder and pass hurriedly on. Butwhatever others may have done, when young Peter Hallowell in his senioryear came up for those final examinations which, should he pass themeven by a nose, would gain him his degree, he did not cheat. He may havebeen too honest, too confident, too lazy, but Peter did not cheat. Itwas the professors who cheated. 

At Stillwater College, on each subject on which you are examined youcan score a possible hundred. That means perfection, and in, the briefhistory of Stillwater, which is a very, new college, only one man hasattained it. After graduating he "accepted a position" in an asylum forthe insane, from which he was, promoted later to the poor-house, wherehe died. Many Stillwater undergraduates studied his career and, lestthey also should attain perfection, were afraid to study anything else. Among these Peter was by far the most afraid. 

The marking system at Stillwater is as follows: If in all the subjectsin which you have been examined your marks added together give you anaverage of ninety, you are passed "with honors"; if of seventy-five, youpass "with distinction"; if Of fifty, You just "pass. " It is not unlikethe grocer's nice adjustment of fresh eggs, good eggs, and eggs. Thewhole college knew that if Peter got in among the eggs he would belucky, but the professors and instructors of Stillwater 'were determinedthat, no matter what young Hallowell might do to prevent it, they wouldsee that he passed his examinations. And they constituted the jury ofawards. Their interest in Peter was not because they loved him so much, but because each loved his own vine-covered cottage, his salary, and hisdignified title the more. And each knew that that one of the faculty whodared to flunk the son of old man Hallowell, who had endowed Stillwater, who supported Stillwater, and who might be expected to go on supportingStillwater indefinitely, might also at the same time hand in hisofficial resignation. 

Chancellor Black, the head of Stillwater, was an up-to-date collegepresident. If he did not actually run after money he went wheremoney was, and it was not his habit to be downright rude to those whopossessed it. And if any three-thousand-dollar-a-year professor, througha too strict respect for Stillwater's standards of learning, should loseto that institution a half-million-dollar observatory, swimming-pool, or gymnasium, he was the sort of college president, who would see toit that the college lost also the services of that too conscientiousinstructor. 

He did not put this in writing or in words, but just before the Juneexaminations, when on, the campus he met one of the faculty, he wouldinquire with kindly interest as to the standing of young Hallowell. 

"That is too bad!" he would exclaim, but, more in sorrow than in anger. "Still, I hope the boy can pull through. He is his dear father's pride, and his father's heart is set upon his son's obtaining his degree. Letus hope he will pull through. " For four years every professor had beenpulling Peter through, and the conscience of each had become calloused. They had only once more to shove him through and they would be free ofhim forever. And so, although they did not conspire together, each knewthat of the firing squad that was to aim its rifles at, Peter, HIS riflewould hold the blank cartridge. 

The only one of them who did not know this was Doctor Henry Gilman. Doctor Gilman was the professor of ancient and modern history atStillwater, and greatly respected and loved. He also was the author ofthose well-known text-books, "The Founders of Islam, " and "The Rise andFall of the Turkish Empire. " This latter work, in five volumes, hadbeen not unfavorably compared to Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the RomanEmpire. " The original newspaper comment, dated some thirty years back, the doctor had preserved, and would produce it, now somewhat frayed andworn, and read it to visitors. He knew it by heart, but to him it alwayspossessed a contemporary and news interest. 

"Here is a review of the history, " he would say--he always referred toit as "the" history--"that I came across in my TRANSCRIPT. "

In the eyes of Doctor Gilman thirty years was so brief a period that itwas as though the clipping had been printed the previous after-noon. 

The members of his class who were examined on the "Rise and Fall, " andwho invariably came to grief over it, referred to it briefly as the"Fall, " sometimes feelingly as "the.... Fall. " The history began whenConstantinople was Byzantium, skipped lightly over six centuries toConstantine, and in the last two Volumes finished up the Mohammedswith the downfall of the fourth one and the coming of Suleiman. SinceSuleiman, Doctor Gilman did not recognize Turkey as being on the map. When his history said the Turkish Empire had fallen, then the TurkishEmpire fell. Once Chancellor Black suggested that he add a sixth volumethat would cover the last three centuries. 

"In a history of Turkey issued as a text-book, " said the chancellor, "Ithink the Russian-Turkish War should be included. "

Doctor Gilman, from behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, gazed at him inmild reproach. "The war in the Crimea!" he exclaimed. "Why, I was aliveat the time. I know about it. That is not history. "

Accordingly, it followed that to a man who since the seventeenth centuryknew of no event, of interest, Cyrus Hallowell, of the meat-packers'trust, was not an imposing figure. And such a man the son of CyrusHallowell was but an ignorant young savage, to whom "the" historycertainly had been a closed book. And so when Peter returned hisexamination paper in a condition almost as spotless as that in whichhe had received it, Doctor Gilman carefully and conscientiously, withmalice toward none and, with no thought of the morrow, marked "five. "

Each of the other professors and instructors had marked Peter fifty. In their fear of Chancellor Black they dared not give the boy less, butthey refused to be slaves to the extent of crediting him with a singlepoint higher than was necessary to pass him. But Doctor Gilman's fivecompletely knocked out the required average of fifty, and young Peterwas "found" and could not graduate. It was an awful business! The onlyson of the only Hallowell refused a degree in his father's own privatecollege--the son of the man who had built the Hallowell Memorial, thenew Laboratory, the Anna Hallowell Chapel, the Hallowell Dormitory, andthe Hallowell Athletic Field. When on the bulletin board of the dimhall of the Memorial to his departed grandfather Peter read of his owndisgrace and downfall, the light the stained-glass window cast upon hisnose was of no sicklier a green than was the nose itself. Not that Peterwanted an A. M. Or an A. B. , not that he desired laurels he had not won, but because the young man was afraid of his father. And he had cause tobe. Father arrived at Stillwater the next morning. The interviews thatfollowed made Stillwater history. 

"My son is not an ass!" is what Hallowell senior is said to have said toDoctor Black. "And if in four years you and your faculty cannot give himthe rudiments of an education, I will send him to a college that can. And I'll send my money where I send Peter. "

In reply Chancellor Black could have said that it was the fault of theson and not of the college; he could have said that where three men hadfailed to graduate one hundred and eighty had not. But did he saythat? Oh, no, he did not say that! He was not that sort of, a collegepresident. Instead, he remained calm and sympathetic, and like aconspirator in a comic opera glanced apprehensively round his, study. Helowered his voice. 

"There has been contemptible work here, " he whispered--"spite and a meanspirit of reprisal. I have been making a secret investigation, and Ifind that this blow at your son and you, and at the good name of ourcollege was struck by one man, a man with a grievance--Doctor Gilman. Doctor Gilman has repeatedly desired me to raise his salary. " This didnot happen to be true, but in such a crisis Doctor Black could not affordto be too particular. 

"I have seen no reason for raising his salary--and there you have theexplanation. In revenge he has made this attack. But he overshot hismark. In causing us temporary embarrassment he has brought about his owndownfall. I have already asked for his resignation. "

Every day in the week Hallowell was a fair, sane man, but on thisparticular day he was wounded, his spirit was hurt, his self-esteemhumiliated. He was in a state of mind to believe anything rather thanthat his son was an idiot. 

"I don't want the man discharged, " he protested, "just because Peter islazy. But if Doctor Gilman was moved by personal considerations, if hesacrificed my Peter in order to get even.... "

"That, " exclaimed Black in a horrified whisper, "is exactly what he did!Your generosity to the college is well known. You are recognized allover America as its patron. And he believed that when I refused him anincrease in salary it was really you who refused it--and he struck atyou through your son. Everybody thinks so. The college is on fire withindignation. And look at the mark he gave Peter! Five! That in itselfshows the malice. Five is not a mark, it is an insult! No one, certainlynot your brilliant son--look how brilliantly he managed the glee-cluband foot-ball tour--is stupid enough to deserve five. No, Doctor Gilmanwent too far. And he has been justly punished!"

What Hallowell senior was willing to believe of what the chancellortold him, and his opinion of the matter as expressed to Peter, differedmaterially. 

"They tell me, " he concluded, "that in the fall they will give youanother examination, and if you pass then, you will get your degree. Noone will know you've got it. They'll slip it to you out of the side-doorlike a cold potato to a tramp. The only thing people will know is thatwhen your classmates stood up and got their parchments--the thing they'dbeen working for four years, the only reason for their going to collegeat all--YOU were not among those present. That's your fault; but if youdon't get your degree next fall that will be my fault. I've supportedyou through college and you've failed to deliver the goods. Now youdeliver them next fall, or you can support yourself. "

"That will be all right, " said Peter humbly; "I'll pass next fall. "

"I'm going to make sure of that, " said Hallowell senior. "To-morrow youwill take those history books that you did not open, especially Gilman's'Rise and Fall, ' which it seems you have not even purchased, and youwill travel for the entire summer with a private tutor.... "

Peter, who had personally conducted the foot-ball and base-ball teamsover half of the Middle States and daily bullied and browbeat them, protested with indignation. "WON'T travel with a private tutor!"

"If I say so, " returned Hallowell senior grimly, "you'll travel witha governess and a trained nurse, and wear a strait jacket. And you'llcontinue to wear it until you can recite the history of Turkey backward. And in order that you may know it backward--and forward you will spendthis summer in Turkey--in Constantinople--until I send you permission tocome home. "

"Constantinople!" yelled Peter. "In August! Are you serious?"

"Do I look it?" asked Peter's father. He did. 

"In Constantinople, " explained Mr. Hallowell senior, "there will benothing to distract you from your studies, and in spite of yourselfevery minute you will be imbibing history and local color. "

"I'll be imbibing fever, ", returned Peter, "and sunstroke and suddendeath. If you want to get rid of me, why don't you send me to the islandwhere they sent Dreyfus? It's quicker. You don't have to go to Turkey tostudy about Turkey. "

"You do!" said his father. 

Peter did not wait for the festivities of commencement week. All day hehid in his room, packing his belongings or giving them away to the membersof his class, who came to tell him what a rotten shame it was, and tobid him good-by. They loved Peter for himself alone, and at losing himwere loyally enraged. They sired publicly to express their sentiments, and to that end they planned a mock trial of the "Rise and Fall, " atwhich a packed jury would sentence it to cremation. They planned also tohang Doctor Gilman in effigy. The effigy with a rope round its neck waseven then awaiting mob violence. It was complete to the silver-whitebeard and the gold spectacles. But Peter squashed both demonstrations. He did not know Doctor Gilman had been forced to resign, but heprotested that the horse-play of his friends would make him appear abad loser. "It would look, boys, " he said, "as though I couldn't take mymedicine. Looks like kicking against the umpire's decision. Old Gilmanfought fair. He gave me just what was coming to me. I think a darn sightmore of him than do of that bunch of boot-lickers that had the colossalnerve to pretend I scored fifty!"

Doctor Gilman sat in his cottage that stood the edge of the campus, gazing at a plaster bust of Socrates which he did not see. Since thatmorning he had ceased to sit in the chair of history at StillwaterCollege. They were retrenching, the chancellor had told him curtly, cutting down unnecessary expenses, for even in his anger Doctor Blackwas too intelligent to hint at his real motive, and the professor wasfar too innocent of evil, far too detached from college politics tosuspect. He would remain a professor emeritus on half pay, but he nolonger would teach. The college he had served for thirty years-sinceit consisted of two brick buildings and a faculty of ten young men--nolonger needed him. Even his ivy-covered cottage, in which his wife andhe had lived for twenty years, in which their one child had died, wouldat the beginning of the next term be required of him. But the collegewould allow him those six months in which to "look round. " So, justoutside the circle of light from his student lamp, he sat in his study, and stared with unseeing eyes at the bust of Socrates. He was notconsidering ways and means. They must be faced later. He was consideringhow he could possibly break the blow to his wife. What eviction fromthat house would mean to her no one but he understood. Since the daytheir little girl had died, nothing in the room that had been herplayroom, bedroom, and nursery had been altered, nothing had beentouched. To his wife, somewhere in the house that wonderful, God-givenchild was still with them. Not as a memory but as a real and livingpresence. When at night the professor and his wife sat at either endof the study table, reading by the same lamp, he would see her suddenlylift her head, alert and eager, as though from the nursery floor a stephad sounded, as though from the darkness a sleepy voice had called her. And when they would be forced to move to lodgings in the town, to somestudents' boarding-house, though they could take with them their books, their furniture, their mutual love and comradeship, they must leavebehind them the haunting presence of the child, the colored pictures shehad cut from the Christmas numbers and plastered over the nursery walls, the rambler roses that with her own hands she had planted and that nowclimbed to her window and each summer peered into her empty room. 

Outside Doctor Gilman's cottage, among the trees of the campus, paperlanterns like oranges aglow were swaying in the evening breeze. In frontof Hallowell the flame of a bonfire shot to the top of the tallestelms, and gathered in a circle round it the glee club sang, and cheersucceeded cheer-cheers for the heroes of the cinder track, for theheroes of the diamond and the gridiron, cheers for the men who hadflunked especially for one man who had flunked. But for that man whofor thirty years in the class room had served the college there wereno cheers. No one remembered him, except the one student who had bestreason to remember him. But this recollection Peter had no rancor orbitterness and, still anxious lest he should be considered a bad loser, he wished Doctor Gilman a every one else to know that. So when thecelebration was at its height and just before train was due to carryhim from Stillwater, ran across the campus to the Gilman cottagesay good-by. But he did not enter the cottage He went so far only ashalf-way up the garden walk. In the window of the study which openedupon the veranda he saw through frame of honeysuckles the professor andwife standing beside the study table. They were clinging to each other, the woman weep silently with her cheek on his shoulder, thin, delicate, well-bred hands clasping arms, while the man comforted her awkwardunhappily, with hopeless, futile caresses. 

Peter, shocked and miserable at what he had seen, backed steadily away. What disaster had befallen the old couple he could not imagine. Theidea that he himself might in any way connected with their grief neverentered mind. He was certain only that, whatever the trouble was, it wassomething so intimate and personal that no mere outsider might dare tooffer his sympathy. So on tiptoe he retreated down the garden walk and, avoiding the celebration at the bonfire, returned to his rooms. An hourlater the entire college escorted him to the railroad station, andwith "He's a jolly good fellow" and "He's off to Philippopolis in themorn--ing" ringing in his ears, he sank back his seat in the smoking-carand gazed at the lights of Stillwater disappearing out of his life. And he was surprised to find that what lingered his mind was not thestudents, dancing like Indians round the bonfire, or at the steps of thesmoking-car fighting to shake his hand, but the man and woman alone inthe cottage stricken with sudden sorrow, standing like two childrenlost in the streets, who cling to each other for comfort and at the samemoment whisper words of courage. 

Two months Later, at Constantinople, Peter, was suffering from remorseover neglected opportunities, from prickly heat, and from fleas. And itnot been for the moving-picture man, and the poker and baccarat at theCercle Oriental, he would have flung himself into the Bosphorus. Inthe mornings with the tutor he read ancient history, which he promptlyforgot; and for the rest of the hot, dreary day with the moving-pictureman through the bazaars and along the water-front he stalked suspectsfor the camera. 

The name of the moving-picture man was Harry Stetson. He had been anewspaper reporter, a press-agent, and an actor in vaudeville and ina moving-picture company. Now on his own account he was preparing anillustrated lecture on the East, adapted to churches and Sunday-schools. Peter and he wrote it in collaboration, and in the evenings rehearsedit with lantern slides before an audience of the hotel clerk, the tutor, and the German soldier of fortune who was trying to sell the young Turksvery old battleships. Every other foreigner had fled the city, and theentire diplomatic corps had removed itself to the summer capital atTherapia. 

There Stimson, the first secretary of the embassy and, in the absenceof the ambassador, CHARGE D'AFFAIRES, invited Peter to become his guest. Stimson was most anxious to be polite to Peter, for Hallowell senior wasa power in the party then in office, and a word from him at Washingtonin favor of a rising young diplomat would do no harm. But Peter wasafraid his father would consider Therapia "out of bounds. "

"He sent me to Constantinople, " explained Peter, "and if he thinks I'mnot playing the game the Lord only knows where he might send me next-andhe might cut off my allowance. "

In the matter of allowance Peter's father had been most generous. Thiswas fortunate, for poker, as the pashas and princes played it athe Cercle, was no game for cripples or children. But, owing to hisletter-of-credit and his illspent life, Peter was able to hold his ownagainst men three times his age and of fortunes nearly equal to that ofhis father. Only they disposed of their wealth differently. On many hotevening Peter saw as much of their money scattered over the green tableas his father had spent over the Hallowell athletic field. 

In this fashion Peter spent his first month of exile--in the morningtrying to fill his brain with names of great men who had been a longtime dead, and in his leisure hours with local color. To a youth of hisactive spirit it was a full life without joy or recompense. A Letterfrom Charley Hines, a classmate who lived at Stillwater, which arrivedafter Peter had endured six weeks of Constantinople, released him fromboredom and gave life a real interest. It was a letter full of gossipintended to amuse. One paragraph failed of its purpose. It read:"Old man Gilman has got the sack. The chancellor offered him up as asacrifice to your father, and because he was unwise enough to flunk you. He is to move out in September. I ran across them last week when I waslooking for rooms for a Freshman cousin. They were reserving one in thesame boarding-house. It's a shame, and I know you'll agree. They are afine old couple, and I don't like to think of them herding with Freshmenin a shine boardinghouse. Black always was a swine. "

Peter spent fully ten minutes getting to the cable office. 

"Just learned, " he cabled his father, "Gilman dismissed because flunkedme consider this outrageous please see he is reinstated. "

The answer, which arrived the next day, did not satisfy Peter. It read:"Informed Gilman acted through spite have no authority as you know tointerfere any act of black. "

Since Peter had learned of the disaster that through his laziness hadbefallen the Gilmans, his indignation at the injustice had been hourlyincreasing. Nor had his banishment to Constantinople strengthened hisfilial piety. On the contrary, it had rendered him independent and butlittle inclined to kiss the paternal rod. In consequence his next cablewas not conciliatory. 

"Dismissing Gilman Looks more Like we acted through spite makes meappear contemptible Black is a toady will do as you direct pleasereinstate. "

To this somewhat peremptory message his father answered:

"If your position unpleasant yourself to blame not Black incident isclosed. "

"Is it?" said the son of his father. He called Stetson to his aidand explained. Stetson reminded him of the famous cablegram of hisdistinguished contemporary: "Perdicaris alive and Raisuli dead!"

Peter's paraphrase of this ran: "Gilman returns to Stillwater or I willnot try for degree. "

The reply was equally emphatic:

"You earn your degree or you earn your own living. "

This alarmed Stetson, but caused Peter to deliver his ultimatum: "Chooseto earn my own living am leaving Constantinople. "

Within a few days Stetson was also leaving Constantinople by steamervia Naples. Peter, who had come to like him very much, would haveaccompanied him had he not preferred to return home more leisurely byway of Paris and London. 

"You'll get there long before I do, " said Peter, "and as soon as youarrive I want you to go to Stillwater and give Doctor Gilman somesouvenir of Turkey from me. Just to show him I've no hard feelings. Hewouldn't accept money, but he can't refuse a present. I want it tobe something characteristic of the country, Like a prayer rug, or ascimitar, or an illuminated Koran, or... "

Somewhat doubtfully, somewhat sheepishly, Stetson drew from his pocket aflat morocco case and opened it. "What's the matter with one of these?"he asked. 

In a velvet-lined jewel case was a star of green enamel and silver gilt. To it was attached a ribbon of red and green. 

"That's the Star of the Crescent, " said Peter. "Where did you buy it?"

"Buy it!" exclaimed Stetson. "You don't buy them. The Sultan bestowsthem. "

"I'll bet the Sultan didn't bestow that one, " said Peter. 

"I'll bet, " returned Stetson, "I've got something in my pocket that sayshe did. "

He unfolded an imposing document covered with slanting lines of curvingArabic letters in gold. Peter was impressed but still skeptical. 

"What does that say when it says it in English?" he asked. 

"It says, " translated Stetson, "that his Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, bestows upon Henry Stetson, educator, author, lecturer, the Star ofthe Order of the Crescent, of the fifth class, for services rendered toTurkey. "

Peter interrupted him indignantly. 

"Never try to fool the fakirs, my son, " he protested. "I'm a fakirmyself. What services did you ever.... "

"Services rendered, " continued Stetson undisturbed, "in spreadingthroughout the United States a greater knowledge of the customs, industries, and religion of the Ottoman Empire. That, " he explained, "refers to my--I should say our--moving-picture lecture. I thoughtit would look well if, when I lectured on Turkey, I wore a Turkishdecoration, so I went after this one. "

Peter regarded his young friend with incredulous admiration. 

"But did they believe you, " he demanded, "when you told them you were anauthor and educator?"

Stetson closed one eye and grinned. "They believed whatever I paid themto believe. "

"If you can get one of those, " cried Peter, "Old man Gilman ought toget a dozen. I'll tell them he's the author of the longest and dullesthistory of their flea-bitten empire that was ever written. And he's areal professor and a real author, and I can prove it. I'll show them thefive volumes with his name in each. How much did that thing cost you?"

"Two hundred dollars in bribes, " said Stetson briskly, "and two monthsof diplomacy. "

"I haven't got two months for diplomacy, " said Peter, "so I'll have toincrease the bribes. I'll stay here and get the decoration for Gilman, and you work the papers at home. No one ever heard of the Order of theCrescent, but that only makes it the easier for us. They'll only knowwhat we tell them, and we'll tell them it's the highest honor everbestowed by a reigning sovereign upon an American scholar. If you tellthe people often enough that anything is the best they believe you. That's the way father sells his hams. You've been a press-agent. From now on you're going to be my press-agent--I mean Doctor Gilman'spress-agent. I pay your salary, but your work is to advertise him andthe Order of the Crescent. I'll give you a letter to Charley Hines atStillwater. He sends out college news to a syndicate and he's the localAssociated Press man. He's sore at their discharging Gilman and he's mybest friend, and he'll work the papers as far as you like. Your job isto make Stillwater College and Doctor Black and my father believe thatwhen they lost Gilman they lost the man who made Stillwater famous. And before we get through boosting Gilman, we'll make my father'smillion-dollar gift laboratory look like an insult. "

In the eyes of the former press-agent the light of battle burnedfiercely, memories of his triumphs in exploitation, of his strategiesand tactics in advertising soared before him. 

"It's great!" he exclaimed. "I've got your idea and you've got me. Andyou're darned lucky to get me. I've been press-agent for politicians, actors, society leaders, breakfast foods, and horse-shows--and I'm thebest! I was in charge of the publicity bureau for Galloway when heran for governor. He thinks the people elected him. I know I did. NoraNashville was getting fifty dollars a week in vaudeville when I tookhold of her; now she gets a thousand. I even made people believe Mrs. Hampton-Rhodes was a society leader at Newport, when all she ever sawof Newport was Bergers and the Muschenheim-Kings. Why, I am the man thatmade the American People believe Russian dancers can dance!"

"It's plain to see you hate yourself, " said 'Peter. "You must not get sodespondent or you might commit suicide. How much money will you want?"

"How much have you got?"

"All kinds, " said Peter. "Some in a letter-of-credit that my fatherearned from the fretful pig, and much more in cash that I won at pokerfrom the pashas. When that's gone I've got to go to work and earn myliving. Meanwhile your salary is a hundred a week and all you needto boost Gilman and the Order of the Crescent. We are now the GilmanDefense, Publicity, and Development Committee, and you will begin byintroducing me to the man I am to bribe. "

"In this country you don't need any introduction to the man you want tobribe, " exclaimed Stetson; "you just bribe him!"

That same night in the smoking-room of the hotel, Peter and Stetson madetheir first move in the game of winning for Professor Gilman the Orderof the Crescent. Stetson presented Peter to a young effendi in a frockcoat and fez. Stetson called him Osman. He was a clerk in the foreignoffice and appeared to be "a friend of a friend of a friend" of theassistant third secretary. 

The five volumes of the "Rise and Fall" were spread before him, andPeter demanded to know why so distinguished a scholar as DoctorGilman had not received some recognition from the country he had sosympathetically described. Osman fingered the volumes doubtfully, andpromised the matter should be brought at once to the attention of thegrand vizier. 

After he had departed Stetson explained that Osman had just as littlechance of getting within speaking distance of the grand vizier as of theladies of his harem. 

"It's like Tammany, " said Stetson; "there are sachems, district leaders, and lieutenants. Each of them is entitled to trade or give away a few ofthese decorations, just as each district leader gets his percentageof jobs in the street-cleaning department. This fellow will go to hispatron, his patron will go to some undersecretary in the cabinet, hewill put it up to a palace favorite, and they will divide your money. 

"In time the minister of foreign affairs will sign your brevet and ahundred others, without knowing what he is signing; then you cable me, and the Star of the Crescent will burst upon the United States in a waythat will make Halley's comet look like a wax match. "

The next day Stetson and the tutor sailed for home and Peter was leftalone to pursue, as he supposed, the Order of the Crescent. On thecontrary, he found that the Order of the Crescent was pursuing him. Hehad not appreciated that, from underlings and backstair politicians, anitinerant showman like Stetson and the only son of an American Croesuswould receive very different treatment. 

Within twenty-four hours a fat man with a blue-black beard and diamondrings called with Osman to apologize for the latter. Osman, the fat manexplained--had been about to make a fatal error. For Doctor Gilman hehad asked the Order of the Crescent of the fifth class, the same classthat had been given Stetson. The fifth class, the fat man explained, wasall very well for tradesmen, dragomans, and eunuchs, but as an honor fora savant as distinguished as the friend of his. Hallowell, the fourthclass would hardly be high enough. The fees, the fat man added, wouldAlso be higher; but, he pointed out, it was worth the difference, because the fourth class entitled the wearer to a salute from allsentries. 

"There are few sentries at Stillwater, " said Peter; "but I want the bestand I want it quick. Get me the fourth class. "

The next morning he was surprised by an early visit from Stimson of theembassy. The secretary was considerably annoyed. 

"My dear Hallowell, " he protested, "why the devil didn't you tell me youwanted a decoration? Of course the State department expressly forbidsus to ask for one for ourselves, or for any one else. But what's theConstitution between friends? I'll get it for you at once--but, on twoconditions: that you don't tell anybody I got it, and that you tell mewhy you want it, and what you ever did to deserve it. "

Instead, Peter explained fully and so sympathetically that the diplomatdemanded that he, too, should be enrolled as one of the Gilman DefenseCommittee. 

"Doctor Gilman's history, " he said, "must be presented to the Sultan. You must have the five volumes rebound in red and green, the colors ofMohammed, and with as much gold tooling as they can carry. I hope, " headded, "they are not soiled. "

"Not by me, " Peter assured him. 

"I will take them myself, " continued Stimson, "to Muley Pasha, theminister of foreign affairs, and ask him to present them to his ImperialMajesty. He will promise to do so, but he won't; but he knows I know hewon't so that is all right. And in return he will present us with theOrder of the Crescent of the third class. "

"Going up!" exclaimed Peter. "The third class. That will cost me myentire letter-of-credit. "

"Not at all, " said Stimson. "I've saved you from the grafters. It willcost you only what you pay to have the books rebound. And the THIRDclass is a real honor of which any one might be proud. You wear itround your neck, and at your funeral it entitles you to an escort of athousand soldiers. "

"I'd rather put up with fewer soldiers, " said Peter, "and wear it longerround my neck What's the matter with our getting the second class or thefirst class?"

At such ignorance Stimson could not repress a smile. 

"The first class, " he explained patiently, "is the Great Grand Cross, and is given only to reigning sovereigns. The second is called the GrandCross, and is bestowed only on crowned princes, prime ministers, and menof world-wide fame.... "

"What's the matter with Doctor Gilman's being of world-wide fame?" saidPeter. "He will be some day, when Stetson starts boosting. "

"Some day, " retorted Stimson stiffly, "I may be an ambassador. When Iam I hope to get the Grand Cross of the Crescent, but not now. I'msorry you're not satisfied, " he added aggrievedly. "No one can get youanything higher than the third class, and I may lose my official headasking for that. "

"Nothing is too good for old man Gilman, " said Peter, "nor for you. You get the third class for him, and I'll have father make you anambassador. "

That night at poker at the club Peter sat next to Prince Abdul, whohad come from a reception at the Grand vizier's and still wore hisdecorations. Decorations now fascinated Peter, and those on the coat ofthe young prince he regarded with wide-eyed awe. He also regarded Abdulwith wide-eyed awe, because he was the favorite nephew of the Sultan, and because he enjoyed the reputation of having the worst reputationin Turkey. Peter wondered why. He always had found Abdul charming, distinguished, courteous to the verge of humility, most cleverlycynical, most brilliantly amusing. At poker he almost invariably won, and while doing so was so politely bored, so indifferent to his cardsand the cards held by others, that Peter declared he had never met hisequal. 

In a pause in the game, while some one tore the cover off a fresh pack, Peter pointed at the star of diamonds that nestled behind the lapel ofAbdul's coat. 

"May I ask what that is?" said Peter. 

The prince frowned at his diamond sunburst as though it annoyed him, andthen smiled delightedly. 

"It is an order, " he said in a quick aside, "bestowed only upon men ofworld-wide fame. I dined to-night, " he explained, "with your charmingcompatriot, Mr. Joseph Stimson. "

"And Joe told?" said Peter. 

The prince nodded. "Joe told, " he repeated; "but it is all arranged. Your distinguished friend, the Sage of Stillwater, will receive theCrescent of the third class. "

Peter's eyes were still fastened hungrily upon the diamond sunburst. 

"Why, " he demanded, "can't some one get him one like that?"

As though about to take offense the prince raised his eyebrows, and thenthought better of it and smiled. 

"There are only two men in all Turkey, " he said, "who could do that. "

"And is the Sultan the other one?" asked Peter. The prince gasped asthough he had suddenly stepped beneath a cold shower, and then laughedlong and silently. 

"You flatter me, " he murmured. 

"You know you could if you liked!" whispered Peter stoutly. 

Apparently Abdul did not hear him. "I will take one card, " he said. 

Toward two in the morning there was seventy-five thousand francs inthe pot, and all save Prince Abdul and Peter had dropped out. "Will youdivide?" asked the prince. 

"Why should I?" said Peter. "I've got you beat now. Do you raise me orcall?" The prince called and laid down a full house. Peter showed fourtens. 

"I will deal you one hand, double or quits, " said the prince. 

Over the end of his cigar Peter squinted at the great heap ofmother-of-pearl counters and gold-pieces and bank-notes. 

"You will pay me double what is on the table, " he said, "or you quitowing me nothing. "

The prince nodded. 

"Go ahead, " said Peter. 

The prince dealt them each a hand and discarded two cards. Peter helda seven, a pair of kings, and a pair of fours. Hoping to draw anotherking, which might give him a three higher than the three held by Abdul, he threw away the seven and the lower pair. He caught another king. Theprince showed three queens and shrugged his shoulders. 

Peter, leaning toward him, spoke out of the corner of his mouth. 

"I'll make you a sporting proposition, " he murmured. "You owe me ahundred and fifty thousand francs. I'll stake that against what onlytwo men in the empire can give me. "

The prince allowed his eyes to travel slowly round the circle of thetable. But the puzzled glances of the other players showed that to themPeter's proposal conveyed no meaning. 

The prince smiled cynically. 

"For yourself?" he demanded. 

"For Doctor Gilman, " said Peter. 

"We will cut for deal and one hand will decide, " said the prince. Hisvoice dropped to a whisper. "And no one must ever know, " he warned. 

Peter also could be cynical. 

"Not even the Sultan, " he said. 

Abdul won the deal and gave himself a very good hand. But the hand hedealt Peter was the better one. 

The prince was a good loser. The next afternoon the GAZETTE OFFICIALLYannounced that upon Doctor Henry Gilman, professor emeritus of theUniversity of Stillwater, U. S. A. , the Sultan had been graciouslypleased to confer the Grand Cross of the Order of the Crescent. 

Peter flashed the great news to Stetson. The cable caught him atQuarantine. It read: "Captured Crescent, Grand Cross. Get busy. "

But before Stetson could get busy the campaign of publicity hadbeen brilliantly opened from Constantinople. Prince Abdul, althoughpitchforked into the Gilman Defense Committee, proved himself one of itsmost enthusiastic members. 

"For me it becomes a case of NOBLESSE OBLIGE, " he declared. "If itis worth doing at all it is worth doing well. To-day the Sultan willcommand that the 'Rise and Fall' be translated into Arabic, and thatit be placed in the national library. Moreover, the University ofConstantinople, the College of Salonica, and the National HistoricalSociety have each elected Doctor Gilman an honorary member. I proposedhim, the Patriarch of Mesopotamia seconded him. And the Turkishambassador in America has been instructed to present the insignia withhis own hands. "

Nor was Peter or Stimson idle. To assist Stetson in his press-work, andto further the idea that all Europe was now clamoring for the "Rise andfall, " Peter paid an impecunious but over-educated dragoman to translateit into five languages, and Stimson officially wrote of this, and of thebestowal of the Crescent to the State Department. He pointed out thatnot since General Grant had passed through Europe had the Sultan sohighly honored an American. He added he had been requested by the grandvizier--who had been requested by Prince Abdul--to request the StateDepartment to inform Doctor Gilman of these high honors. A request fromsuch a source was a command and, as desired, the State Departmentwrote as requested by the grand vizier to Doctor Gilman, and tenderedcongratulations. The fact was sent out briefly from Washington byAssociated Press. This official recognition by the Government and by thenewspapers was all and more than Stetson wanted. He took off his coatand with a megaphone, rather than a pen, told the people of the UnitedStates who Doctor Gilman was, who the Sultan was, what a Grand Crosswas, and why America's greatest historian was not without honor save inhis own country. Columns of this were paid for and appeared as "patentinsides, " with a portrait of Doctor Gilman taken from the STILLWATERCOLLEGE ANNUAL, and a picture of the Grand Cross drawn from imagination, in eight hundred newspapers of the Middle, Western, and Eastern States. Special articles, paragraphs, portraits, and pictures of the Grand Crossfollowed, and, using Stillwater as his base, Stetson continued toflood the country. Young Hines, the local correspondent, acting underinstructions by cable from Peter, introduced him to Doctor Gilman as atraveller who lectured on Turkey, and one who was a humble admirerof the author of the "Rise and fall. " Stetson, having studied it as astudent crams an examination, begged that he might sit at the feet ofthe master. And for several evenings, actually at his feet, on the stepsof the ivy-covered cottage, the disguised press-agent drew from theunworldly and unsuspecting scholar the simple story of his life. To this, still in his character as disciple and student, he addedphotographs he himself made of the master, of the master's ivy-coveredcottage, of his favorite walk across the campus, of the great historianat work at his desk, at work in his rose garden, at play with his wifeon the croquet lawn. These he held until the insignia should be actuallypresented. This pleasing duty fell to the Turkish ambassador, who, muchto his astonishment, had received instructions to proceed to Stillwater, Massachusetts, a place of which he had never heard, and present toa Doctor Gilman, of whom he had never heard, the Grand Cross of theCrescent. As soon as the insignia arrived in the official mail-baga secretary brought it from Washington to Boston, and the ambassadortravelled down from Bar Harbor to receive it, and with the secretarytook the local train to Stillwater. 

The reception extended to him there is still remembered by theambassador as one of the happiest incidents of his distinguished career. Never since he came to represent his imperial Majesty in the Westernrepublic had its barbarians greeted him in a manner in any way so nearlyapproaching his own idea of what was his due. 

"This ambassador, " Hines had explained to the mayor of Stillwater, who was also the proprietor of its largest department store, "is thepersonal representative of the Sultan. So we've got to treat him right. "

"It's exactly, " added Stetson, "as though the Sultan himself werecoming. "

"And so few crowned heads visit Stillwater, " continued Hines, "that weought to show we appreciate this one, especially as he comes to pay thehighest honor known to Europe to one of our townsmen. "

The mayor chewed nervously on his cigar. 

"What'd I better do?" he asked. 

"Mr. Stetson here, " Hines pointed out, "has lived in Turkey, and heknows what they expect. Maybe he will help us. "

"Will you?" begged the mayor. 

"I will, " said Stetson. 

Then they visited the college authorities. Chancellor Black and mostof the faculty were on their vacations. But there were half a dozenprofessors still in their homes around the campus, and it was pointedout to them that the coming honor to one lately of their numberreflected glory upon the college and upon them, and that they shouldtake official action. 

It was also suggested that for photographic purposes they should weartheir academic robes, caps, and hoods. To these suggestions, withalacrity--partly because they all loved Doctor Gilman and partly becausethey had never been photographed by a moving-picture machine--they allagreed. So it came about that when the ambassador, hot and cross anddusty stepped off the way-train at Stillwater station he found tohis delighted amazement a red carpet stretching to a perfectly newautomobile, a company of the local militia presenting arms, a committee, consisting of the mayor in a high hat and white gloves and threeprofessors in gowns and colored hoods, and the Stillwater silverCornet Band playing what, after several repetitions, the ambassador wasgraciously pleased to recognize as his national anthem. 

The ambassador forgot that he was hot and cross. He forgot that he wasdusty. His face radiated satisfaction and perspiration. Here at lastwere people who appreciated him and his high office. And as themayor helped him into the automobile, and those students who livedin Stillwater welcomed him with strange yells, and the moving-picturemachine aimed at him point blank, he beamed with condescension. Butinwardly he was ill at ease. 

Inwardly he was chastising himself for having, through his ignorance ofAmerica, failed to appreciate the importance of the man he had come tohonor. When he remembered he had never even heard of Doctor Gilman heblushed with confusion. And when he recollected that he had been almoston the point of refusing to come to Stillwater, that he had consideredleaving the presentation to his secretary, he shuddered. What might notthe Sultan have done to him! What a narrow escape!

Attracted by the band, by the sight of their fellow townsmen in khaki, by the sight of the stout gentleman in the red fez, by a tremendousliking and respect for Doctor Gilman, the entire town of Stillwatergathered outside his cottage. And inside, the old professor, tremblingand bewildered and yet strangely happy, bowed his shoulders while theambassador slipped over them the broad green scarf and upon his onlyfrock coat pinned the diamond sunburst. In woeful embarrassment DoctorGilman smiled and bowed and smiled, and then, as the delighted mayor ofStillwater shouted, "Speech, " in sudden panic he reached out his handquickly and covertly, and found the hand of his wife. 

"Now, then, three Long ones!" yelled the cheer leader. "Now, then, 'Seethe Conquering Hero!'" yelled the bandmaster. "Attention! Present arms!"yelled the militia captain; and the townspeople and the professorsapplauded and waved their hats and handkerchiefs. And Doctor Gilman andhis wife, he frightened and confused, she happy and proud, and taking itall as a matter of course, stood arm in arm in the frame of honeysucklesand bowed and bowed and bowed. And the ambassador so far unbent as todrink champagne, which appeared mysteriously in tubs of ice from therear of the ivy-covered cottage, with the mayor, with the wives of theprofessors, with the students, with the bandmaster. Indeed, so often didhe unbend that when the perfectly new automobile conveyed him back tothe Touraine, he was sleeping happily and smiling in his sleep. 

Peter had arrived in America at the same time as had the insignia, butHines and Stetson would not let him show himself in Stillwater. They were afraid if all three conspirators foregathered they mightinadvertently drop some clew that would lead to suspicion and discovery. 

So Peter worked from New York, and his first act was anonymously tosupply his father and Chancellor Black with All the newspaper accountsof the great celebration at Stillwater. When Doctor black read them hechoked. Never before had Stillwater College been brought so prominentlybefore the public, and never before had her president been so utterlyand completely ignored. And what made it worse was that he recognizedthat even had he been present he could not have shown his face. Howcould he, who had, as every one connected with the college now knew, outof spite and without cause, dismissed an old and faithful servant, joinin chanting his praises. He only hoped his patron, Hallowell senior, might not hear of Gilman's triumph. But Hallowell senior heard little ofanything else. At his office, at his clubs, on the golf-links, every onehe met congratulated him on the high and peculiar distinction that hadcome to his pet college. 

"You certainly have the darnedest luck in backing the right horse, "exclaimed a rival pork-packer enviously. "Now if I pay a hundredthousand for a Velasquez it turns out to be a bad copy worth thirtydollars, but you pay a professor three thousand and he brings you inhalf a million dollars' worth of free advertising. Why, this DoctorGilman's doing as much for your college as Doctor Osler did for JohnsHopkins or as Walter Camp does for Yale. "

Mr. Hallowell received these Congratulations as gracefully as hewas able, and in secret raged at Chancellor Black. Each day his rageincreased. It seemed as though there would never be an end to DoctorGilman. The stone he had rejected had become the corner-stone ofStillwater. Whenever he opened a newspaper he felt like exclaiming:"Will no one rid me of this pestilent fellow?" For the "Rise and Fall, "in an edition deluxe limited to two hundred copies, was being bought upby all his book-collecting millionaire friends; a popular edition wason view in the windows of every book-shop; It was offered as a prize tosubscribers to all the more sedate magazines, and the name and featuresof the distinguished author had become famous and familiar. Not a daypassed but that some new honor, at least so the newspapers stated, was thrust upon him. Paragraphs announced that he was to be the nextexchange professor to Berlin; that in May he was to lecture at theSorbonne; that in June he was to receive a degree from Oxford. 

A fresh-water college on one of the Great Lakes leaped to the front byoffering him the chair of history at that seat of learning at a salaryof five thousand dollars a year. Some of the honors that had been thrustupon Doctor Gilman existed only in the imagination of Peter and Stetson, but this offer happened to be genuine. 

"Doctor Gilman rejected it without consideration. He read the letterfrom the trustees to his wife and shook his head. 

"We could not be happy away from Stillwater, " he said. "We have only amonth more in the cottage, but after that we still can walk past it; wecan look into the garden and see the flowers she planted. We can visitthe place where she lies. But if we went away we should be lonely andmiserable for her, and she would be lonely for us. "

Mr. Hallowell could not know why Doctor Gilman had refused to leaveStillwater; but when he read that the small Eastern college at whichDoctor Gilman had graduated had offered to make him its president, hisjealousy knew no bounds. 

He telegraphed to Black: "Reinstate Gilman at once; offer him sixthousand--offer him whatever he wants, but make him promise for noconsideration to leave Stillwater he is only member faculty ever broughtany credit to the college if we lose him I'll hold you responsible. "

The next morning, hat in hand, smiling ingratiatingly, the Chancellorcalled upon Doctor Gilman and ate so much humble pie that for a week hesuffered acute mental indigestion. But little did Hallowell senior carefor that. He had got what he wanted. Doctor Gilman, the distinguished, was back in the faculty, and had made only one condition--that he mightlive until he died in the ivy-covered cottage. 

Two weeks later, when Peter arrived at Stillwater to take the historyexamination, which, should he pass it, would give him his degree, hefound on every side evidences of the "worldwide fame" he himself hadcreated. The newsstand at the depot, the book-stores, the drugstores, the picture-shops, all spoke of Doctor Gilman; and postcards showingthe ivy-covered cottage, photographs and enlargements of Doctor Gilman, advertisements of the different editions of "the" history proclaimedhis fame. Peter, fascinated by the success of his own handiwork, approached the ivy-covered cottage in a spirit almost of awe. But Mrs. Gilman welcomed him with the same kindly, sympathetic smile with whichshe always gave courage to the unhappy ones coming up for examinations, and Doctor Gilman's high honors in no way had spoiled his gentlecourtesy. 

The examination was in writing, and when Peter had handed in his papersDoctor Gilman asked him if he would prefer at once to know the result. 

"I should indeed!" Peter assured him. 

"Then I regret to tell you, Hallowell, " said the professor, "that youhave not passed. I cannot possibly give you a mark higher than five. " Inreal sympathy the sage of Stillwater raised his eyes, but to his greatastonishment he found that Peter, so far from being cast down or takingoffense, was smiling delightedly, much as a fond parent might smile uponthe precocious act of a beloved child. 

"I am afraid, " said Doctor Gilman gently, "that this summer you did notwork very hard for your degree!"

Peter Laughed and picked up his hat. 

"To tell you the truth, Professor, " he said, "you're right I got workingfor something worth while--and I forgot about the degree. "

Chapter 3. THE INVASION OF ENGLAND

This is the true inside story of the invasion of England in 1911 by theGermans, and why it failed. I got my data from Baron von Gottlieb, atthe time military attaché of the German Government with the Russianarmy in the second Russian-Japanese War, when Russia drove Japan out ofManchuria, and reduced her to a third-rate power. He told me of hispart in the invasion as we sat, after the bombardment of Tokio, on theramparts of the Emperor's palace, watching the walls of the paper housesbelow us glowing and smoking like the ashes of a prairie fire. 

Two years before, at the time of the invasion, von Gottlieb had beenCarl Schultz, the head-waiter at the East Cliff Hotel at Cromer, and aspy. 

The other end of the story came to me through Lester Ford, the Londoncorrespondent of the New York Republic. They gave me permission to tellit in any fashion I pleased, and it is here set down for the first time. 

In telling the story, my conscience is not in the least disturbed, for Ihave yet to find any one who will believe it. 

What led directly to the invasion was that some week-end guest ofthe East Cliff Hotel left a copy of "The Riddle of the Sands" inthe coffee-room, where von Gottlieb found it; and the fact that Fordattended the Shakespeare Ball. Had neither of these events taken place, the German flag might now be flying over Buckingham Palace. And, thenagain, it might not. 

As every German knows, "The Riddle of the Sands" is a novel written by avery clever Englishman in which is disclosed a plan for the invasionof his country. According to this plan an army of infantry was tobe embarked in lighters, towed by shallow-draft, sea-going tugs, anddespatched simultaneously from the seven rivers that form the FrisianIsles. From there they were to be convoyed by battle-ships two hundredand forty miles through the North Sea, and thrown upon the coast ofNorfolk somewhere between the Wash and Mundesley. The fact that thiscoast is low-lying and bordered by sand flats which at low water aredry, that England maintains no North Sea squadron, and that her nearestnaval base is at Chatham, seem to point to it as the spot best adaptedfor such a raid. 

What von Gottlieb thought was evidenced by the fact that as soon as heread the book he mailed it to the German Ambassador in London, andunder separate cover sent him a letter. In this he said: "I suggest yourExcellency bring this book to the notice of a certain royal personage, and of the Strategy Board. General Bolivar said, 'When you want arms, take them from the enemy. ' Does not this also follow when you wantideas?"

What the Strategy Board thought of the plan is a matter of history. Thiswas in 1910. A year later, during the coronation week, Lester Fordwent to Clarkson's to rent a monk's robe in which to appear at theShakespeare Ball, and while the assistant departed in search of therobe, Ford was left alone in a small room hung with full-length mirrorsand shelves, and packed with the uniforms that Clarkson rents for CoventGarden balls and amateur theatricals. While waiting, Ford gratified along, secretly cherished desire to behold himself as a military man, bytrying on all the uniforms on the lower shelves; and as a result, whenthe assistant returned, instead of finding a young American in Englishclothes and a high hat, he was confronted by a German officer in aspiked helmet fighting a duel with himself in the mirror. Theassistant retreated precipitately, and Ford, conscious that he appearedridiculous, tried to turn the tables by saying, "Does a German uniformalways affect a Territorial like that?"

The assistant laughed good-naturedly. 

"It did give me quite a turn, " he said. "It's this talk of invasion, Ifancy. But for a fact, sir, if I was a Coast Guard, and you came alongthe beach dressed like that, I'd take a shot at you, just on the chance, anyway. "

"And, quite right, too!" said Ford. 

He was wondering when the invasion did come whether he would stick athis post in London and dutifully forward the news to his paper, or playtruant and as a war correspondent watch the news in the making. So thewords of Mr. Clarkson's assistant did not sink in. But a few weeks lateryoung Major Bellew recalled them. Bellew was giving a dinner on theterrace of the Savoy Restaurant. His guests were his nephew, youngHerbert, who was only five years younger than his uncle, and Herbert'sfriend Birrell, an Irishman, both in their third term at the university. After five years' service in India, Bellew had spent the last "Eights"week at Oxford, and was complaining bitterly that since his day theundergraduate had deteriorated. He had found him serious, given tostudy, far too well behaved. Instead of Jorrocks, he read Galsworthy;instead of "wines" he found pleasure in debating clubs where hediscussed socialism. Ragging, practical jokes, ingenious hoaxes, that once were wont to set England in a roar, were a lost art. Hisundergraduate guests combated these charges fiercely. His criticismsthey declared unjust and without intelligence. 

"You're talking rot!" said his dutiful nephew. "Take Phil here, forexample. I've roomed with him three years and I can testify that he hasnever opened a book. He never heard of Galsworthy until you spoke ofhim. And you can see for yourself his table manners are quite as bad asyours!"

"Worse!" assented Birrell loyally. 

"And as for ragging! What rags, in your day, were as good as ours;as the Carrie Nation rag, for instance, when five hundred people satthrough a temperance lecture and never guessed they were listening to aman from Balliol?"

"And the Abyssinian Ambassador rag!" cried Herbert. "What price that?When the DREADNOUGHT manned the yards for him and gave him seventeenguns. That was an Oxford rag, and carried through by Oxford men. Thecountry hasn't stopped laughing yet. You give us a rag!" challengedHerbert. "Make it as hard as you like; something risky, something thatwill make the country sit up, something that will send us all to jail, and Phil and I will put it through whether it takes one man or a dozen. Go on, " he persisted, "And I bet we can get fifty volunteers right herein town and all of them undergraduates. "

"Give you the idea, yes!" mocked Bellew, trying to gain time. "That'sjust what I say. You boys to-day are so dull. You lack initiative. It'sthe idea that counts. Anybody can do the acting. That's just amateurtheatricals!"

"Is it!" snorted Herbert. "If you want to know what stage fright is, just go on board a British battle-ship with your face covered with burntcork and insist on being treated like an ambassador. You'll find it's alittle different from a first night with the Simla Thespians!"

Ford had no part in the debate. He had been smoking comfortably andwith well-timed nods, impartially encouraging each disputant. But nowhe suddenly laid his cigar upon his plate, and, after glancing quicklyabout him, leaned eagerly forward. They were at the corner table ofthe terrace, and, as it was now past nine o'clock, the other diners haddeparted to the theatres and they were quite alone. Below them, outsidethe open windows, were the trees of the embankment, and beyond, theThames, blocked to the west by the great shadows of the Houses ofParliament, lit only by the flame in the tower that showed the LowerHouse was still sitting. 

"I'LL give you an idea for a rag, " whispered Ford. "One that is risky, that will make the country sit up, that ought to land you in Jail? Haveyou read 'The Riddle of the Sands'?"

Bellew and Herbert nodded; Birrell made no sign. 

"Don't mind him, " exclaimed Herbert impatiently. "HE never readsanything! Go on!"

"It's the book most talked about, " explained Ford. "And what else ismost talked about?" He answered his own question. "The landing of theGermans in Morocco and the chance of war. Now, I ask you, with that bookin everybody's mind, and the war scare in everybody's mind, what wouldhappen if German soldiers appeared to-night on the Norfolk coast justwhere the book says they will appear? Not one soldier, but dozens ofsoldiers; not in one place, but in twenty places?"

"What would happen?" roared Major Bellew loyally. "The Boy Scouts wouldfall out of bed and kick them into the sea!"

"Shut up!" snapped his nephew irreverently. He shook Ford by the arm. "How?" he demanded breathlessly. "How are we to do it? It would takehundreds of men. "

"Two men, " corrected Ford, "And a third man to drive the car. Ithought it out one day at Clarkson's when I came across a lot of Germanuniforms. I thought of it as a newspaper story, as a trick to find outhow prepared you people are to meet invasion. And when you said just nowthat you wanted a chance to go to jail--"

"What's your plan?" interrupted Birrell. 

"We would start just before dawn--" began Ford. 

"We?" demanded Herbert. "Are you in this?"

"Am I in it?" cried Ford indignantly. "It's my own private invasion! I'mletting you boys in on the ground floor. If I don't go, there won t beany invasion!"

The two pink-cheeked youths glanced at each other inquiringly and thennodded. 

"We accept your services, sir, " said Birrell gravely. "What's yourplan?"

In astonishment Major Bellew glanced from one to the other and thenslapped the table with his open palm. His voice shook with righteousindignation. 

"Of all the preposterous, outrageous--Are you mad?" he demanded. "Do yousuppose for one minute I will allow--"

His nephew shrugged his shoulders and, rising, pushed back his chair. 

"Oh, you go to the devil!" he exclaimed cheerfully. "Come on, Ford, " hesaid. "We'll find some place where uncle can't hear us. "

Two days later a touring car carrying three young men, in the twenty-onemiles between Wells and Cromer, broke down eleven times. Each time thismisfortune befell them one young man scattered tools in the road andon his knees hammered ostentatiously at the tin hood; and the other twooccupants of the car sauntered to the beach. There they chucked pebblesat the waves and then slowly retraced their steps. Each time the routeby which they returned was different from the one by which they had setforth. Sometimes they followed the beaten path down the cliff or, as itchanced to be, across the marshes; sometimes they slid down the face ofthe cliff; sometimes they lost themselves behind the hedges and in thelanes of the villages. But when they again reached the car the procedureof each was alike--each produced a pencil and on the face of his "HalfInch" road map traced strange, fantastic signs. 

At lunch-time they stopped at the East Cliff Hotel at Cromer and madenumerous and trivial inquiries about the Cromer golf links. They hadcome, they volunteered, from Ely for a day of sea-bathing and golf; theywere returning after dinner. The head-waiter of the East CliffHotel gave them the information they desired. He was an intelligenthead-waiter, young, and of pleasant, not to say distinguished, bearing. In a frock coat he might easily have been mistaken for something evenmore important than a head-waiter--for a German riding-master, a leaderof a Hungarian band, a manager of a Ritz hotel. But he was not above hisstation. He even assisted the porter in carrying the coats and golfbags of the gentlemen from the car to the coffee-room where, with theintuition of the homing pigeon, the three strangers had, unaided, foundtheir way. As Carl Schultz followed, carrying the dust-coats, a road mapfell from the pocket of one of them to the floor. Carl Schultz pickedit up, and was about to replace it, when his eyes were held by notesscrawled roughly in pencil. With an expression that no longer was thatof a head-waiter, Carl cast one swift glance about him and then slippedinto the empty coat-room and locked the door. Five minutes later, witha smile that played uneasily over a face grown gray with anxiety, Carlpresented the map to the tallest of the three strangers. It was open sothat the pencil marks were most obvious. By his accent it was evidentthe tallest of the three strangers was an American. 

"What the devil!" he protested; "which of you boys has been playing hobwith my map?"

For just an instant the two pink-cheeked ones regarded him withdisfavor; until, for just an instant, his eyebrows rose and, with aglance, he signified the waiter. 

"Oh, that!" exclaimed the younger one. "The Automobile Club asked usto mark down petrol stations. Those marks mean that's where you can buypetrol. "

The head-waiter breathed deeply. With an assured and happy countenance, he departed and, for the two-hundredth time that day, looked from thewindows of the dining-room out over the tumbling breakers to the graystretch of sea. As though fearful that his face would expose his secret, he glanced carefully about him and then, assured he was alone, leanedeagerly forward, scanning the empty, tossing waters. 

In his mind's eye he beheld rolling tug-boats straining against longlines of scows, against the dead weight of field-guns, against the pullof thousands of motionless, silent figures, each in khaki, each in ablack leather helmet, each with one hundred and fifty rounds. 

In his own language Carl Schultz reproved himself. 

"Patience, " he muttered; "patience! By ten to-night all will be dark. There will be no stars. There will be no moon. The very heavens fightfor us, and by sunrise our outposts will be twenty miles inland!"

At lunch-time Carl Schultz carefully, obsequiously waited upon thethree strangers. He gave them their choice of soup, thick or clear, of gooseberry pie or Half-Pay pudding. He accepted their shillingsgratefully, and when they departed for the links he bowed them on theirway. And as their car turned up Jetty Street, for one instant, heagain allowed his eyes to sweep the dull gray ocean. Brown-sailedfishing-boats were beating in toward Cromer. On the horizon line aNorwegian tramp was drawing a lengthening scarf of smoke. Save for thesethe sea was empty. 

By gracious permission of the manageress Carl had obtained an afternoonoff, and, changing his coat, he mounted his bicycle and set forth towardOverstrand. On his way he nodded to the local constable, to the postmanon his rounds, to the driver of the char à banc. He had been a year inCromer and was well known and well liked. 

Three miles from Cromer, at the top of the highest hill in Overstrand, the chimneys of a house showed above a thick tangle of fir-trees. Between the trees and the road rose a wall, high, compact, forbidding. Carl opened the gate in the wall and pushed his bicycle up a windingpath hemmed in by bushes. At the sound of his feet on the gravel thebushes new apart, and a man sprang into the walk and confronted him. But, at sight of the head-waiter, the legs of the man became rigid, hisheels clicked together, his hand went sharply to his visor. 

Behind the house, surrounded on every side by trees, was a tiny lawn. In the centre of the lawn, where once had been a tennis court, therenow stood a slim mast. From this mast dangled tiny wires that ran to akitchen table. On the table, its brass work shining in the sun, was anew and perfectly good wireless outfit, and beside it, with his hand onthe key, was a heavily built, heavily bearded German. In his turn, Carldrew his legs together, his heels clicked, his hand stuck to his visor. 

"I have been in constant communication, " said the man with the beard. "They will be here just before the dawn. Return to Cromer and openlyfrom the post-office telegraph your cousin in London: 'Will meet youto-morrow at the Crystal Palace. ' On receipt of that, in the lastedition of all of this afternoon's papers, he will insert the finaladvertisement. Thirty thousand of our own people will read it. They willknow the moment has come!"

As Carl coasted back to Cromer he flashed past many pretty gardenswhere, upon the lawns, men in flannels were busy at tennis or, withpretty ladies, deeply occupied in drinking tea. Carl smiled grimly. Highabove him on the sky-line of the cliff he saw the three strangers he hadserved at luncheon. They were driving before them three innocuous golfballs. 

"A nation of wasters, " muttered the German, "sleeping at their posts. They are fiddling while England falls!"

Mr. Shutliffe, of Stiffkey, had led his cow in from the marsh, and wasabout to close the cow-barn door, when three soldiers appeared suddenlyaround the wall of the village church. They ran directly toward him. Itwas nine o'clock, but the twilight still held. The uniforms the men worewere unfamiliar, but in his day Mr. Shutliffe had seen many uniforms, and to him all uniforms looked alike. The tallest soldier snapped at Mr. Shutliffe fiercely in a strange tongue. 

"Du bist gefangen!" he announced. "Das Dorf ist besetzt. Wo sind unsereLeute?" he demanded. 

"You'll 'ave to excuse me, sir, " said Mr. Shutliffe, "but I am a trifle'ard of 'earing. "

The soldier addressed him in English. 

"What is the name of this village?" he demanded. 

Mr. Shuttiffe, having lived in the village upward of eighty years, recalled its name with difficulty. 

"Have you seen any of our people?"

With another painful effort of memory Mr. Shutliffe shook his head. 

"Go indoors!" commanded the soldier, "And put out all lights, and remainindoors. We have taken this village. We are Germans. You are a prisoner!Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir, thank'ee, sir, kindly, " stammered Mr. Shutliffe. "May I lockin the pigs first, sir?"

One of the soldiers coughed explosively, and ran away, and the twoothers trotted after him. When they looked back, Mr. Shutliffe was stillstanding uncertainly in the dusk, mildly concerned as to whether heshould lock up the pigs or obey the German gentleman. 

The three soldiers halted behind the church wall. 

"That was a fine start!" mocked Herbert. "Of course, you had to pick outthe Village Idiot. If they are all going to take it like that, we hadbetter pack up and go home. "

"The village inn is still open, " said Ford. "We'll close It. "

They entered with fixed bayonets and dropped the butts of their rifleson the sanded floor. A man in gaiters choked over his ale and twofishermen removed their clay pipes and stared. The bar-maid alone aroseto the occasion. 

"Now, then, " she exclaimed briskly, "What way is that to come tumblinginto a respectable place? None of your tea-garden tricks in here, youngfellow, my lad, or--"

The tallest of the three intruders, in deep guttural accents, interrupted her sharply. 

"We are Germans!" he declared. "This village is captured. You areprisoners of war. Those lights you will out put, and yourselves lock in. If you into the street go, we will shoot!"

He gave a command in a strange language; so strange, indeed, thatthe soldiers with him failed to entirely grasp his meaning, and oneshouldered his rifle, while the other brought his politely to a salute. 

"You ass!" muttered the tall German. "Get out!"

As they charged into the street, they heard behind them a wild feminineshriek, then a crash of pottery and glass, then silence, and an instantlater the Ship Inn was buried in darkness. 

"That will hold Stiffkey for a while!" said Ford. "Now, back to thecar. "

But between them and the car loomed suddenly a tall and impressivefigure. His helmet and his measured tread upon the desertedcobble-stones proclaimed his calling. 

"The constable!" whispered Herbert. "He must see us, but he mustn'tspeak to us. "

For a moment the three men showed themselves in the middle of thestreet, and then, as though at sight of the policeman they had takenalarm, disappeared through an opening between two houses. Five minuteslater a motor-car, with its canvas top concealing its occupants, rodeslowly into Stiffkey's main street and halted before the constable. Thedriver of the car wore a leather skull-cap and goggles. From his neck tohis heels he was covered by a raincoat. 

"Mr. Policeman, " he began; "when I turned in here three soldiers steppedin front of my car and pointed rifles at me. Then they ran off towardthe beach. What's the idea--manoeuvres? Because, they've no right to--"

"Yes, sir, " the policeman assured him promptly; "I saw them. It'smanoeuvres, sir. Territorials. "

"They didn't look like Territorials, " objected the chauffeur. "Theylooked like Germans. "

Protected by the deepening dusk, the constable made no effort to conceala grin. 

"Just Territorials, sir, " he protested soothingly; "skylarking maybe, but meaning no harm. Still, I'll have a look round, and warn 'em. "

A voice from beneath the canvas broke in angrily:

"I tell you, they were Germans. It's either a silly joke, or it'sserious, and you ought to report it. It's your duty to warn the CoastGuard. "

The constable considered deeply. 

"I wouldn't take it on myself to wake the Coast Guard, " he protested;"not at this time of the night. But if any Germans' been annoying you, gentlemen, and you wish to lodge a complaint against them, you give meyour cards--"

"Ye gods!" cried the man in the rear of the car. "Go on!" he commanded. 

As the car sped out of Stiffkey, Herbert exclaimed with disgust:

"What's the use!" he protested. "You couldn't wake these people withdynamite! I vote we chuck it and go home. "

"They little know of England who only Stiffkey know, " chanted thechauffeur reprovingly. "Why, we haven't begun yet. Wait till we meet alive wire!"

Two miles farther along the road to Cromer, young Bradshaw, thejob-master's son at Blakeney, was leading his bicycle up the hill. Aheadof him something heavy flopped from the bank into the road--and in thelight of his acetylene lamp he saw a soldier. The soldier dodged acrossthe road and scrambled through the hedge on the bank opposite. He wasfollowed by another soldier, and then by a third. The last man halted. 

"Put out that light, " he commanded. "Go to your home and tell no onewhat you have seen. If you attempt to give an alarm you will be shot. Our sentries are placed every fifty yards along this road. "

The soldier disappeared from in front of the ray of light and followedhis comrades, and an instant later young Bradshaw heard them slidingover the cliff's edge and the pebbles clattering to the beach below. Young Bradshaw stood quite still. In his heart was much fear--fear oflaughter, of ridicule, of failure. But of no other kind of fear. Softly, silently he turned his bicycle so that it faced down the long hill hehad just climbed. Then he snapped off the light. He had been reliablyinformed that in ambush at every fifty yards along the road to Blakeney, sentries were waiting to fire on him. And he proposed to run thegauntlet. He saw that it was for this moment that, first as a volunteerand later as a Territorial, he had drilled in the town hall, practicedon the rifle range, and in mixed manoeuvres slept in six inches of mud. As he threw his leg across his bicycle, Herbert, from the motor-carfarther up the hill, fired two shots over his head. These, he explainedto Ford, were intended to give "verisimilitude to an otherwise baldand unconvincing narrative. " And the sighing of the bullets gave youngBradshaw exactly what he wanted--the assurance that he was not thevictim of a practical joke. He threw his weight forward and, lifting hisfeet, coasted downhill at forty miles an hour into the main street ofBlakeney. Ten minutes later, when the car followed, a mob of men socompletely blocked the water-front that Ford was forced to stop. Hishead-lights illuminated hundreds of faces, anxious, sceptical, eager. A gentleman with a white mustache and a look of a retired army officerpushed his way toward Ford, the crowd making room for him, and thenclosing in his wake. 

"Have you seen any--any soldiers?" he demanded. 

"German soldiers!" Ford answered. "They tried to catch us, but when Isaw who they were, I ran through them to warn you. They fired and--"

"How many--and where?"

"A half-company at Stiffkey and a half-mile farther on a regiment. Wedidn't know then they were Germans, not until they stopped us. You'dbetter telephone the garrison, and--"

"Thank you!" snapped the elderly gentleman. "I happen to be in commandof this district. What are your names?"

Ford pushed the car forward, parting the crowd. 

"I've no time for that!" he called. "We've got to warn every coast townin Norfolk. You take my tip and get London on the long distance!"

As they ran through the night Ford spoke over his shoulder. 

"We've got them guessing, " he said. "Now, what we want is a live wire, some one with imagination, some one with authority who will wake thecountryside. "

"Looks ahead there, " said Birrell, "as though it hadn't gone to bed. "

Before them, as on a Mafeking night, every window in Cley shone withlights. In the main street were fishermen, shopkeepers, "trippers"in flannels, summer residents. The women had turned out as though towitness a display of fireworks. Girls were clinging to the arms of theirescorts, shivering in delighted terror. The proprietor of the Red Lionsprang in front of the car and waved his arms. 

"What's this tale about Germans?" he demanded jocularly. 

"You can see their lights from the beach, " said Ford. "They've landedtwo regiments between here and Wells. Stiffkey is taken, and they've cutall the wires south. "

The proprietor refused to be "had. "

"Let 'em all come!" he mocked. 

"All right, " returned Ford. "Let 'em come, but don't take it lying down!Get those women off the streets, and go down to the beach, and drive theGermans back! Gangway, " he shouted, and the car shot forward. "We warnedyou, " he called, "And it's up to you to--"

His words were lost in the distance. But behind him a man's voice rosewith a roar like a rocket and was met with a savage, deep-throatedcheer. 

Outside the village Ford brought the car to a halt and swung in hisseat. 

"This thing is going to fail!" he cried petulantly. "They don't believeus. We've got to show ourselves--many times--in a dozen places. "

"The British mind moves slowly, " said Birrell, the Irishman. "Now, ifthis had happened in my native land--"

He was interrupted by the screech of a siren, and a demon car thatspurned the road, that splattered them with pebbles, tore pastand disappeared in the darkness. As it fled down the lane of theirhead-lights, they saw that men in khaki clung to its sides, were packedin its tonneau, were swaying from its running boards. Before they couldfind their voices a motor cycle, driven as though the angel of deathwere at the wheel, shaved their mud-guard and, in its turn, vanishedinto the night. 

"Things are looking up!" said Ford. "Where is our next stop? As I saidbefore, what we want is a live one. "

Herbert pressed his electric torch against his road map. 

"We are next billed to appear, " he said, "about a quarter of a mile fromhere, at the signal-tower of the Great Eastern Railroad, where we visitthe night telegraph operator and give him the surprise party of hislife. "

The three men had mounted the steps of the signal-tower so quietly that, when the operator heard them, they already surrounded him. He sawthree German soldiers with fierce upturned mustaches, with flat, squathelmets, with long brown rifles. They saw an anæmic, pale-faced youthwithout a coat or collar, for the night was warm, who sank back limplyin his chair and gazed speechless with wide-bulging eyes. 

In harsh, guttural tones Ford addressed him. "You are a prisoner, " hesaid. "We take over this office in the name of the German Emperor. Getout!"

As though instinctively seeking his only weapon of defence, the hand ofthe boy operator moved across the table to the key of his instrument. Ford flung his rifle upon it. 

"No, you don't!" he growled. "Get out!"

With eyes still bulging, the boy lifted himself into a sitting posture. 

"My pay--my month's pay?" he stammered. "Can I take It?"

The expression on the face of the conqueror relaxed. 

"Take it and get out, " Ford commanded. 

With eyes still fixed in fascinated terror upon the invader, the boypulled open the drawer of the table before him and fumbled with thepapers inside. 

"Quick!" cried Ford. 

The boy was very quick. His hand leaped from the drawer like a snake, and Ford found himself looking into a revolver of the largest calibreissued by a civilized people. Birrell fell upon the boy's shoulders, Herbert twisted the gun from his fingers and hurled it through thewindow, and almost as quickly hurled himself down the steps of thetower. Birrell leaped after him. Ford remained only long enough toshout: "Don't touch that instrument! If you attempt to send a messagethrough, we will shoot. We go to cut the wires!"

For a minute, the boy in the tower sat rigid, his ears strained, hisheart beating in sharp, suffocating stabs. Then, with his left armraised to guard his face, he sank to his knees and, leaning forwardacross the table, inviting as he believed his death, he opened thecircuit and through the night flashed out a warning to his people. 

When they had taken their places in the car, Herbert touched Ford on theshoulder. 

"Your last remark, " he said, "was that what we wanted was a live one. "

"Don't mention it!" said Ford. "He jammed that gun half down my throat. I can taste it still. Where do we go from here?"

"According to the route we mapped out this afternoon, " said Herbert, "Weare now scheduled to give exhibitions at the coast towns of Salthouseand Weybourne, but--"

"Not with me!" exclaimed Birrell fiercely. "Those towns have been tippedoff by now by Blakeney and Cley, and the Boy Scouts would club us todeath. I vote we take the back roads to Morston, and drop in on a lonelyCoast Guard. If a Coast Guard sees us, the authorities will have tobelieve him, and they'll call out the navy. "

Herbert consulted his map. 

"There is a Coast Guard, " he said, "stationed just the other side ofMorston. And, " he added fervently, "let us hope he's lonely. "

They lost their way in the back roads, and when they again reached thecoast an hour had passed. It was now quite dark. There were no stars, nor moon, but after they had left the car in a side lane and had steppedout upon the cliff, they saw for miles along the coast great beaconfires burning fiercely. 

Herbert came to an abrupt halt. 

"Since seeing those fires, " he explained, "I feel a strange reluctanceabout showing myself in this uniform to a Coast Guard. "

"Coast Guards don't shoot!" mocked Birrell. "They only look at theclouds through a telescope. Three Germans with rifles ought to be ableto frighten one Coast Guard with a telescope. "

The whitewashed cabin of the Coast Guard was perched on the edge of thecliff. Behind it the downs ran back to meet the road. The door of thecabin was open and from it a shaft of light cut across a tiny garden andshowed the white fence and the walk of shells. 

"We must pass in single file in front of that light, " whispered Ford, "And then, after we are sure he has seen us, we must run like thedevil!"

"I'm on in that last scene, " growled Herbert. 

"Only, " repeated Ford with emphasis, "We must be sure he has seen us. "

Not twenty feet from them came a bursting roar, a flash, many roars, many flashes, many bullets. 

"He's seen us!" yelled Birrell. 

After the light from his open door had shown him one German soldierfully armed, the Coast Guard had seen nothing further. But judging fromthe shrieks of terror and the sounds of falling bodies that followedhis first shot, he was convinced he was hemmed in by an army, and heproceeded to sell his life dearly. Clip after clip of cartridges heemptied into the night, now to the front, now to the rear, now out tosea, now at his own shadow in the lamp-light. To the people a quarter ofa mile away at Morston it sounded like a battle. 

After running half a mile, Ford, bruised and breathless, fell at fulllength on the grass beside the car. Near it, tearing from his person thelast vestiges of a German uniform, he found Birrell. He also was puffingpainfully. 

"What happened to Herbert?" panted Ford. 

"I don't know, " gasped Birrell, "When I saw him last he was diving overthe cliff into the sea. How many times did you die?"

"About twenty!" groaned the American, "And, besides being dead, I amseverely wounded. Every time he fired, I fell on my face, and each timeI hit a rock!"

A scarecrow of a figure appeared suddenly in the rays of thehead-lights. It was Herbert, scratched, bleeding, dripping with water, and clad simply in a shirt and trousers. He dragged out his kit bag andfell into his golf clothes. 

"Anybody who wants a perfectly good German uniform, " he cried, "can havemine. I left it in the first row of breakers. It didn't fit me, anyway. "

The other two uniforms were hidden in the seat of the car. The riflesand helmets, to lend color to the invasion, were dropped in the openroad, and five minutes later three gentlemen in inconspicuous Harristweeds, and with golf clubs protruding from every part of their car, turned into the shore road to Cromer. What they saw brought swift terrorto their guilty souls and the car to an abrupt halt. Before them was aregiment of regulars advancing in column of fours, at the "double. " Anofficer sprang to the front of the car and seated himself beside Ford. 

"I'll have to commandeer this, " he said. "Run back to Cromer. Don'tcrush my men, but go like the devil!"

"We heard firing here, " explained the officer at the Coast Guardstation. "The Guard drove them back to the sea. He counted over a dozen. They made pretty poor practice, for he isn't wounded, but his gravelwalk looks as though some one had drawn a harrow over it. I wonder, "exclaimed the officer suddenly, "if you are the three gentlemen whofirst gave the alarm to Colonel Raglan and then went on to warn theother coast towns. Because, if you are, he wants your names. "

Ford considered rapidly. If he gave false names and that fact werediscovered, they would be suspected and investigated, and the worstmight happen. So he replied that his friends and himself probablywere the men to whom the officer referred. He explained they had beenreturning from Cromer, where they had gone to play golf, when they hadbeen held up by the Germans. 

"You were lucky to escape, " said the officer "And in keeping on to givewarning you were taking chances. If I may say so, we think you behavedextremely well. "

Ford could not answer. His guilty conscience shamed him into silence. With his siren shrieking and his horn tooting, he was forcing the carthrough lanes of armed men. They packed each side of the road. They werebanked behind the hedges. Their camp-fires blazed from every hill-top. 

"Your regiment seems to have turned out to a man!" exclaimed Fordadmiringly. 

"MY regiment!" snorted the officer. "You've passed through fiveregiments already, and there are as many more in the dark places. They're everywhere!" he cried jubilantly. 

"And I thought they were only where you see the camp-fires, " exclaimedFord. 

"That's what the Germans think, " said the officer. "It's working likea clock, " he cried happily. "There hasn't been a hitch. As soon as theygot your warning to Colonel Raglan, they came down to the coast like awave, on foot, by trains, by motors, and at nine o'clock the Governmenttook over all the railroads. The county regiments, regulars, yeomanry, territorials, have been spread along this shore for thirty miles. Downin London the Guards started to Dover and Brighton two hours ago. TheAutomobile Club in the first hour collected two hundred cars and turnedthem over to the Guards in Bird Cage Walk. Cody and Grahame-White andeight of his air men left Hendon an hour ago to reconnoitre the southcoast. Admiral Beatty has started with the Channel Squadron to head offthe German convoy in the North Sea, and the torpedo destroyers have beensent to lie outside of Heligoland. We'll get that back by daylight. Andon land every one of the three services is under arms. On this coastalone before sunrise we'll have one hundred thousand men, and fromColchester the brigade division of artillery, from Ipswich the R. H. A. 's with siege-guns, field-guns, quick-firing-guns, all kinds of gunsspread out over every foot of ground from here to Hunstanton. Theythought they'd give us a surprise party. They will never give us anothersurprise party!"

On the top of the hill at Overstrand, the headwaiter of the East CliffHotel and the bearded German stood in the garden back of the house withthe forbidding walls. From the road in front came unceasingly the trampand shuffle of thousands of marching feet, the rumble of heavy cannon, the clanking of their chains, the voices of men trained to commandraised in sharp, confident orders. The sky was illuminated by countlessfires. Every window of every cottage and hotel blazed with lights. Thenight had been turned into day. The eyes of the two Germans were likethe eyes of those who had passed through an earthquake, of those wholooked upon the burning of San Francisco, upon the destruction ofMessina. 

"We were betrayed, general, " whispered the head-waiter. 

"We were betrayed, baron, " replied the bearded one. 

"But you were in time to warn the flotilla. "

With a sigh, the older man nodded. 

"The last message I received over the wireless, " he said, "before Idestroyed it, read, 'Your message understood. We are returning. Ourmovements will be explained as manoeuvres. And, " added the general, "TheEnglish, having driven us back, will be willing to officially acceptthat explanation. As manoeuvres, this night will go down into history. Return to the hotel, " he commanded, "And in two months you can rejoinyour regiment. "

On the morning after the invasion the New York Republic published a mapof Great Britain that covered three columns and a wood-cut of Ford thatwas spread over five. Beneath it was printed: "Lester Ford, our Londoncorrespondent, captured by the Germans; he escapes and is the first towarn the English people. "

On the same morning, In an editorial in The Times of London, appearedthis paragraph:

"The Germans were first seen by the Hon. Arthur Herbert, the eldest sonof Lord Cinaris; Mr. Patrick Headford Birrell--both of Balliol College, Oxford; and Mr. Lester Ford, the correspondent of the New York Republic. These gentlemen escaped from the landing party that tried to make themprisoners, and at great risk proceeded in their motor-car over roadsinfested by the Germans to all the coast towns of Norfolk, warning theauthorities. Should the war office fail to recognize their services, thepeople of Great Britain will prove that they are not ungrateful. "

A week later three young men sat at dinner on the terrace of the Savoy. 

"Shall we, or shall we not, " asked Herbert, "tell my uncle that wethree, and we three alone, were the invaders?"

"That's hardly correct, " said Ford, "as we now know there were twohundred thousand invaders. We were the only three who got ashore. "

"I vote we don't tell him, " said Birrell. "Let him think with everybodyelse that the Germans blundered; that an advance party landed too soonand gave the show away. If we talk, " he argued, "We'll get credit for asuccessful hoax. If we keep quiet, everybody will continue to think wesaved England. I'm content to let it go at that. "

Chapter 4. BLOOD WILL TELL

David Greene was an employee of the Burdett Automatic Punch Company. The manufacturing plant of the company was at Bridgeport, but in theNew York offices there were working samples of all the punches, from thelittle nickel-plated hand punch with which conductors squeezed holes inrailroad tickets, to the big punch that could bite into an iron plateas easily as into a piece of pie. David's duty was to explain thesedifferent punches, and accordingly when Burdett Senior or one of thesons turned a customer over to David he spoke of him as a salesman. But David called himself a "demonstrator. " For a short time he evensucceeded in persuading the other salesmen to speak of themselves asdemonstrators, but the shipping clerks and bookkeepers laughed them outof it. They could not laugh David out of it. This was so, partlybecause he had no sense of humor, and partly because he had agreat-great-grandfather. Among the salesmen on lower Broadway, topossess a great-great-grandfather is unusual, even a great-grandfatheris a rarity, and either is considered superfluous. But to David thepossession of a great-great-grandfather was a precious and open delight. He had possessed him only for a short time. Undoubtedly he always hadexisted, but it was not until David's sister Anne married a doctorin Bordentown, New Jersey, and became socially ambitious, that Davidemerged as a Son of Washington. 

It was sister Anne, anxious to "get in" as a "Daughter" and weara distaff pin in her shirtwaist, who discovered the revolutionaryancestor. She unearthed him, or rather ran him to earth, in thegraveyard of the Presbyterian church at Bordentown. He was no less aperson than General Hiram Greene, and he had fought with Washington atTrenton and at Princeton. Of this there was no doubt. That, later, onmoving to New York, his descendants became peace-loving salesmen did notaffect his record. To enter a society founded on heredity, the importantthing is first to catch your ancestor, and having made sure of him, David entered the Society of the Sons of Washington with flying colors. He was not unlike the man who had been speaking prose for forty yearswithout knowing it. He was not unlike the other man who woke to findhimself famous. He had gone to bed a timid, near-sighted, underpaidsalesman without a relative in the world, except a married sister inBordentown, and he awoke to find he was a direct descendant of "Neckor Nothing" Greene, a revolutionary hero, a friend of Washington, aman whose portrait hung in the State House at Trenton. David's life hadlacked color. The day he carried his certificate of membership to thebig jewelry store uptown and purchased two rosettes, one for each of histwo coats, was the proudest of his life. 

The other men in the Broadway office took a different view. As Wyckoff, one of Burdett's flying squadron of travelling salesmen, said, "All grandfathers look alike to me, whether they're great, orgreat-great-great. Each one is as dead as the other. I'd rather have alive cousin who could loan me a five, or slip me a drink. What did yourgreat-great dad ever do for you?"

"Well, for one thing, " said David stiffly, "he fought in the War of theRevolution. He saved us from the shackles of monarchical England;he made it possible for me and you to enjoy the liberties of a freerepublic. "

"Don't try to tell me your grandfather did all that, " protested Wyckoff, "because I know better. There were a lot of others helped. I read aboutit in a book. "

"I am not grudging glory to others, " returned David; "I am only saying Iam proud that I am a descendant of a revolutionist. "

Wyckoff dived into his inner pocket and produced a leather photographframe that folded like a concertina. 

"I don't want to be a descendant, " he said; "I'd rather be an ancestor. Look at those. " Proudly he exhibited photographs of Mrs. Wyckoff withthe baby and of three other little Wyckoffs. David looked with envy atthe children. 

"When I'm married, " he stammered, and at the words he blushed, "I hopeto be an ancestor. "

"If you're thinking of getting married, " said Wyckoff, "you'd betterhope for a raise in salary. "

The other clerks were as unsympathetic as Wyckoff. At first when Davidshowed them his parchment certificate, and his silver gilt insignia withon one side a portrait of Washington, and on the other a Continentalsoldier, they admitted it was dead swell. They even envied him, notthe grandfather, but the fact that owing to that distinguished relativeDavid was constantly receiving beautifully engraved invitations toattend the monthly meetings of the society; to subscribe to a fund toerect monuments on battle-fields to mark neglected graves; to join injoyous excursions to the tomb of Washington or of John Paul Jones;to inspect West Point, Annapolis, and Bunker Hill; to be among thosepresent at the annual "banquet" at Delmonico's. In order that when heopened these letters he might have an audience, he had given the societyhis office address. 

In these communications he was always addressed as "Dear Compatriot, "and never did the words fail to give him a thrill. They seemed to lifthim out of Burdett's salesrooms and Broadway, and place him next tothings uncommercial, untainted, high, and noble. He did not quite knowwhat an aristocrat was, but he believed being a compatriot made him anaristocrat. When customers were rude, when Mr. John or Mr. Robert wasoverbearing, this idea enabled David to rise above their ill-temper, andhe would smile and say to himself: "If they knew the meaning of theblue rosette in my button-hole, how differently they would treat me! Howeasily with a word could I crush them!"

But few of the customers recognized the significance of the button. They thought it meant that David belonged to the Y. M. C. A. Or was ateetotaler. David, with his gentle manners and pale, ascetic face, wasliable to give that impression. 

When Wyckoff mentioned marriage, the reason David blushed was because, although no one in the office suspected it, he wished to marry theperson in whom the office took the greatest pride. This was MissEmily Anthony, one of Burdett and Sons' youngest, most efficient, andprettiest stenographers, and although David did not cut as dashing afigure as did some of the firm's travelling men, Miss Anthony had foundsomething in him so greatly to admire that she had, out of office hours, accepted his devotion, his theatre tickets, and an engagement ring. Indeed, so far had matters progressed, that it had been almost decidedwhen in a few months they would go upon their vacations they also wouldgo upon their honeymoon. And then a cloud had come between them, andfrom a quarter from which David had expected only sunshine. 

The trouble befell when David discovered he had agreat-great-grandfather. With that fact itself Miss Anthony was almostas pleased as was David himself, but while he was content to bask inanother's glory, Miss Anthony saw in his inheritance only an incentiveto achieve glory for himself. 

From a hard-working salesman she had asked but little, but from adescendant of a national hero she expected other things. She was adetermined young person, and for David she was an ambitious youngperson. She found she was dissatisfied. She found she was disappointed. The great-great-grandfather had opened up a new horizon--had, in a way, raised the standard. She was as fond of David as always, but his talesof past wars and battles, his accounts of present banquets at which hesat shoulder to shoulder with men of whom even Burdett and Sons spokewith awe, touched her imagination. 

"You shouldn't be content to just wear a button, " she urged. "If you'rea Son of Washington, you ought to act like one. "

"I know I'm not worthy of you, " David sighed. 

"I don't mean that, and you know I don't, " Emily replied indignantly. "It has nothing to do with me! I want you to be worthy of yourself, ofyour grandpa Hiram!"

"But HOW?" complained David. "What chance has a twenty-five dollar aweek clerk--"

It was a year before the Spanish-American War, while the patriots ofCuba were fighting the mother country for their independence. 

"If I were a Son of the Revolution, " said Emily, "I'd go to Cuba andhelp free it. "

"Don't talk nonsense, " cried David. "If I did that I'd lose my job, andwe'd never be able to marry. Besides, what's Cuba done for me? All Iknow about Cuba is, I once smoked a Cuban cigar and it made me ill. "

"Did Lafayette talk like that?" demanded Emily. "Did he ask what havethe American rebels ever done for me?"

"If I were in Lafayette's class, " sighed David, "I wouldn't be sellingautomatic punches. "

"There's your trouble, " declared Emily "You lack self-confidence. You'retoo humble, you've got fighting blood and you ought to keep saying toyourself, 'Blood will tell, ' and the first thing you know, it WILL tell!You might begin by going into politics in your ward. Or, you could jointhe militia. That takes only one night a week, and then, if we DID go towar with Spain, you'd get a commission, and come back a captain!"

Emily's eyes were beautiful with delight. But the sight gave David nopleasure. In genuine distress, he shook his head. 

"Emily, " he said, "you're going to be awfully disappointed in me. "

Emily's eyes closed as though they shied at some mental picture. Butwhen she opened them they were bright, and her smile was kind and eager. 

"No, I'm not, " she protested; "only I want a husband with a career, andone who'll tell me to keep quiet when I try to run it for him. "

"I've often wished you would, " said David. 

"Would what? Run your career for you?"

"No, keep quiet. Only it didn't seem polite to tell you so. "

"Maybe I'd like you better, " said Emily, "if you weren't so darnedpolite. "

A week later, early in the spring of 1897, the unexpected happened, andDavid was promoted into the flying squadron. He now was a travellingsalesman, with a rise in salary and a commission on orders. It was astep forward, but as going on the road meant absence from Emily, Davidwas not elated. Nor did it satisfy Emily. It was not money she wanted. Her ambition for David could not be silenced with a raise in wages. Shedid not say this, but David knew that in him she still found somethinglacking, and when they said good-by they both were ill at ease andcompletely unhappy. Formerly, each day when Emily in passing David inthe office said good-morning, she used to add the number of the daysthat still separated them from the vacation which also was to be theirhoneymoon. But, for the last month she had stopped counting the days--atleast she did not count them aloud. 

David did not ask her why this was so. He did not dare. And, sooner thanlearn the truth that she had decided not to marry him, or that shewas even considering not marrying him, he asked no questions, but inignorance of her present feelings set forth on his travels. Absence fromEmily hurt just as much as he had feared it would. He missed her, neededher, longed for her. In numerous letters he told her so. But, owing tothe frequency with which he moved, her letters never caught up with him. It was almost a relief. He did not care to think of what they might tellhim. 

The route assigned David took him through the South and kept him closeto the Atlantic seaboard. In obtaining orders he was not unsuccessful, and at the end of the first month received from the firm a telegram ofcongratulation. This was of importance chiefly because it might pleaseEmily. But he knew that in her eyes the great-great-grandson of HiramGreene could not rest content with a telegram from Burdett and Sons. A year before she would have considered it a high honor, a cause forcelebration. Now, he could see her press her pretty lips together andshake her pretty head. It was not enough. But how could he accomplishmore. He began to hate his great-great-grandfather. He began to wishHiram Greene had lived and died a bachelor. 

And then Dame Fortune took David in hand and toyed with him and spankedhim, and pelted and petted him, until finally she made him her favoriteson. Dame Fortune went about this work in an abrupt and arbitrarymanner. 

On the night of the 1st of March, 1897, two trains were scheduled toleave the Union Station at Jacksonville at exactly the same minute, and they left exactly on time. As never before in the history of anySouthern railroad has this miracle occurred, it shows that when DameFortune gets on the job she is omnipotent. She placed David on the trainto Miami as the train he wanted drew out for Tampa, and an hour later, when the conductor looked at David's ticket, he pulled the bell-cord anddumped David over the side into the heart of a pine forest. If he walkedback along the track for one mile, the conductor reassured him, he wouldfind a flag station where at midnight he could flag a train going north. In an hour it would deliver him safely in Jacksonville. 

There was a moon, but for the greater part of the time it was hidden byfitful, hurrying clouds, and, as David stumbled forward, at one momenthe would see the rails like streaks of silver, and the next would beencompassed in a complete and bewildering darkness. He made his way fromtie to tie only by feeling with his foot. After an hour he came to ashed. Whether it was or was not the flag station the conductor had inmind, he did not know, and he never did know. He was too tired, too hot, and too disgusted to proceed, and dropping his suit case he sat downunder the open roof of the shed prepared to wait either for the trainor daylight. So far as he could see, on every side of him stretcheda swamp, silent, dismal, interminable. From its black water rose deadtrees, naked of bark and hung with streamers of funereal moss. There wasnot a sound or sign of human habitation. The silence was the silence ofthe ocean at night David remembered the berth reserved for him on thetrain to Tampa and of the loathing with which he had considered placinghimself between its sheets. But now how gladly would he welcome it! For, in the sleeping-car, ill-smelling, close, and stuffy, he at least wouldhave been surrounded by fellow-sufferers of his own species. Here hiscompanions were owls, water-snakes, and sleeping buzzards. 

"I am alone, " he told himself, "on a railroad embankment, entirelysurrounded by alligators. "

And then he found he was not alone. 

In the darkness, illuminated by a match, not a hundred yards from himthere flashed suddenly the face of a man. Then the match went out andthe face with it. David noted that it had appeared at some height abovethe level of the swamp, at an elevation higher even than that of theembankment. It was as though the man had been sitting on the limb ofa tree. David crossed the tracks and found that on the side of theembankment opposite the shed there was solid ground and what once hadbeen a wharf. He advanced over this cautiously, and as he did so theclouds disappeared, and in the full light of the moon he saw a bayoubroadening into a river, and made fast to the decayed and rotting wharfan ocean-going tug. It was from her deck that the man, in lighting hispipe, had shown his face. At the thought of a warm engine-room and thecompany of his fellow creatures, David's heart leaped with pleasure. He advanced quickly. And then something in the appearance of the tug, something mysterious, secretive, threatening, caused him to halt. Nolights showed from her engine-room, cabin, or pilot-house. Her deckswere empty. But, as was evidenced by the black smoke that rose fromher funnel, she was awake and awake to some purpose. David stooduncertainly, questioning whether to make his presence known or return tothe loneliness of the shed. The question was decided for him. He had notconsidered that standing in the moonlight he was a conspicuous figure. The planks of the wharf creaked and a man came toward him. As one whomeans to attack, or who fears attack, he approached warily. He wore highboots, riding breeches, and a sombrero. He was a little man, but hismovements were alert and active. To David he seemed unnecessarilyexcited. He thrust himself close against David. 

"Who the devil are you?" demanded the man from the tug. "How'd you gethere?"

"I walked, " said David. 

"Walked?" the man snorted incredulously. 

"I took the wrong train, " explained David pleasantly. "They put me offabout a mile below here. I walked back to this flag station. I'm goingto wait here for the next train north. "

The little man laughed mockingly. 

"Oh, no you're not, " he said. "If you walked here, you can just walkaway again!" With a sweep of his arm, he made a vigorous and peremptorygesture. 

"You walk!" he commanded. 

"I'll do just as I please about that, " said David. 

As though to bring assistance, the little man started hastily toward thetug. 

"I'll find some one who'll make you walk!" he called. "You WAIT, that'sall, you WAIT!"

David decided not to wait. It was possible the wharf was privateproperty and he had been trespassing. In any case, at the flag stationthe rights of all men were equal, and if he were in for a fight hejudged it best to choose his own battle-ground. He recrossed the tracksand sat down on his suit case in a dark corner of the shed. Himselfhidden in the shadows he could see in the moonlight the approach of anyother person. 

"They're river pirates, " said David to himself, "or smugglers. They'recertainly up to some mischief, or why should they object to the presenceof a perfectly harmless stranger?"

Partly with cold, partly with nervousness, David shivered. 

"I wish that train would come, " he sighed. And instantly? as though inanswer to his wish, from only a short distance down the track he heardthe rumble and creak of approaching cars. In a flash David planned hiscourse of action. 

The thought of spending the night in a swamp infested by alligators andsmugglers had become intolerable. He must escape, and he must escape bythe train now approaching. To that end the train must be stopped. Hisplan was simple. The train was moving very, very slowly, and thoughhe had no lantern to wave, in order to bring it to a halt he need onlystand on the track exposed to the glare of the headlight and wave hisarms. David sprang between the rails and gesticulated wildly. But inamazement his arms fell to his sides. For the train, now only a hundredyards distant and creeping toward him at a snail's pace, carried nohead-light, and though in the moonlight David was plainly visible, itblew no whistle, tolled no bell. Even the passenger coaches in the rearof the sightless engine were wrapped in darkness. It was a ghost of atrain, a Flying Dutchman of a train, a nightmare of a train. It was asunreal as the black swamp, as the moss on the dead trees, as the ghostlytug-boat tied to the rotting wharf. 

"Is the place haunted!" exclaimed David. 

He was answered by the grinding of brakes and by the train coming toa sharp halt. And instantly from every side men fell from it to theground, and the silence of the night was broken by a confusion of callsand eager greeting and questions and sharp words of command. 

So fascinated was David in the stealthy arrival of the train and in hermysterious passengers that, until they confronted him, he did not notethe equally stealthy approach of three men. Of these one was the littleman from the tug. With him was a fat, red-faced Irish-American He woreno coat and his shirt-sleeves were drawn away from his hands by gartersof pink elastic, his derby hat was balanced behind his ears, upon hisright hand flashed an enormous diamond. He looked as though but at thatmoment he had stopped sliding glasses across a Bowery bar. The third mancarried the outward marks of a sailor. David believed he was the tallestman he had ever beheld, but equally remarkable with his height was hisbeard and hair, which were of a fierce brick-dust red. Even in the mildmoonlight it flamed like a torch. 

"What's your business?" demanded the man with the flamboyant hair. 

"I came here, " began David, "to wait for a train--"

The tall man bellowed with indignant rage. 

"Yes, " he shouted; "this is the sort of place any one would pick out towait for a train!"

In front of David's nose he shook a fist as large as a catcher's glove. "Don't you lie to ME!" he bullied. "Do you know who I am? Do you knowWHO you're up against? I'm--"

The barkeeper person interrupted. 

"Never mind who you are, " he said. "We know that. Find out who HE is. "

David turned appealingly to the barkeeper. 

"Do you suppose I'd come here on purpose?" he protested. "I'm atravelling man--"

"You won't travel any to-night, " mocked the red-haired one. "You've seenwhat you came to see, and all you want now is to get to a Western Unionwire. Well, you don't do it. You don't leave here to-night!"

As though he thought he had been neglected, the little man inriding-boots pushed forward importantly. 

"Tie him to a tree!" he suggested. 

"Better take him on board, " said the barkeeper, "and send him back bythe pilot. When we're once at sea, he can't hurt us any. "

"What makes you think I want to hurt you?" demanded David. "Who do youthink I am?"

"We know who you are, " shouted the fiery-headed one. "You're ablanketty-blank spy! You're a government spy or a Spanish spy, andwhichever you are you don't get away to-night!"

David had not the faintest idea what the man meant, but he knew hisself-respect was being ill-treated, and his self-respect rebelled. 

"You have made a very serious mistake, " he said, "and whether you likeit or not, I AM leaving here to-night, and YOU can go to the devil!"

Turning his back David started with great dignity to walk away. It was ashort walk. Something hit him below the ear and he found himself curlingup comfortably on the ties. He had a strong desire to sleep, but wasconscious that a bed on a railroad track, on account of trains wantingto pass, was unsafe. This doubt did not long disturb him. His headrolled against the steel rail, his limbs relaxed. From a great distance, and in a strange sing-song he heard the voice of the barkeeper saying, "Nine--ten--and OUT!"

When David came to his senses his head was resting on a coil of rope. Inhis ears was the steady throb of an engine, and in his eyes the glare ofa lantern. The lantern was held by a pleasant-faced youth in a golfcap who was smiling sympathetically. David rose on his elbow and gazedwildly about him. He was in the bow of the ocean-going tug, and he sawthat from where he lay in the bow to her stern her decks were packedwith men. She was steaming swiftly down a broad river. On either sidethe gray light that comes before the dawn showed low banks studded withstunted palmettos. Close ahead David heard the roar of the surf. 

"Sorry to disturb you, " said the youth in the golf cap, "but we drop thepilot in a few minutes and you're going with him. "

David moved his aching head gingerly, and was conscious of a bump aslarge as a tennis ball behind his right ear. 

"What happened to me?" he demanded. 

"You were sort of kidnapped, I guess, " laughed the young man. "It was araw deal, but they couldn't take any chances. The pilot will land you atOkra Point. You can hire a rig there to take you to the railroad. "

"But why?" demanded David indignantly. "Why was I kidnapped? What had Idone? Who were those men who--"

From the pilot-house there was a sharp jangle of bells to theengine-room, and the speed of the tug slackened. 

"Come on, " commanded the young man briskly. "The pilot's going ashore. Here's your grip, here's your hat. The ladder's on the port side. Lookwhere you're stepping. We can't show any lights, and it's dark as--"

But, even as he spoke, like a flash of powder, as swiftly as one throwsan electric switch, as blindingly as a train leaps from the tunnel intothe glaring sun, the darkness vanished and the tug was swept by thefierce, blatant radiance of a search-light. 

It was met by shrieks from two hundred throats, by screams, oaths, prayers, by the sharp jangling of bells, by the blind rush of many menscurrying like rats for a hole to hide in, by the ringing orders of oneman. Above the tumult this one voice rose like the warning strokes of afire-gong, and looking up to the pilot-house from whence the voice came, David saw the barkeeper still in his shirt-sleeves and with his derbyhat pushed back behind his ears, with one hand clutching the telegraphto the engine-room, with the other holding the spoke of the wheel. 

David felt the tug, like a hunter taking a fence, rise in a great leap. Her bow sank and rose, tossing the water from her in black, oily waves, the smoke poured from her funnel, from below her engines sobbed andquivered, and like a hound freed from a leash she raced for the opensea. But swiftly as she fled, as a thief is held in the circle of apoliceman's bull's-eye, the shaft of light followed and exposed her andheld her in its grip. The youth in the golf cap was clutching David bythe arm. With his free hand he pointed down the shaft of light. So greatwas the tumult that to be heard he brought his lips close to David'sear. 

"That's the revenue cutter!" he shouted. "She's been laying for us forthree weeks, and now, " he shrieked exultingly, "the old man's going togive her a race for it. "

From excitement, from cold, from alarm, David's nerves were gettingbeyond his control. 

"But how, " he demanded, "how do I get ashore?"

"You don't!"

"When he drops the pilot, don't I--"

"How can he drop the pilot?" yelled the youth. "The pilot's got to stickby the boat. So have you. "

David clutched the young man and swung him so that they stood face toface. 

"Stick by what boat?" yelled David. "Who are these men? Who are you?What boat is this?"

In the glare of the search-light David saw the eyes of the youth staringat him as though he feared he were in the clutch of a madman. Wrenchinghimself free, the youth pointed at the pilot-house. Above it on a blueboard in letters of gold-leaf a foot high was the name of the tug. AsDavid read it his breath left him, a finger of ice passed slowly downhis spine. The name he read was The Three Friends. 

"THE THREE FRIENDS!" shrieked David. "She's a filibuster! She's apirate! Where're we going?

"To Cuba!"

David emitted a howl of anguish, rage, and protest. 

"What for?" he shrieked. 

The young man regarded him coldly. 

"To pick bananas, " he said. 

"I won't go to Cuba, " shouted David. "I've got to work! I'm paid to sellmachinery. I demand to be put ashore. I'll lose my job if I'm not putashore. I'll sue you! I'll have the law--"

David found himself suddenly upon his knees. His first thought was thatthe ship had struck a rock, and then that she was bumping herself over asuccession of coral reefs. She dipped, dived, reared, and plunged. Like a hooked fish, she flung herself in the air, quivering from bow tostern. No longer was David of a mind to sue the filibusters if they didnot put him ashore. If only they had put him ashore, in gratitude hewould have crawled on his knees. What followed was of no interest toDavid, nor to many of the filibusters, nor to any of the Cuban patriots. Their groans of self-pity, their prayers and curses in eloquent Spanish, rose high above the crash of broken crockery and the pounding of thewaves. Even when the search-light gave way to a brilliant sunlightthe circumstance was unobserved by David. Nor was he concerned in thetidings brought forward by the youth in the golf cap, who raced theslippery decks and vaulted the prostrate forms as sure-footedly as ahurdler on a cinder track. To David, in whom he seemed to think he hadfound a congenial spirit, he shouted Joyfully, "She's fired two blanksat us!" he cried; "now she's firing cannon-balls!"

"Thank God, " whispered David; "perhaps she'll sink us!"

But The Three Friends showed her heels to the revenue cutter, and so faras David knew hours passed into days and days into weeks. It was likethose nightmares in which in a minute one is whirled through centuriesof fear and torment. Sometimes, regardless of nausea, of his achinghead, of the hard deck, of the waves that splashed and smotheredhim, David fell into broken slumber. Sometimes he woke to a dullconsciousness of his position. At such moments he added to his misery byspeculating upon the other misfortunes that might have befallen himon shore. Emily, he decided, had given him up for lost andmarried--probably a navy officer in command of a battle-ship. Burdettand Sons had cast him off forever. Possibly his disappearance hadcaused them to suspect him; even now they might be regarding him asa defaulter, as a fugitive from justice. His accounts, no doubt, werebeing carefully overhauled. In actual time, two days and two nights hadpassed; to David it seemed many ages. 

On the third day he crawled to the stern, where there seemed lessmotion, and finding a boat's cushion threw it in the lee scupper andfell upon it. From time to time the youth in the golf cap had broughthim food and drink, and he now appeared from the cook's galley bearing abowl of smoking soup. 

David considered it a doubtful attention. 

But he said, "You're very kind. How did a fellow like you come to mix upwith these pirates?"

The youth laughed good-naturedly. 

"They're not pirates, they're patriots, " he said, "and I'm not mixedup with them. My name is Henry Carr and I'm a guest of Jimmy Doyle, thecaptain. "

"The barkeeper with the derby hat?" said David. 

"He's not a barkeeper, he's a teetotaler, " Carr corrected, "and he's thegreatest filibuster alive. He knows these waters as you know Broadway, and he's the salt of the earth. I did him a favor once; sort ofmouse-helping-the-lion idea. Just through dumb luck I found out aboutthis expedition. The government agents in New York found out I'd foundout and sent for me to tell. But I didn't, and I didn't write the storyeither. Doyle heard about that. So, he asked me to come as his guest, and he's promised that after he's landed the expedition and the arms Ican write as much about it as I darn please. "

"Then you're a reporter?" said David. 

"I'm what we call a cub reporter, " laughed Carr. "You see, I've alwaysdreamed of being a war correspondent. The men in the office say I dreamtoo much. They're always guying me about it. But, haven't you noticed, it's the ones who dream who find their dreams come true. Now this isn'treal war, but it's a near war, and when the real thing breaks loose, I can tell the managing editor I served as a war correspondent in theCuban-Spanish campaign. And he may give me a real job!"

"And you LIKE this?" groaned David. 

"I wouldn't, if I were as sick as you are, " said Carr, "but I've astomach like a Harlem goat. " He stooped and lowered his voice. "Now, here are two fake filibusters, " he whispered. "The men you read about inthe newspapers. If a man's a REAL filibuster, nobody knows it!"

Coming toward them was the tall man who had knocked David out, and thelittle one who had wanted to tie him to a tree. 

"All they ask, " whispered Carr, "is money and advertisement. If theyknew I was a reporter, they'd eat out of my hand. The tall man callshimself Lighthouse Harry. He once kept a light-house on the Floridacoast, and that's as near to the sea as he ever got. The other one isa dare-devil calling himself Colonel Beamish. He says he's an Englishofficer, and a soldier of fortune, and that he's been in eighteenbattles. Jimmy says he's never been near enough to a battle to see thered-cross flags on the base hospital. But they've fooled these Cubans. The Junta thinks they're great fighters, and it's sent them down hereto work the machine guns. But I'm afraid the only fighting they will dowill be in the sporting columns, and not in the ring. "

A half dozen sea-sick Cubans were carrying a heavy, oblong box. Theydropped it not two yards from where David lay, and with a screwdriverLighthouse Harry proceeded to open the lid. 

Carr explained to David that The Three Friends was approaching that partof the coast of Cuba on which she had arranged to land her expedition, and that in case she was surprised by one of the Spanish patrol boatsshe was preparing to defend herself. 

"They've got an automatic gun in that crate, " said Carr, "and they'regoing to assemble it. You'd better move; they'll be tramping all overyou. "

David shook his head feebly. 

"I can't move!" he protested. "I wouldn't move if it would free Cuba. "

For several hours with very languid interest David watched LighthouseHarry and Colonel Beamish screw a heavy tripod to the deck and balanceabove it a quick-firing one-pounder. They worked very slowly, and toDavid, watching them from the lee scupper, they appeared extremelyunintelligent. 

"I don't believe either of those thugs put an automatic gun togetherin his life, " he whispered to Carr. "I never did, either, but I've puthundreds of automatic punches together, and I bet that gun won't work. "

"What's wrong with it?" said Carr. 

Before David could summon sufficient energy to answer, the attention ofall on board was diverted, and by a single word. 

Whether the word is whispered apologetically by the smoking-room stewardto those deep in bridge, or shrieked from the tops of a sinking ship itnever quite fails of its effect. A sweating stoker from the engine-roomsaw it first. 

"Land!" he hailed. 

The sea-sick Cubans raised themselves and swung their hats; their voicesrose in a fierce chorus. 

"Cuba libre!" they yelled. 

The sun piercing the morning mists had uncovered a coast-line brokenwith bays and inlets. Above it towered green hills, the peak of eachtopped by a squat blockhouse; in the valleys and water courses likecolumns of marble rose the royal palms. 

"You MUST look!" Carr entreated David, "it's just as it is in thepictures!

"Then I don't have to look, " groaned David. 

The Three Friends was making for a point of land that curved like asickle. On the inside of the sickle was Nipe Bay. On the opposite shoreof that broad harbor at the place of rendezvous a little band of Cubanswaited to receive the filibusters. The goal was in sight. The dreadfulvoyage was done. Joy and excitement thrilled the ship's company. Cubanpatriots appeared in uniforms with Cuban flags pinned in the brims oftheir straw sombreros. From the hold came boxes of small-arm ammunitionof Mausers, rifles, machetes, and saddles. To protect the landing a boxof shells was placed in readiness beside the one-pounder. 

"In two hours, if we have smooth water, " shouted Lighthouse Harry, "we ought to get all of this on shore. And then, all I ask, " he criedmightily, "is for some one to kindly show me a Spaniard!"

His heart's desire was instantly granted. He was shown not only oneSpaniard, but several Spaniards. They were on the deck of one of thefastest gun-boats of the Spanish navy. Not a mile from The ThreeFriends she sprang from the cover of a narrow inlet. She did not signalquestions or extend courtesies. For her the name of the ocean-going tugwas sufficient introduction. Throwing ahead of her a solid shell, sheraced in pursuit, and as The Three Friends leaped to full speed therecame from the gun-boat the sharp dry crackle of Mausers. 

With an explosion of terrifying oaths Lighthouse Harry thrust a shellinto the breech of the quick-firing gun. Without waiting to aim it, hetugged at the trigger. Nothing happened! He threw open the breech andgazed impotently at the base of the shell. It was untouched. The shipwas ringing with cries of anger, of hate, with rat-like squeaks of fear. 

Above the heads of the filibusters a shell screamed and within a hundredfeet splashed into a wave. 

From his mat in the lee scupper David groaned miserably. He was farremoved from any of the greater emotions. 

"It's no use!" he protested. "They can't do! It's not connected!"

"WHAT'S not connected?" yelled Carr. He fell upon David. He half-lifted, half-dragged him to his feet. 

"If you know what's wrong with that gun, you fix it! Fix it, " heshouted, "or I'll--"

David was not concerned with the vengeance Carr threatened. For, onthe instant a miracle had taken place. With the swift insidiousnessof morphine, peace ran through his veins, soothed his racked body, hisjangled nerves. The Three Friends had made the harbor, and was glidingthrough water flat as a pond. But David did not know why the change hadcome. He knew only that his soul and body were at rest, that the sun wasshining, that he had passed through the valley of the shadow, and oncemore was a sane, sound young man. 

With a savage thrust of the shoulder he sent Lighthouse Harry sprawlingfrom the gun. With swift, practised fingers he fell upon its mechanism. He wrenched it apart. He lifted it, reset, readjusted it. 

Ignorant themselves, those about him saw that he understood, saw thathis work was good. 

They raised a joyous, defiant cheer. But a shower of bullets drove themto cover, bullets that ripped the deck, splintered the superstructure, smashed the glass in the air ports, like angry wasps sang in acontinuous whining chorus. Intent only on the gun, David workedfeverishly. He swung to the breech, locked it, and dragged it open, pulled on the trigger and found it gave before his forefinger. 

He shouted with delight. 

"I've got it working, " he yelled. 

He turned to his audience, but his audience had fled. From beneath oneof the life-boats protruded the riding-boots of Colonel Beamish, thetall form of Lighthouse Harry was doubled behind a water butt. A shellsplashed to port, a shell splashed to starboard. For an instant Davidstood staring wide-eyed at the greyhound of a boat that ate up thedistance between them, at the jets of smoke and stabs of flame thatsprang from her bow, at the figures crouched behind her gunwale, firingin volleys. 

To David it came suddenly, convincingly, that in a dream he had livedit all before, and something like raw poison stirred in David, somethingleaped to his throat and choked him, something rose in his brain andmade him see scarlet. He felt rather than saw young Carr kneeling at thebox of ammunition, and holding a shell toward him. He heard the clickas the breech shut, felt the rubber tire of the brace give againstthe weight of his shoulder, down a long shining tube saw the pursuinggun-boat, saw her again and many times disappear behind a flash offlame. A bullet gashed his forehead, a bullet passed deftly through hisforearm, but he did not heed them. Confused with the thrashing of theengines, with the roar of the gun he heard a strange voice shriekingunceasingly:

"Cuba libre!" it yelled. "To hell with Spain!" and he found that thevoice was his own. 

The story lost nothing in the way Carr wrote it. 

"And the best of it is, " he exclaimed joyfully, "it's true!"

For a Spanish gun-boat HAD been crippled and forced to run herselfaground by a tug-boat manned by Cuban patriots, and by a single gunserved by one man, and that man an American. It was the first sea-fightof the war. Over night a Cuban navy had been born, and into thelimelight a cub reporter had projected a new "hero, " a ready-made, warranted-not-to-run, popular idol. 

They were seated in the pilot-house, "Jimmy" Doyle, Carr, and David, thepatriots and their arms had been safely dumped upon the coast of Cuba, and The Three Friends was gliding swiftly and, having caught the Floridastraits napping, smoothly toward Key West. Carr had just finishedreading aloud his account of the engagement. 

"You will tell the story just as I have written it, " commanded the proudauthor. "Your being South as a travelling salesman was only a blind. You came to volunteer for this expedition. Before you could explain yourwish you were mistaken for a secret-service man, and hustled on board. That was just where you wanted to be, and when the moment arrived youtook command of the ship and single-handed won the naval battle of NipeBay. "

Jimmy Doyle nodded his head approvingly. "You certainty did, Dave, "protested the great man, "I seen you when you done it!"

At Key West Carr filed his story and while the hospital surgeons keptDavid there over one steamer, to dress his wounds, his fame and featuresspread across the map of the United States. 

Burdett and Sons basked in reflected glory. Reporters besieged theiroffice. At the Merchants Down-Town Club the business men of lowerBroadway tendered congratulations. 

"Of course, it's a great surprise to us, " Burdett and Sons would protestand wink heavily. "Of course, when the boy asked to be sent South we'dno idea he was planning to fight for Cuba! Or we wouldn't have let himgo, would we?" Then again they would wink heavily. "I suppose you know, "they would say, "that he's a direct descendant of General Hiram Greene, who won the battle of Trenton. What I say is, 'Blood will tell!'" Andthen in a body every one in the club would move against the bar andexclaim: "Here's to Cuba libre!"

When the Olivette from Key West reached Tampa Bay every Cuban in theTampa cigar factories was at the dock. There were thousands of them andall of the Junta, in high hats, to read David an address of welcome. 

And, when they saw him at the top of the gang-plank with his head in abandage and his arm in a sling, like a mob of maniacs they howled andsurged toward him. But before they could reach their hero the courteousJunta forced them back, and cleared a pathway for a young girl. She wastravel-worn and pale, her shirt-waist was disgracefully wrinkled, herbest hat was a wreck. No one on Broadway would have recognized her asBurdett and Sons' most immaculate and beautiful stenographer. 

She dug the shapeless hat into David's shoulder, and clung to him. "David!" she sobbed, "promise me you'll never, never do it again!"

Chapter 5. THE SAILORMAN

Before Latimer put him on watch, the Nantucket sailorman had not a carein the world. If the wind blew from the north, he spun to the left; ifit came from the south, he spun to the right. But it was entirelythe wind that was responsible. So, whichever way he turned, he smiledbroadly, happily. His outlook upon the world was that of one who lovedhis fellowman. He had many brothers as like him as twins all overNantucket and Cape Cod and the North Shore, smiling from the railings ofverandas, from the roofs of bungalows, from the eaves of summer palaces. Empaled on their little iron uprights, each sailorman whirled--sometimeslanguidly, like a great lady revolving to the slow measures of a waltz, sometimes so rapidly that he made you quite dizzy, and had he not beena sailorman with a heart of oak and a head and stomach of pine, hewould have been quite seasick. But the particular sailorman that Latimerbought for Helen Page and put on sentry duty carried on his shouldersmost grave and unusual responsibilities. He was the guardian of a buriedtreasure, the keeper of the happiness of two young people. It was reallyasking a great deal of a care-free, happy-go-lucky weather-vane. 

Every summer from Boston Helen Page's people had been coming to FairHarbor. They knew it when what now is the polo field was their cowpasture. And whether at the age of twelve or of twenty or more, HelenPage ruled Fair Harbor. When she arrived the "season" opened; when shedeparted the local trades-people sighed and began to take account ofstock. She was so popular because she possessed charm, and because sheplayed no favorites. To the grooms who held the ponies on the sidelinesher manner was just as simple and interested as it was to the gildedyouths who came to win the championship cups and remained to try to winHelen. She was just as genuinely pleased to make a four at tennis withthe "kids" as to take tea on the veranda of the club-house with thematrons. To each her manner was always as though she were of their age. When she met the latter on the beach road, she greeted them riotouslyand joyfully by their maiden names. And the matrons liked it. Incomparison the deference shown them by the other young women did not sostrongly appeal. 

"When I'm jogging along in my station wagon, " said one of them, "andHelen shrieks and waves at me from her car, I feel as though I weretwenty, and I believe that she is really sorry I am not sitting besideher, instead of that good-looking Latimer man, who never wears a hat. Why does he never wear a hat? Because he knows he's good-looking, orbecause Helen drives so fast he can't keep it on?"

"Does he wear a hat when he is not with Helen?" asked the new arrival. "That might help some. "

"We will never know, " exclaimed the young matron; "he never leaves her. "

This was so true that it had become a public scandal. You met themso many times a day driving together, motoring together, playing golftogether, that you were embarrassed for them and did not know which wayto look. But they gloried in their shame. If you tactfully pretended notto see them, Helen shouted at you. She made you feel you had been caughtdoing something indelicate and underhand. 

The mothers of Fair Harbor were rather slow in accepting youngLatimer. So many of their sons had seen Helen shake her head in thatinarticulate, worried way, and look so sorry for them, that any strangeyoung man who apparently succeeded where those who had been her friendsfor years had learned they must remain friends, could not hope to escapecriticism. Besides, they did not know him: he did not come from Bostonand Harvard, but from a Western city. They were told that at home, atboth the law and the game of politics, he worked hard and successfully;but it was rather held against him by the youth of Fair Harbor thathe played at there games, not so much for the sake of the game as forexercise. He put aside many things, such as whiskey and soda at two inthe morning, and bridge all afternoon, with the remark: "I find it doesnot tend toward efficiency. " It was a remark that irritated and, to theminds of the men at the country clubs, seemed to place him. They likedto play polo because they liked to play polo, not because it kept theirmuscles limber and their brains clear. 

"Some Western people were telling me, " said one of the matrons, "that hewants to be the next lieutenant-governor. They say he is very ambitiousand very selfish. "

"Any man is selfish, " protested one who for years had attempted to marryHelen, "who wants to keep Helen to himself. But that he should wish tobe a lieutenant-governor, too, is rather an anticlimax. It makes onelose sympathy. "

Latimer went on his way without asking any sympathy. The companionshipof Helen Page was quite sufficient. He had been working overtime and wastreating himself to his first vacation in years--he was young--he wasin love and he was very happy. Nor was there any question, either, thatHelen Page was happy. Those who had known her since she was a childcould not remember when she had not been happy, but these days she woreher joyousness with a difference. It was in her eyes, in her greetingsto old friends: it showed itself hourly in courtesies and kindnesses. She was very kind to Latimer, too. She did not deceive him. She told himshe liked better to be with him than with any one else, --it would havebeen difficult to deny to him what was apparent to an entire summercolony, --but she explained that that did not mean she would marry him. She announced this when the signs she knew made it seem necessary. Sheannounced it in what was for her a roundabout way, by remarking suddenlythat she did not intend to marry for several years. 

This brought Latimer to his feet and called forth from him remarks soeloquent that Helen found it very difficult to keep her own. She asthough she had been caught in an undertow and was being whirled out tosea. When, at last, she had regained her breath, only because Latimerhad paused to catch his, she shook her head miserably. 

"The trouble is, " she complained, "there are so many think the samething!"

"What do they think?" demanded Latimer. 

"That they want to marry me. "

Checked but not discouraged, Latimer attacked in force. 

"I can quite believe that, " he agreed, "but there's this importantdifference: no matter how much a man wants to marry you, he can't LOVEyou as I do!"

"That's ANOTHER thing they think, " sighed Helen. 

"I'm sorry to be so unoriginal, " snapped Latimer. 

"PLEASE don't!" pleaded Helen. "I don't mean to be unfeeling. I'm notunfeeling. I'm only trying to be fair. If I don't seem to take it toheart, it's because I know it does no good. I can see how miserablea girl must be if she is loved by one man and can't make up her mindwhether or not she wants to marry him. But when there's so many she juststops worrying; for she can't possibly marry them all. "

"ALL!" exclaimed Latimer. "It is incredible that I have undervalued you, but may I ask how many there are?"

"I don't know, " sighed Helen miserably. "There seems to be somethingabout me that--"

"There is!" interrupted Latimer. "I've noticed it. You don't have totell me about it. I know that the Helen Page habit is a damned difficulthabit to break!"

It cannot be said that he made any violent effort to break it. At least, not one that was obvious to Fair Harbor or to Helen. 

One of their favorite drives was through the pine woods to the point onwhich stood the lighthouse, and on one of these excursions they exploreda forgotten wood road and came out upon a cliff. The cliff overlookedthe sea, and below it was a jumble of rocks with which the waves playedhide and seek. On many afternoons and mornings they returned to thisplace, and, while Latimer read to her, Helen would sit with her backto a tree and toss pine-cones into the water. Sometimes the poets whoseworks he read made love so charmingly that Latimer was most grateful tothem for rendering such excellent first aid to the wounded, and intohis voice he would throw all that feeling and music that from juries andmass meetings had dragged tears and cheers and votes. 

But when his voice became so appealing that it no longer was possiblefor any woman to resist it, Helen would exclaim excitedly: "Pleaseexcuse me for interrupting, but there is a large spider--" and the spellwas gone. 

One day she exclaimed: "Oh!" and Latimer patiently lowered the "OxfordBook of Verse, " and asked: "What is it, NOW?"

"I'm so sorry, " Helen said, "but I can't help watching that Chapman boy;he's only got one reef in, and the next time he jibs he'll capsize, andhe can't swim, and he'll drown. I told his mother only yesterday--"

"I haven't the least interest in the Chapman boy, " said Latimer, "or inwhat you told his mother, or whether he drowns or not! I'm a drowningman myself!"

Helen shook her head firmly and reprovingly. "Men get over THAT kind ofdrowning, " she said. 

"Not THIS kind of man doesn't!" said Latimer. "And don't tell me, " hecried indignantly, "that that's ANOTHER thing they all say. "

"If one could only be sure!" sighed Helen. "If one could only be surethat you--that the right man would keep on caring after you marry himthe way he says he cares before you marry him. If you could know that, it would help you a lot in making up your mind. "

"There is only one way to find that out, " said Latimer; "that is tomarry him. I mean, of course, " he corrected hastily, "to marry me. "

One day, when on their way to the cliff at the end of the wood road, theman who makes the Nantucket sailor and peddles him passed through thevillage; and Latimer bought the sailorman and carried him to theirhiding-place. There he fastened him to the lowest limb of one of theancient pine-trees that helped to screen their hiding-place from theworld. The limb reached out free of the other branches, and the windcaught the sailorman fairly and spun him like a dancing dervish. Then ittired of him, and went off to try to drown the Chapman boy, leaving thesailorman motionless with his arms outstretched, balancing in each handa tiny oar and smiling happily. 

"He has a friendly smile, " said Helen; "I think he likes us. "

"He is on guard, " Latimer explained. "I put him there to warn us ifany one approaches, and when we are not here, he is to frighten awaytrespassers. Do you understand?" he demanded of the sailorman. "Yourduty is to protect this beautiful lady. So long as I love her you mustguard this place. It is a life sentence. You are always on watch. Younever sleep. You are her slave. She says you have a friendly smile. Shewrongs you. It is a beseeching, abject, worshipping smile. I am surewhen I look at her mine is equally idiotic. In fact, we are in many waysalike. I also am her slave. I also am devoted only to her service. And Inever sleep, at least not since I met her. "

From her throne among the pine needles Helen looked up at the sailormanand frowned. 

"It is not a happy simile, " she objected. "For one thing, a sailormanhas a sweetheart in every port. "

"Wait and see, " said Latimer. 

"And, " continued the girl with some asperity, "if there is anything onearth that changes its mind as often as a weather-vane, that is lessCERTAIN, less CONSTANT--"

"Constant?" Latimer laughed at her in open scorn. "You come back here, "he challenged, "months from now, years from now, when the winds havebeaten him, and the sun blistered him, and the snow frozen him, and youwill find him smiling at you just as he is now, just as confidently, proudly, joyously, devotedly. Because those who are your slaves, thosewho love YOU, cannot come to any harm; only if you disown them, only ifyou drive them away!"

The sailorman, delighted at such beautiful language, threw himself aboutin a delirium of joy. His arms spun in their sockets like Indian clubs, his oars flashed in the sun, and his eyes and lips were fixed in oneblissful, long-drawn-out, unalterable smile. 

When the golden-rod turned gray, and the leaves red and yellow, and itwas time for Latimer to return to his work in the West, he came to saygood-by. But the best Helen could do to keep hope alive in him was tosay that she was glad he cared. She added it was very helpful to thinkthat a man such as he believed you were so fine a person, and during thecoming winter she would try to be like the fine person he believed herto be, but which, she assured him, she was not. 

Then he told her again she was the most wonderful being in the world, towhich she said: "Oh, indeed no!" and then, as though he were giving hera cue, he said: "Good-by!" But she did not take up his cue, and theyshook hands. He waited, hardly daring to breathe. 

"Surely, now that the parting has come, " he assured himself, "she willmake some sign, she will give me a word, a look that will write 'total'under the hours we have spent together, that will help to carry methrough the long winter. "

But he held her hand so long and looked at her so hungrily thathe really forced her to say: "Don't miss your train, " which kindconsideration for his comfort did not delight him as it should. Nor, indeed, later did she herself recall the remark with satisfaction. 

With Latimer out of the way the other two hundred and forty-nine suitorattacked with renewed hope. Among other advantages they had over Latimerwas that they were on the ground. They saw Helen daily, at dinners, dances, at the country clubs, in her own drawing-room. Like any sailorfrom the Charlestown Navy Yard and his sweetheart, they could walkbeside her in the park and throw peanuts to the pigeons, and scratchdates and initials on the green benches; they could walk with her up oneside of Commonwealth Avenue and down the south bank of the Charles, whenthe sun was gilding the dome of the State House, when the bridges werebeginning to deck themselves with necklaces of lights. They had knownher since they wore knickerbockers; and they shared many interests andfriends in common; they talked the same language. Latimer could talk toher only in letters, for with her he shared no friends or interests, and he was forced to choose between telling her of his lawsuits andhis efforts in politics or of his love. To write to her of his affairsseemed wasteful and impertinent, and of his love for her, after she hadreceived what he told of it in silence, he was too proud to speak. So hewrote but seldom, and then only to say: "You know what I send you. " Hadhe known it, his best letters were those he did not send. When in themorning mail Helen found his familiar handwriting, that seemed to standout like the face of a friend in a crowd, she would pounce uponthe letter, read it, and, assured of his love, would go on her wayrejoicing. But when in the morning there was no letter, she wonderedwhy, and all day she wondered why. And the next morning when againshe was disappointed, her thoughts of Latimer and her doubts andspeculations concerning him shut out every other interest. He became aperplexing, insistent problem. He was never out of her mind. And then hewould spoil it all by writing her that he loved her and that of all thewomen in the world she was the only one. And, reassured upon that point, Helen happily and promptly would forget all about him. 

But when she remembered him, although months had passed since she hadseen him, she remembered him much more distinctly, much more gratefully, than that one of the two hundred and fifty with whom she had walked thatsame afternoon. Latimer could not know it, but of that anxious multitudehe was first, and there was no second. At least Helen hoped, when shewas ready to marry, she would love Latimer enough to want to marry him. But as yet she assured herself she did not want to marry any one. As shewas, life was very satisfactory. Everybody loved her, everybody invitedher to be of his party, or invited himself to join hers, and the objectof each seemed to be to see that she enjoyed every hour of every day. Her nature was such that to make her happy was not difficult. Some ofher devotees could do it by giving her a dance and letting her invitehalf of Boston, and her kid brother could do it by taking her toCambridge to watch the team at practice. 

She thought she was happy because she was free. As a matter of fact, shewas happy because she loved some one and that particular some one lovedher. Her being "free" was only her mistaken way of putting it. Had shethought she had lost Latimer and his love, she would have discoveredthat, so far from being free, she was bound hand and foot and heart andsoul. 

But she did not know that, and Latimer did not know that. 

Meanwhile, from the branch of the tree in the sheltered, secrethiding-place that overlooked the ocean, the sailorman kept watch. Thesun had blistered him, the storms had buffeted him, the snow had frozenupon his shoulders. But his loyalty never relaxed. He spun to thenorth, he spun to the south, and so rapidly did he scan the surroundinglandscape that no one could hope to creep upon him unawares. Nor, indeed, did any one attempt to do so. Once a fox stole into the secrethiding-place, but the sailorman flapped his oars and frightened himaway. He was always triumphant. To birds, to squirrels, to trespassingrabbits he was a thing of terror. Once, when the air was still, animpertinent crow perched on the very limb on which he stood, and withscornful, disapproving eyes surveyed his white trousers, his bluereefer, his red cheeks. But when the wind suddenly drove past them thesailorman sprang into action and the crow screamed in alarm and dartedaway. So, alone and with no one to come to his relief, the sailormanstood his watch. About him the branches bent with the snow, the iciclesfroze him into immobility, and in the tree-tops strange groanings filledhim with alarms. But undaunted, month after month, alert and smiling, he waited the return of the beautiful lady and of the tall young man whohad devoured her with such beseeching, unhappy eyes. 

Latimer found that to love a woman like Helen Page as he loved her wasthe best thing that could come into his life. But to sit down and lamentover the fact that she did not love him did not, to use his favoriteexpression, "tend toward efficiency. " He removed from his sight thethree pictures of her he had cut from illustrated papers, and ceased towrite to her. 

In his last letter he said: "I have told you how it is, and that is howit is always going to be. There never has been, there never can be anyone but you. But my love is too precious, too sacred to be broughtout every week in a letter and dangled before your eyes like anadvertisement of a motor-car. It is too wonderful a thing to becheapened, to be subjected to slights and silence. If ever you shouldwant it, it is yours. It is here waiting. But you must tell me so. Ihave done everything a man can do to make you understand. But you do notwant me or my love. And my love says to me: 'Don't send me thereagain to have the door shut in my face. Keep me with you to be yourinspiration, to help you to live worthily. ' And so it shall be. "

When Helen read that letter she did not know what to do. She did notknow how to answer it. Her first impression was that suddenly she hadgrown very old, and that some one had turned off the sun, and that inconsequence the world had naturally grown cold and dark. She could notsee why the two hundred and forty-nine expected her to keep on doingexactly the same things she had been doing with delight for six months, and indeed for the last six years. Why could they not see that no longerwas there any pleasure in them? She would have written and told Latimerthat she found she loved him very dearly if in her mind there had notarisen a fearful doubt. Suppose his letter was not quite honest? Hesaid that he would always love her, but how could she now know that?Why might not this letter be only his way of withdrawing from a positionwhich he wished to abandon, from which, perhaps, he was even glad toescape? Were this true, and she wrote and said all those things thatwere in her heart, that now she knew were true, might she not hold himto her against his will? The love that once he had for her might nolonger exist, and if, in her turn, she told him she loved him and hadalways loved him, might he not in some mistaken spirit of chivalry feelit was his duty to pretend to care? Her cheeks burned at the thought. Itwas intolerable. She could not write that letter. And as day succeededday, to do so became more difficult. And so she never wrote and was veryunhappy. And Latimer was very unhappy. But he had his work, and Helenhad none, and for her life became a game of putting little thingstogether, like a picture puzzle, an hour here and an hour there, to makeup each day. It was a dreary game. 

From time to time she heard of him through the newspapers. For, in hisown State, he was an "Insurgent" making a fight, the outcome of whichwas expected to show what might follow throughout the entire West. When he won his fight much more was written about him, and he becamea national figure. In his own State the people hailed him as the nextgovernor, promised him a seat in the Senate. To Helen this seemed totake him further out of her life. She wondered if now she held a placeeven in his thoughts. 

At Fair Harbor the two hundred and forty-nine used to joke with herabout her politician. Then they considered Latimer of importance onlybecause Helen liked him. Now they discussed him impersonally and overher head, as though she were not present, as a power, an influence, as the leader and exponent of a new idea. They seemed to think sheno longer could pretend to any peculiar claim upon him, that now hebelonged to all of them. 

Older men would say to her: "I hear you know Latimer? What sort of a manis he?"

Helen would not know what to tell them. She could not say he was a manwho sat with his back to a pine-tree, reading from a book of verse, orhalting to devour her with humble, entreating eyes. 

She went South for the winter, the doctors deciding she was run downand needed the change. And with an unhappy laugh at her own expense sheagreed in their diagnosis. She was indifferent as to where they senther, for she knew wherever she went she must still force herself togo on putting one hour on top of another, until she had built up theinexorable and necessary twenty-four. 

When she returned winter was departing, but reluctantly, and returningunexpectedly to cover the world with snow, to eclipse the thin springsunshine with cheerless clouds. Helen took herself seriously to task. She assured herself it was weak-minded to rebel. The summer was comingand Fair Harbor with all its old delights was before her. She compelledherself to take heart, to accept the fact that, after all, the world isa pretty good place, and that to think only of the past, to live only onmemories and regrets, was not only cowardly and selfish, but, as Latimerhad already decided, did not tend toward efficiency. 

Among the other rules of conduct that she imposed upon herself was notto think of Latimer. At least, not during the waking hours. Should she, as it sometimes happened, dream of him--should she imagine they wereagain seated among the pines, riding across the downs, or racing atfifty miles an hour through country roads, with the stone fences flyingpast, with the wind and the sun in their eyes, and in their heartshappiness and content--that would not be breaking her rule. If shedreamed of him, she could not be held responsible. She could only begrateful. 

And then, just as she had banished him entirely from her mind, he cameEast. Not as once he had planned to come, only to see her, but witha blare of trumpets, at the command of many citizens, as the guest ofthree cities. He was to speak at public meetings, to confer with partyleaders, to carry the war into the enemy's country. He was due to speakin Boston at Faneuil Hall on the first of May, and that same night toleave for the West, and three days before his coming Helen fled from thecity. He had spoken his message to Philadelphia, he had spoken to NewYork, and for a week the papers had spoken only of him. And for thatweek, from the sight of his printed name, from sketches of him exhortingcheering mobs, from snap-shots of him on rear platforms leaning forwardto grasp eager hands, Helen had shut her eyes. And that during thetime he was actually in Boston she might spare herself further and moredirect attacks upon her feelings she escaped to Fair Harbor, there toremain until, on the first of May at midnight, he again would pass outof her life, maybe forever. No one saw in her going any significance. Spring had come, and in preparation for the summer season the house atFair Harbor must be opened and set in order, and the presence there ofsome one of the Page family was easily explained. 

She made the three hours' run to Fair Harbor in her car, driving itherself, and as the familiar landfalls fell into place, she doubted ifit would not have been wiser had she stayed away. For she found that thememories of more than twenty summers at Fair Harbor had been wiped outby those of one summer, by those of one man. The natives greeted herjoyously: the boatmen, the fishermen, her own grooms and gardeners, thevillage postmaster, the oldest inhabitant. They welcomed her as thoughthey were her vassals and she their queen. But it was the one man shehad exiled from Fair Harbor who at every turn wrung her heart and causedher throat to tighten. She passed the cottage where he had lodged, andhundreds of years seemed to have gone since she used to wait for him inthe street, blowing noisily on her automobile horn, calling derisivelyto his open windows. Wherever she turned Fair Harbor spoke of him. Thegolf-links; the bathing beach; the ugly corner in the main street wherehe always reminded her that it was better to go slow for ten secondsthan to remain a long time dead; the old house on the stone wharf wherethe schooners made fast, which he intended to borrow for his honeymoon;the wooden trough where they always drew rein to water the ponies; thepond into which he had waded to bring her lilies. 

On the second day of her stay she found she was passing these placespurposely, that to do so she was going out of her way. They no longerdistressed her, but gave her a strange comfort. They were old friends, who had known her in the days when she was rich in happiness. 

But the secret hiding-place--their very own hiding-place, the openingamong the pines that overhung the jumble of rocks and the sea--she couldnot bring herself to visit. And then, on the afternoon of the third daywhen she was driving alone toward the lighthouse, her pony, of his ownaccord, from force of habit, turned smartly into the wood road. Andagain from force of habit, before he reached the spot that overlookedthe sea, he came to a full stop. There was no need to make him fast. Forhours, stretching over many summer days, he had stood under those samebranches patiently waiting. 

On foot, her heart beating tremulously, stepping reverently, as oneenters the aisle of some dim cathedral, Helen advanced into the sacredcircle. And then she stood quite still. What she had expected to findthere she could not have told, but it was gone. The place was unknownto her. She saw an opening among gloomy pines, empty, silent, unreal. No haunted house, no barren moor, no neglected graveyard ever spoke morepoignantly, more mournfully, with such utter hopelessness. There was nosign of his or of her former presence. Across the open space somethinghad passed its hand, and it had changed. What had been a trysting-place, a bower, a nest, had become a tomb. A tomb, she felt, for something thatonce had been brave, fine, and beautiful, but which now was dead. Shehad but one desire, to escape from the place, to put it away from herforever, to remember it, not as she now found it, but as first she hadremembered it, and as now she must always remember It. She turned softlyon tiptoe as one who has intruded on a shrine. 

But before she could escape there came from the sea a sudden gust ofwind that caught her by the skirts and drew her back, that set thebranches tossing and swept the dead leaves racing about her ankles. Andat the same instant from just above her head there beat upon the air aviolent, joyous tattoo--a sound that was neither of the sea nor of thewoods, a creaking, swiftly repeated sound, like the flutter of cagedwings. 

Helen turned in alarm and raised her eyes--and beheld the sailorman. 

Tossing his arms in a delirious welcome, waltzing in a frenzy of joy, calling her back to him with wild beckonings, she saw him smiling downat her with the same radiant, beseeching, worshipping smile. In Helen'sears Latimer's commands to the sailorman rang as clearly as thoughLatimer stood before her and had just spoken. Only now they were nolonger a jest; they were a vow, a promise, an oath of allegiance thatbrought to her peace, and pride, and happiness. 

"So long as I love this beautiful lady, " had been his foolish words, "you will guard this place. It is a life sentence!"

With one hand Helen Page dragged down the branch on which the sailormanstood, with the other she snatched him from his post of duty. With ajoyous laugh that was a sob, she clutched the sailorman in both herhands and kissed the beseeching, worshipping smile. 

An hour later her car, on its way to Boston, passed through FairHarbor at a rate of speed that caused her chauffeur to pray betweenhis chattering teeth that the first policeman would save their lives bylanding them in jail. 

At the wheel, her shoulders thrown forward, her eyes searching the darkplaces beyond the reach of the leaping head-lights Helen Page racedagainst time, against the minions of the law, against sudden death, tobeat the midnight train out of Boston, to assure the man she loved ofthe one thing that could make his life worth living. 

And close against her heart, buttoned tight beneath her great-coat, the sailorman smiled in the darkness, his long watch over, his soul atpeace, his duty well performed. 

Chapter 6. THE MIND READER

When Philip Endicott was at Harvard, he wrote stories of undergraduatelife suggested by things that had happened to himself and to men heknew. Under the title of "Tales of the Yard" they were collected in bookform, and sold surprisingly well. After he was graduated and became areporter on the New York Republic, he wrote more stories, in each ofwhich a reporter was the hero, and in which his failure or success ingathering news supplied the plot. These appeared first in the magazines, and later in a book under the title of "Tales of the Streets. " They alsowere well received. 

Then came to him the literary editor of the Republic, and said: "Thereare two kinds of men who succeed in writing fiction--men of genius andreporters. A reporter can describe a thing he has seen in such a waythat he can make the reader see it, too. A man of genius can describesomething he has never seen, or any one else for that matter, in such away that the reader will exclaim: 'I have never committed a murder; butif I had, that's just the way I'd feel about it. ' For instance, Kiplingtells us how a Greek pirate, chained to the oar of a trireme, suffers;how a mother rejoices when her baby crawls across her breast. Kiplinghas never been a mother or a pirate, but he convinces you he knows howeach of them feels. He can do that because he is a genius; you cannotdo it because you are not. At college you wrote only of what you saw atcollege; and now that you are in the newspaper business all your talesare only of newspaper work. You merely report what you see. So, if youare doomed to write only of what you see, then the best thing for you todo is to see as many things as possible. You must see all kinds of life. You must progress. You must leave New York, and you had better go toLondon. "

"But on the Republic, " Endicott pointed out, "I get a salary. And inLondon I should have to sweep a crossing. "

"Then, " said the literary editor, "you could write a story about a manwho swept a crossing. "

It was not alone the literary editor's words of wisdom that had drivenPhilip to London. Helen Carey was in London, visiting the daughterof the American Ambassador; and, though Philip had known her only onewinter, he loved her dearly. The great trouble was that he had no money, and that she possessed so much of it that, unless he could show someunusual quality of mind or character, his asking her to marry him, fromhis own point of view at least, was quite impossible. Of course, he knewthat no one could love her as he did, that no one so truly wished forher happiness, or would try so devotedly to make her happy. But to himit did not seem possible that a girl could be happy with a man who wasnot able to pay for her home, or her clothes, or her food, who wouldhave to borrow her purse if he wanted a new pair of gloves or ahair-cut. For Philip Endicott, while rich in birth and education andcharm of manner, had no money at all. When, in May, he came from NewYork to lay siege to London and to the heart of Helen Carey he had withhim, all told, fifteen hundred dollars. That was all he possessed in theworld; and unless the magazines bought his stories there was no prospectof his getting any more. 

Friends who knew London told him that, if you knew London well, it waseasy to live comfortably there and to go about and even to entertainmodestly on three sovereigns a day. So, at that rate, Philip calculatedhe could stay three months. But he found that to know London well enoughto be able to live there on three sovereigns a day you had first tospend so many five-pound notes in getting acquainted with London thatthere were no sovereigns left. At the end of one month he had justenough money to buy him a second-class passage back to New York, and hewas as far from Helen as ever. 

Often he had read in stories and novels of men who were too poor tomarry. And he had laughed at the idea. He had always said that when twopeople truly love each other it does not matter whether they have moneyor not. But when in London, with only a five-pound note, and face toface with the actual proposition of asking Helen Carey not only to marryhim but to support him, he felt that money counted for more than he hadsupposed. He found money was many different things--it was self-respect, and proper pride, and private honors and independence. And, lackingthese things, he felt he could ask no girl to marry him, certainly notone for whom he cared as he cared for Helen Carey. Besides, while heknew how he loved her, he had no knowledge whatsoever that she lovedhim. She always seemed extremely glad to see him; but that might beexplained in different ways. It might be that what was in her heart forhim was really a sort of "old home week" feeling; that to her it was arelief to see any one who spoke her own language, who did not need tohave it explained when she was jesting, and who did not think when shewas speaking in perfectly satisfactory phrases that she must be talkingslang. 

The Ambassador and his wife had been very kind to Endicott, and, as afriend of Helen's, had asked him often to dinner and had sent him cardsfor dances at which Helen was to be one of the belles and beauties. AndHelen herself had been most kind, and had taken early morning walks withhim in Hyde Park and through the National Galleries; and they had fedbuns to the bears in the Zoo, and in doing so had laughed heartily. Theythought it was because the bears were so ridiculous that they laughed. Later they appreciated that the reason they were happy was becausethey were together. Had the bear pit been empty, they still would havelaughed. 

On the evening of the thirty-first of May, Endicott had gone to bed withhis ticket purchased for America and his last five-pound note to lasthim until the boat sailed. He was a miserable young man. He knew nowthat he loved Helen Carey in such a way that to put the ocean betweenthem was liable to unseat his courage and his self-control. In Londonhe could, each night, walk through Carlton House Terrace and, leaningagainst the iron rails of the Carlton Club, gaze up at her window. But, once on the other side of the ocean, that tender exercise mustbe abandoned. He must even consider her pursued by most attractiveguardsmen, diplomats, and belted earls. He knew they could not love heras he did; he knew they could not love her for the reasons he loved her, because the fine and beautiful things in her that he saw and worshippedthey did not seek, and so did not find. And yet, for lack of a fewthousand dollars, he must remain silent, must put from him the best thatever came into his life, must waste the wonderful devotion he longedto give, must starve the love that he could never summon for any otherwoman. 

On the thirty-first of May he went to sleep utterly and completelymiserable. On the first of June he woke hopeless and unrefreshed. 

And then the miracle came. 

Prichard, the ex-butler who valeted all the young gentlemen in the housewhere Philip had taken chambers, brought him his breakfast. As heplaced the eggs and muffins on the tables to Philip it seemed as thoughPrichard had said: "I am sorry he is leaving us. The next gentlemanwho takes these rooms may not be so open-handed. He never locked up hiscigars or his whiskey. I wish he'd give me his old dress-coat. It fitsme, except across the shoulders. "

Philip stared hard at Prichard; but the lips of the valet had not moved. In surprise and bewilderment, Philip demanded:

"How do you know it fits? Have you tried it on?"

"I wouldn't take such a liberty, " protested Prichard. "Not with any ofour gentlemen's clothes. "

"How did you know I was talking about clothes, " demanded Philip. "Youdidn't say anything about clothes, did you?"

"No, sir, I did not; but you asked me, sir, and I--"

"Were you thinking of clothes?"

"Well, sir, you might say, in a way, that I was, " answered the valet. "Seeing as you're leaving, sir, and they're not over-new, I thought... "

"It's mental telepathy, " said Philip. 

"I beg your pardon, " exclaimed Prichard. 

"You needn't wait, " said Philip. 

The coincidence puzzled him; but by the time he had read the morningpapers he had forgotten about it, and it was not until he had emergedinto the street that it was forcibly recalled. The street was crowdedwith people; and as Philip stepped in among them, It was as though everyone at whom he looked began to talk aloud. Their lips did not move, nor did any sound issue from between them; but, without ceasing, brokenphrases of thoughts came to him as clearly as when, in passing in acrowd, snatches of talk are carried to the ears. One man thought of hisdebts; another of the weather, and of what disaster it might bring tohis silk hat; another planned his luncheon; another was rejoicing overa telegram he had but that moment received. To himself he kept repeatingthe words of the telegram--"No need to come, out of danger. " To Philipthe message came as clearly as though he were reading it from the foldedslip of paper that the stranger clutched in his hand. 

Confused and somewhat frightened, and in order that undisturbed he mightconsider what had befallen him, Philip sought refuge from the crowdedstreet in the hallway of a building. His first thought was that for someunaccountable cause his brain for the moment was playing tricks withhim, and he was inventing the phrases he seemed to hear, that he wasattributing thoughts to others of which they were entirely innocent. But, whatever it was that had befallen him, he knew it was imperativethat he should at once get at the meaning of it. 

The hallway in which he stood opened from Bond Street up a flight ofstairs to the studio of a fashionable photographer, and directly infront of the hallway a young woman of charming appearance had halted. Her glance was troubled, her manner ill at ease. To herself she keptrepeating: "Did I tell Hudson to be here at a quarter to eleven, ora quarter past? Will she get the telephone message to bring the ruff?Without the ruff it would be absurd to be photographed. Without her ruffMary Queen of Scots would look ridiculous!"

Although the young woman had spoken not a single word, although indeedshe was biting impatiently at her lower lip, Philip had distinguishedthe words clearly. Or, if he had not distinguished them, he surely wasgoing mad. It was a matter to be at once determined, and the young womanshould determine it. He advanced boldly to her, and raised his hat. 

"Pardon me, " he said, "but I believe you are waiting for your maidHudson?"

As though fearing an impertinence, the girl regarded him in silence. 

"I only wish to make sure, " continued Philip, "that you are she for whomI have a message. You have an appointment, I believe, to be photographedin fancy dress as Mary Queen of Scots?"

"Well?" assented the girl. 

"And you telephoned Hudson, " he continued, "to bring you your muff. "

The girl exclaimed with vexation. 

"Oh!" she protested; "I knew they'd get it wrong! Not muff, ruff! I wantmy ruff. "

Philip felt a cold shiver creep down his spine. 

"For the love of Heaven!" he exclaimed in horror; "it's true!"

"What's true?" demanded the young woman in some alarm. 

"That I'm a mind reader, " declared Philip. "I've read your mind! I canread everybody's mind. I know just what you're thinking now. You'rethinking I'm mad!"

The actions of the young lady showed that again he was correct. With agasp of terror she fled past him and raced up the stairs to the studio. Philip made no effort to follow and to explain. What was there toexplain? How could he explain that which, to himself, was unbelievable?Besides, the girl had served her purpose. If he could read the mind ofone, he could read the minds of all. By some unexplainable miracle, tohis ordinary equipment of senses a sixth had been added. As easily as, before that morning, he could look into the face of a fellow-mortal, he now could look into the workings of that fellow-mortal's mind. Thethought was appalling. It was like living with one's ear to a key-hole. In his dismay his first idea was to seek medical advice--the best inLondon. He turned instantly in the direction of Harley Street. There, he determined, to the most skilled alienist in town he would explain hisstrange plight. For only as a misfortune did the miracle appear to him. But as he made his way through the streets his pace slackened. 

Was he wise, he asked himself, in allowing others to know he possessedthis strange power? Would they not at once treat him as a madman?Might they not place him under observation, or even deprive him of hisliberty? At the thought he came to an abrupt halt His own definition ofthe miracle as a "power" had opened a new line of speculation. If thisstrange gift (already he was beginning to consider it more leniently)were concealed from others, could he not honorably put it to some usefulpurpose? For, among the blind, the man with one eye is a god. Was nothe--among all other men the only one able to read the minds of allother men--a god? Turning into Bruton Street, he paced its quiet lengthconsidering the possibilities that lay within him. 

It was apparent that the gift would lead to countless embarrassments. If it were once known that he possessed it, would not even his friendsavoid him? For how could any one, knowing his most secret thought was atthe mercy of another, be happy in that other's presence? His power wouldlead to his social ostracism. Indeed, he could see that his gift mighteasily become a curse. He decided not to act hastily, that for thepresent he had best give no hint to others of his unique power. 

As the idea of possessing this power became more familiar, he regardedit with less aversion. He began to consider to what advantage he couldplace it. He could see that, given the right time and the right man, hemight learn secrets leading to far-reaching results. To a statesman, toa financier, such a gift as he possessed would make him a ruler of men. Philip had no desire to be a ruler of men; but he asked himself howcould he bend this gift to serve his own? What he most wished was tomarry Helen Carey; and, to that end, to possess money. So he must meetmen who possessed money, who were making money. He would put questionsto them. And with words they would give evasive answers; but their mindswould tell him the truth. 

The ethics of this procedure greatly disturbed him. Certainly it was nobetter than reading other people's letters. But, he argued, the dishonorin knowledge so obtained would lie only in the use he made of it. If heused it without harm to him from whom it was obtained and with benefitto others, was he not justified in trading on his superior equipment? Hedecided that each case must be considered separately in accordancewith the principle involved. But, principle or no principle, he wasdetermined to become rich. Did not the end justify the means? Certainlyan all-wise Providence had not brought Helen Carey into his life only totake her away from him. It could not be so cruel. But, in selecting themfor one another, the all-wise Providence had overlooked the fact thatshe was rich and he was poor. For that oversight Providence apparentlywas now endeavoring to make amends. In what certainly was a fantasticand roundabout manner Providence had tardily equipped him with a giftthat could lead to great wealth. And who was he to fly in the face ofProvidence? He decided to set about building up a fortune, and buildingit in a hurry. 

From Bruton Street he had emerged upon Berkeley Square; and, as LadyWoodcote had invited him to meet Helen at luncheon at the Ritz, heturned in that direction. He was too early for luncheon; but in thecorridor of the Ritz he knew he would find persons of position andfortune, and in reading their minds he might pass the time beforeluncheon with entertainment, possibly with profit. For, while pacingBruton Street trying to discover the principles of conduct thatthreatened to hamper his new power, he had found that in actualoperation it was quite simple. He learned that his mind, in relationto other minds, was like the receiver of a wireless station with anunlimited field. For, while the wireless could receive messages onlyfrom those instruments with which it was attuned, his mind was in keywith all other minds. To read the thoughts of another, he had only toconcentrate his own upon that person; and to shut off the thoughts ofthat person, he had only to turn his own thoughts elsewhere. But alsohe discovered that over the thoughts of those outside the range of hisphysical sight he had no control. When he asked of what Helen Carey wasat that moment thinking, there was no result. But when he asked, "Ofwhat is that policeman on the corner thinking?" he was surprised to findthat that officer of the law was formulating regulations to abolish thehobble skirt as an impediment to traffic. 

As Philip turned into Berkeley Square, the accents of a mind in greatdistress smote upon his new and sixth sense. And, in the person of ayoung gentleman leaning against the park railing, he discovered thesource from which the mental sufferings emanated. The young man was apink-cheeked, yellow-haired youth of extremely boyish appearance, anddressed as if for the race-track. But at the moment his pink and babyishface wore an expression of complete misery. With tear-filled eyes he wasgazing at a house of yellow stucco on the opposite side of the street. And his thoughts were these: "She is the best that ever lived, and I amthe most ungrateful of fools. How happy were we in the house of yellowstucco! Only now, when she has closed its doors to me, do I know howhappy! If she would give me another chance, never again would I distressor deceive her. "

So far had the young man progressed in his thoughts when an automobileof surprising smartness swept around the corner and drew up in frontof the house of yellow stucco, and from it descended a charming youngperson. She was of the Dresden-shepherdess type, with large blue eyes ofhaunting beauty and innocence. 

"My wife!" exclaimed the blond youth at the railings. And instantly hedodged behind a horse that, while still attached to a four-wheeler, wascontentedly eating from a nose-bag. 

With a key the Dresden shepherdess opened the door to the yellow houseand disappeared. 

The calling of the reporter trains him in audacity, and to act quickly. He shares the troubles of so many people that to the troubles of otherpeople he becomes callous, and often will rush in where friends of thefamily fear to tread. Although Philip was not now acting as a reporter, he acted quickly. Hardly had the door closed upon the young lady thanhe had mounted the steps and rung the visitor's bell. As he did so, hecould not resist casting a triumphant glance in the direction of theoutlawed husband. And, in turn, what the outcast husband, peering fromacross the back of the cab horse, thought of Philip, of his clothes, ofhis general appearance, and of the manner in which he would delight toalter all of them, was quickly communicated to the American. They werethoughts of a nature so violent and uncomplimentary that Philip hastilycut off all connection. 

As Philip did not know the name of the Dresden-china doll, it wasfortunate that on opening the door, the butler promptly announced:

"Her ladyship is not receiving. "

"Her ladyship will, I think, receive me, " said Philip pleasantly, "whenyou tell her I come as the special ambassador of his lordship. "

From a tiny reception-room on the right of the entrance-hall thereissued a feminine exclamation of surprise, not unmixed with joy; and inthe hall the noble lady instantly appeared. 

When she saw herself confronted by a stranger, she halted inembarrassment. But as, even while she halted, her only thought hadbeen, "Oh! if he will only ask me to forgive him!" Philip felt noembarrassment whatsoever. Outside, concealed behind a cab horse, was theerring but bitterly repentant husband; inside, her tenderest thoughtsracing tumultuously toward him, was an unhappy child-wife begging to bebegged to pardon. 

For a New York reporter, and a Harvard graduate of charm and goodmanners, it was too easy. 

"I do not know you, " said her ladyship. But even as she spoke shemotioned to the butler to go away. "You must be one of his new friends. "Her tone was one of envy. 

"Indeed, I am his newest friend, " Philip assured her; "but I can safelysay no one knows his thoughts as well as I. And they are all of you!"

The china shepherdess blushed with happiness, but instantly she shookher head. 

"They tell me I must not believe him, " she announced. "They tell me--"

"Never mind what they tell you, " commanded Philip. "Listen to ME. Heloves you. Better than ever before, he loves you. All he asks is thechance to tell you so. You cannot help but believe him. Who can look atyou, and not believe that he loves you! Let me, " he begged, "bring himto you. " He started from her when, remembering the somewhat violentthoughts of the youthful husband, he added hastily: "Or perhaps it wouldbe better if you called him yourself. "

"Called him!" exclaimed the lady. "He is in Paris-at the races--withher!"

"If they tell you that sort of thing, " protested Philip indignantly, "you must listen to me. He is not in Paris. He is not with her. Therenever was a her!"

He drew aside the lace curtains and pointed. "He is there--behind thatancient cab horse, praying that you will let him tell you that not onlydid he never do it; but, what is much more important, he will never doit again. "

The lady herself now timidly drew the curtains apart, and then moreboldly showed herself upon the iron balcony. Leaning over the scarletgeraniums, she beckoned with both hands. The result was instantaneous. Philip bolted for the front door, leaving it open; and, as he darteddown the steps, the youthful husband, in strides resembling those of anostrich, shot past him. Philip did not cease running until he was wellout of Berkeley Square. Then, not ill-pleased with the adventure, heturned and smiled back at the house of yellow stucco. 

"Bless you, my children, " he murmured; "bless you!"

He continued to the Ritz; and, on crossing Piccadilly to the quieterentrance to the hotel in Arlington Street, found gathered around ita considerable crowd drawn up on either side of a red carpet thatstretched down the steps of the hotel to a court carriage. A red carpetin June, when all is dry under foot and the sun is shining gently, can mean only royalty; and in the rear of the men in the street Philiphalted. He remembered that for a few days the young King of Asturia andthe Queen Mother were at the Ritz incognito; and, as he never had seenthe young man who so recently and so tragically had been exiled from hisown kingdom, Philip raised himself on tiptoe and stared expectantly. 

As easily as he could read their faces could he read the thoughts ofthose about him. They were thoughts of friendly curiosity, of pity forthe exiles; on the part of the policemen who had hastened from a crossstreet, of pride at their temporary responsibility; on the part of thecoachman of the court carriage, of speculation as to the possible amountof his Majesty's tip. The thoughts were as harmless and protecting asthe warm sunshine. 

And then, suddenly and harshly, like the stroke of a fire bell atmidnight, the harmonious chorus of gentle, hospitable thoughts wasshattered by one that was discordant, evil, menacing. It was the thoughtof a man with a brain diseased; and its purpose was murder. 

"When they appear at the doorway, " spoke the brain of the maniac, "Ishall lift the bomb from my pocket. I shall raise it above my head. Ishall crash it against the stone steps. It will hurl them and all ofthese people into eternity and me with them. But I shall LIVE--a martyrto the Cause. And the Cause will flourish!"

Through the unsuspecting crowd, like a football player diving for atackle, Philip hurled himself upon a little dark man standing close tothe open door of the court carriage. From the rear Philip seizedhim around the waist and locked his arms behind him, elbow to elbow. Philip's face, appearing over the man's shoulder, stared straight intothat of the policeman. 

"He has a bomb in his right-hand pocket!" yelled Philip. "I can hold himwhile you take it! But, for Heaven's sake, don't drop it!" Philip turnedupon the crowd. "Run! all of you!" he shouted. "Run like the devil!"

At that instant the boy King and his Queen Mother, herself still youngand beautiful, and cloaked with a dignity and sorrow that her robes ofmourning could not intensify, appeared in the doorway. 

"Go back, sir!" warned Philip. "He means to kill you!"

At the words and at sight of the struggling men, the great lady swayedhelplessly, her eyes filled with terror. Her son sprang protectinglyin front of her. But the danger was past. A second policeman was nowholding the maniac by the wrists, forcing his arms above his head;Philip's arms, like a lariat, were wound around his chest; and from hispocket the first policeman gingerly drew forth a round, black object ofthe size of a glass fire-grenade. He held it high in the air, and wavedhis free hand warningly. But the warning was unobserved. There was noone remaining to observe it. Leaving the would-be assassin strugglingand biting in the grasp of the stalwart policeman, and the otherpoliceman unhappily holding the bomb at arm's length, Philip sought toescape into the Ritz. But the young King broke through the circle ofattendants and stopped him. 

"I must thank you, " said the boy eagerly; "and I wish you to tell me howyou came to suspect the man's purpose. "

Unable to speak the truth, Philip, the would-be writer of fiction, beganto improvise fluently. 

"To learn their purpose, sir, " he said, "is my business. I am of theInternational Police, and in the secret service of your Majesty. "

"Then I must know your name, " said the King, and added with a dignitythat was most becoming, "You will find we are not ungrateful. "

Philip smiled mysteriously and shook his head. 

"I said in your secret service, " he repeated. "Did even your Majestyknow me, my usefulness would be at an end. " He pointed toward the twopolicemen. "If you desire to be just, as well as gracious, those are themen to reward. "

He slipped past the King and through the crowd of hotel officials intothe hall and on into the corridor. 

The arrest had taken place so quietly and so quickly that through theheavy glass doors no sound had penetrated, and of the fact that theyhad been so close to a possible tragedy those in the corridor were stillignorant. The members of the Hungarian orchestra were arranging theirmusic; a waiter was serving two men of middle age with sherry; and twodistinguished-looking elderly gentlemen seated together on a sofa weretalking in leisurely whispers. 

One of the two middle-aged men was well known to Philip, who as areporter had often, in New York, endeavored to interview him on mattersconcerning the steel trust. His name was Faust. He was a PennsylvaniaDutchman from Pittsburgh, and at one time had been a foreman of thenight shift in the same mills he now controlled. But with a roar anda spectacular flash, not unlike one of his own blast furnaces, he hadsoared to fame and fortune. He recognized Philip as one of the brightyoung men of the Republic; but in his own opinion he was far tooself-important to betray that fact. 

Philip sank into an imitation Louis Quatorze chair beside a fountain inimitation of one in the apartment of the Pompadour, and ordered whathe knew would be an execrable imitation of an American cocktail. Whilewaiting for the cocktail and Lady Woodcote's luncheon party, Philip, from where he sat, could not help but overhear the conversation of Faustand of the man with him. The latter was a German with Hebraic featuresand a pointed beard. In loud tones he was congratulating the Americanmany-time millionaire on having that morning come into possession ofa rare and valuable masterpiece, a hitherto unknown and but recentlydiscovered portrait of Philip IV by Velasquez. 

Philip sighed enviously. 

"Fancy, " he thought, "owning a Velasquez! Fancy having it all toyourself! It must be fun to be rich. It certainly is hell to be poor!"

The German, who was evidently a picture-dealer, was exclaiming in tonesof rapture, and nodding his head with an air of awe and solemnity. 

"I am telling you the truth, Mr. Faust, " he said. "In no gallery inEurope, no, not even in the Prado, is there such another Velasquez. Thisis what you are doing, Mr. Faust, you are robbing Spain. You are robbingher of something worth more to her than Cuba. And I tell you, so soonas it is known that this Velasquez is going to your home in Pittsburgh, every Spaniard will hate you and every art-collector will hate you, too. For it is the most wonderful art treasure in Europe. And what a bargain, Mr. Faust! What a bargain!"

To make sure that the reporter was within hearing, Mr. Faust glancedin the direction of Philip and, seeing that he had heard, frownedimportantly. That the reporter might hear still more, he also raised hisvoice. 

"Nothing can be called a bargain, Baron, " he said, "that costs threehundred thousand dollars!"

Again he could not resist glancing toward Philip, and so eagerlythat Philip deemed it would be only polite to look interested. So heobligingly assumed a startled look, with which he endeavored to minglesimulations of surprise, awe, and envy. 

The next instant an expression of real surprise overspread his features. 

Mr. Faust continued. "If you will come upstairs, " he said to thepicture-dealer, "I will give you your check; and then I should like todrive to your apartments and take a farewell look at the picture. "

"I am sorry, " the Baron said, "but I have had it moved to my art galleryto be packed. "

"Then let's go to the gallery, " urged the patron of art. "We've justtime before lunch. " He rose to his feet, and on the instant the soul ofthe picture-dealer was filled with alarm. 

In actual words he said: "The picture is already boxed and in its leadcoffin. No doubt by now it is on its way to Liverpool. I am sorry. " Buthis thoughts, as Philip easily read them, were: "Fancy my letting thisvulgar fool into the Tate Street workshop! Even HE would know that oldmasters are not found in a half-finished state on Chelsea-made framesand canvases. Fancy my letting him see those two half-completed VanDycks, the new Hals, the half-dozen Corots. He would even see his owncopy of Velasquez next to the one exactly like it--the one MacMillanfinished yesterday and that I am sending to Oporto, where next year, ina convent, we shall 'discover' it. "

Philip's surprise gave way to intense amusement. In his delight at thesituation upon which he had stumbled, he laughed aloud. The two men, who had risen, surprised at the spectacle of a young man laughing atnothing, turned and stared. Philip also rose. 

"Pardon me, " he said to Faust, "but you spoke so loud I couldn't helpoverhearing. I think we've met before, when I was a reporter on theRepublic. "

The Pittsburgh millionaire made a pretense, of annoyance. 

"Really!" he protested irritably, "you reporters butt in everywhere. Nopublic man is safe. Is there no place we can go where you fellows won'tannoy us?"

"You can go to the devil for all I care, " said Philip, "or even toPittsburgh!"

He saw the waiter bearing down upon him with the imitation cocktail, and moved to meet it. The millionaire, fearing the reporter would escapehim, hastily changed his tone. He spoke with effective resignation. 

"However, since you've learned so much, " he said, "I'll tell you thewhole of it. I don't want the fact garbled, for it is of internationalimportance. Do you know what a Velasquez is?"

"Do you?" asked Philip. 

The millionaire smiled tolerantly. 

"I think I do, " he said. "And to prove it, I shall tell you somethingthat will be news to you. I have just bought a Velasquez that I am goingto place in my art museum. It is worth three hundred thousand dollars. "

Philip accepted the cocktail the waiter presented. It was quite as badas he had expected. 

"Now, I shall tell you something, " he said, "that will be news to you. You are not buying a Velasquez. It is no more a Velasquez than this hairoil is a real cocktail. It is a bad copy, worth a few dollars. "

"How dare you!" shouted Faust. "Are you mad?"

The face of the German turned crimson with rage. 

"Who is this insolent one?" he sputtered. 

"I will make you a sporting proposition, " said Philip. "You can take it, or leave it. You two will get into a taxi. You will drive to this man'sstudio in Tate Street. You will find your Velasquez is there and not onits way to Liverpool. And you will find one exactly like it, and a dozenother 'old masters' half-finished. I'll bet you a hundred pounds I'mright! And I'll bet this man a hundred pounds that he DOESN'T DARE TAKEYOU TO HIS STUDIO!"

"Indeed, I will not, " roared the German. "It would be to insult myself. "

"It would be an easy way to earn a hundred pounds, too, " said Philip. 

"How dare you insult the Baron?" demanded Faust. "What makes youthink--"

"I don't think, I know!" said Philip. "For the price of a taxi-cab fareto Tate Street, you win a hundred pounds. "

"We will all three go at once, " cried the German. "My car is outside. Wait here. I will have it brought to the door?"

Faust protested indignantly. 

"Do not disturb yourself, Baron, " he said; "just because a freshreporter--"

But already the German had reached the hall. Nor did he stop there. Theysaw him, without his hat, rush into Piccadilly, spring into a taxi, andshout excitedly to the driver. The next moment he had disappeared. 

"That's the last you'll see of him, " said Philip. 

"His actions are certainly peculiar, " gasped the millionaire. "He didnot wait for us. He didn't even wait for his hat! I think, after all, Ihad better go to Tate Street. "

"Do so, " said Philip, "and save yourself three hundred thousand dollars, and from the laughter of two continents. You'll find me here at lunch. If I'm wrong, I'll pay you a hundred pounds. "

"You should come with me, " said Faust. "It is only fair to yourself. "

"I'll take your word for what you find in the studio, " said Philip. "Icannot go. This is my busy day. "

Without further words, the millionaire collected his hat and stick, and, in his turn, entered a taxi-cab and disappeared. 

Philip returned to the Louis Quatorze chair and lit a cigarette. Savefor the two elderly gentlemen on the sofa, the lounge was still empty, and his reflections were undisturbed. He shook his head sadly. 

"Surely, " Philip thought, "the French chap was right who said words weregiven us to conceal our thoughts. What a strange world it would be ifevery one possessed my power. Deception would be quite futile and lyingwould become a lost art. I wonder, " he mused cynically, "is any onequite honest? Does any one speak as he thinks and think as he speaks?"

At once came a direct answer to his question. The two elderly gentlemenhad risen and, before separating, had halted a few feet from him. 

"I sincerely hope, Sir John, " said one of the two, "that you haveno regrets. I hope you believe that I have advised you in the bestinterests of all?"

"I do, indeed, " the other replied heartily "We shall be thought entirelyselfish; but you know and I know that what we have done is for thebenefit of the shareholders. "

Philip was pleased to find that the thoughts of each of the oldgentlemen ran hand in hand with his spoken words. "Here, at least, " hesaid to himself, "are two honest men. "

As though loath to part, the two gentlemen still lingered. 

"And I hope, " continued the one addressed as Sir John, "that you approveof my holding back the public announcement of the combine until theafternoon. It will give the shareholders a better chance. Had we givenout the news in this morning's papers the stockbrokers would have--"

"It was most wise, " interrupted the other. "Most just. "

The one called Sir John bowed himself away, leaving the other stillstanding at the steps of the lounge. With his hands behind his back, hischin sunk on his chest, he remained, gazing at nothing, his thoughts faraway. 

Philip found them thoughts of curious interest. They were concerned withthree flags. Now, the gentleman considered them separately; and Philipsaw the emblems painted clearly in colors, fluttering and flattenedby the breeze. Again, the gentleman considered them in variouscombinations; but always, in whatever order his mind arranged them, ofthe three his heart spoke always to the same flag, as the heart of amother reaches toward her firstborn. 

Then the thoughts were diverted; and in his mind's eye the old gentlemanwas watching the launching of a little schooner from a shipyard on theClyde. At her main flew one of the three flags--a flag with a red crosson a white ground. With thoughts tender and grateful, he followed herto strange, hot ports, through hurricanes and tidal waves; he saw herreturn again and again to the London docks, laden with odorous coffee, mahogany, red rubber, and raw bullion. He saw sister ships follow in herwake to every port in the South Sea; saw steam packets take the placeof the ships with sails; saw the steam packets give way to greatocean liners, each a floating village, each equipped, as no village isequipped, with a giant power house, thousands of electric lamps, suiteafter suite of silk-lined boudoirs, with the floating harps that vibrateto a love message three hundred miles away, to the fierce call for helpfrom a sinking ship. But at the main of each great vessel there stillflew the same house-flag--the red cross on the field of white--only nowin the arms of the cross there nestled proudly a royal crown. 

Philip cast a scared glance at the old gentleman, and raced down thecorridor to the telephone. 

Of all the young Englishmen he knew, Maddox was his best friend and astock-broker. In that latter capacity Philip had never before addressedhim. Now he demanded his instant presence at the telephone. 

Maddox greeted him genially, but Philip cut him short. 

"I want you to act for me, " he whispered, "and act quick! I want youto buy for me one thousand shares of the Royal Mail Line, of theElder-Dempster, and of the Union Castle. "

He heard Maddox laugh indulgently. 

"There's nothing in that yarn of a combine, " he called. "It has fallenthrough. Besides, shares are at fifteen pounds. "

Philip, having in his possession a second-class ticket and a five-poundnote, was indifferent to that, and said so. 

"I don't care what they are, " he shouted. "The combine is already signedand sealed, and no one knows it but myself. In an hour everybody willknow it!"

"What makes you think you know it?" demanded the broker. 

"I've seen the house-flags!" cried Philip. "I have--do as I tell you, "he commanded. 

There was a distracting delay. 

"No matter who's back of you, " objected Maddox, "it's a big order on agamble. "

"It's not a gamble, " cried Philip. "It's an accomplished fact. I'm atthe Ritz. Call me up there. Start buying now, and, when you've got athousand of each, stop!"

Philip was much too agitated to go far from the telephone booth; so forhalf an hour he sat in the reading-room, forcing himself to read theillustrated papers. When he found he had read the same advertisementfive times, he returned to the telephone. The telephone boy met himhalf-way with a message. 

"Have secured for you a thousand shares of each, " he read, "at fifteen. Maddox. "

Like a man awakening from a nightmare, Philip tried to separatethe horror of the situation from the cold fact. The cold fact wassufficiently horrible. It was that, without a penny to pay for them, he had bought shares in three steamship lines, which shares, addedtogether, were worth two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars. He returned down the corridor toward the lounge. Trembling at his ownaudacity, he was in a state of almost complete panic, when that happenedwhich made his outrageous speculation of little consequence. It wasdrawing near to half-past one; and, in the persons of several smart menand beautiful ladies, the component parts of different luncheon partieswere beginning to assemble. 

Of the luncheon to which Lady Woodcote had invited him, only oneguest had arrived; but, so far as Philip was concerned, that one wassufficient. It was Helen herself, seated alone, with her eyes fixedon the doors opening from Piccadilly. Philip, his heart singing withappeals, blessings, and adoration, ran toward her. Her profile wastoward him, and she could not see him; but he could see her. And henoted that, as though seeking some one, her eyes were turned searchinglyupon each young man as he entered and moved from one to another of thosealready in the lounge. Her expression was eager and anxious. 

"If only, " Philip exclaimed, "she were looking for me! She certainly islooking for some man. I wonder who it can be?"

As suddenly as if he had slapped his face into a wall, he halted in hissteps. Why should he wonder? Why did he not read her mind? Why did henot KNOW? A waiter was hastening toward him. Philip fixed his mind uponthe waiter, and his eyes as well. Mentally Philip demanded of him: "Ofwhat are you thinking?"

There was no response. And then, seeing an unlit cigarette hangingfrom Philip's lips, the waiter hastily struck a match and profferedit. Obviously, his mind had worked, first, in observing the half-burnedcigarette; next, in furnishing the necessary match. And of no step inthat mental process had Philip been conscious! The conclusion was onlytoo apparent. His power was gone. No longer was he a mind reader!

Hastily Philip reviewed the adventures of the morning. As he consideredthem, the moral was obvious. The moment he had used his power to hisown advantage, he had lost it. So long as he had exerted it for thehappiness of the two lovers, to save the life of the King, to thwartthe dishonesty of a swindler, he had been all-powerful; but when heendeavored to bend it to his own uses, it had fled from him. As he stoodabashed and repentant, Helen turned her eyes toward him; and, at thesight of him, there leaped to them happiness and welcome and completecontent. It was "the look that never was on land or sea, " and it was notnecessary to be a mind reader to understand it. Philip sprang toward heras quickly as a man dodges a taxi-cab. 

"I came early, " said Helen, "because I wanted to talk to you before theothers arrived. " She seemed to be repeating words already rehearsed, tobe following a course of conduct already predetermined. "I want to tellyou, " she said, "that I am sorry you are going away. I want to tell youthat I shall miss you very much. " She paused and drew a long breath. Andshe looked at Philip as if she was begging him to make it easier for herto go on. 

Philip proceeded to make it easier. 

"Will you miss me, " he asked, "in the Row, where I used to wait amongthe trees to see you ride past? Will you miss me at dances, where I usedto hide behind the dowagers to watch you waltzing by? Will you miss meat night, when you come home by sunrise, and I am not hiding against therailings of the Carlton Club, just to see you run across the pavementfrom your carriage, just to see the light on your window blind, just tosee the light go out, and to know that you are sleeping?"

Helen's eyes were smiling happily. She looked away from him. 

"Did you use to do that?" she asked. 

"Every night I do that, " said Philip. "Ask the policemen! They arrestedme three times. "

"Why?" said Helen gently. 

But Philip was not yet free to speak, so he said:

"They thought I was a burglar. "

Helen frowned. He was making it very hard for her. 

"You know what I mean, " she said. "Why did you keep guard outside mywindow?"

"It was the policeman kept guard, " said Philip. "I was there only as aburglar. I came to rob. But I was a coward, or else I had a conscience, or else I knew my own unworthiness. " There was a long pause. As bothof them, whenever they heard the tune afterward, always remembered, theHungarian band, with rare inconsequence, was playing the "Grizzly Bear, "and people were trying to speak to Helen. By her they were received witha look of so complete a lack of recognition, and by Philip with a glareof such savage hate, that they retreated in dismay. The pause seemed tolast for many years. 

At last Helen said: "Do you know the story of the two roses? They grewin a garden under a lady's window. They both loved her. One looked upat her from the ground and sighed for her; but the other climbed tothe lady's window, and she lifted him in and kissed him--because he haddared to climb. "

Philip took out his watch and looked at it. But Helen did not mind hisdoing that, because she saw that his eyes were filled with tears. Shewas delighted to find that she was making it very hard for him, too. 

"At any moment, " Philip said, "I may know whether I owe two hundredand twenty-five thousand dollars which I can never pay, or whether I amworth about that sum. I should like to continue this conversation atthe exact place where you last spoke--AFTER I know whether I am going tojail, or whether I am worth a quarter of a million dollars. "

Helen laughed aloud with happiness. 

"I knew that was it!" she cried. "You don't like my money. I was afraidyou did not like ME. If you dislike my money, I will give it away, or Iwill give it to you to keep for me. The money does not matter, so longas you don't dislike me. "

What Philip would have said to that, Helen could not know, for a page inmany buttons rushed at him with a message from the telephone, and witha hand that trembled Philip snatched it. It read: "Combine is announced, shares have gone to thirty-one, shall I hold or sell?"

That at such a crisis he should permit of any interruption hurt Helendeeply. She regarded him with unhappy eyes. Philip read the messagethree times. At last, and not without uneasy doubts as to his ownsanity, he grasped the preposterous truth. He was worth almost a quarterof a million dollars! At the page he shoved his last and only five-poundnote. He pushed the boy from him. 

"Run!" he commanded. "Get out of here, Tell him he is to SELL!"

He turned to Helen with a look in his eyes that could not be questionedor denied. He seemed incapable of speech, and, to break the silence, Helen said: "Is it good news?"

"That depends entirely upon you, " replied Philip soberly. "Indeed, allmy future life depends upon what you are going to say next. "

Helen breathed deeply and happily. 

"And--what am I going to say?"

"How can I know that?" demanded Philip. "Am I a mind reader?"

But what she said may be safely guessed from the fact that they bothchucked Lady Woodcotes luncheon, and ate one of penny buns, which theyshared with the bears in Regents Park. 

Philip was just able to pay for the penny buns. Helen paid for thetaxi-cab. 

Chapter 7. THE NAKED MAN

In their home town of Keepsburg, the Keeps were the reigning dynasty, socially and in every way. Old man Keep was president of the trolleyline, the telephone company, and the Keep National Bank. But Fred, hisson, and the heir apparent, did not inherit the business ability of hisfather; or, if he did, he took pains to conceal that fact. Fred had gonethrough Harvard, but as to that also, unless he told people, they wouldnot have known it. Ten minutes after Fred met a man he generally toldhim. 

When Fred arranged an alliance with Winnie Platt, who also was of theinnermost inner set of Keepsburg, everybody said Keepsburg would soonlose them. And everybody was right. When single, each had sighed forother social worlds to conquer, and when they combined their fortunesand ambitions they found Keepsburg impossible, and they left it tolay siege to New York. They were too crafty to at once attack New Yorkitself. A widow lady they met while on their honeymoon at Palm Beach hadtold them not to attempt that. And she was the Palm Beach correspondentof a society paper they naturally accepted her advice. She warned themthat in New York the waiting-list is already interminable, and that, ifyou hoped to break into New York society, the clever thing to do was tolay siege to it by way of the suburbs and the country clubs. If you wentdirect to New York knowing no one, you would at once expose that fact, and the result would be disastrous. 

She told them of a couple like themselves, young and rich and from theWest, who, at the first dance to which they were invited, asked, "Who isthe old lady in the wig?" and that question argued them so unknown thatit set them back two years. It was a terrible story, and it filled theKeeps with misgivings. They agreed with the lady correspondent that itwas far better to advance leisurely; first firmly to intrench themselvesin the suburbs, and then to enter New York, not as the Keeps fromKeepsburg, which meant nothing, but as the Fred Keeps of Long Island, orWestchester, or Bordentown. 

"In all of those places, " explained the widow lady, "our smartest peoplehave country homes, and at the country club you may get to know them. Then, when winter comes, you follow them on to the city. "

The point from which the Keeps elected to launch their attack wasScarboro-on-the-Hudson. They selected Scarboro because both of themcould play golf, and they planned that their first skirmish should befought and won upon the golf-links of the Sleepy Hollow Country Club. But the attack did not succeed. Something went wrong. They began to fearthat the lady correspondent had given them the wrong dope. For, althoughthree months had passed, and they had played golf together until theywere as loath to clasp a golf club as a red-hot poker, they knew no one, and no one knew them. That is, they did not know the Van Wardens; andif you lived at Scarboro and were not recognized by the Van Wardens, youwere not to be found on any map. 

Since the days of Hendrik Hudson the country-seat of the Van Wardenshad looked down upon the river that bears his name, and ever since thosedays the Van Wardens had looked down upon everybody else. They were soproud that at all their gates they had placed signs reading, "No horsesallowed. Take the other road. " The other road was an earth road used bytradespeople from Ossining; the road reserved for the Van Wardens, andautomobiles, was of bluestone. It helped greatly to give the Van Wardenestate the appearance of a well kept cemetery. And those Van Wardens whooccupied the country-place were as cold and unsociable as the sort ofpeople who occupy cemeteries--except "Harry" Van Warden, and she livedin New York at the Turf Club. 

Harry, according to all local tradition--for he frequently motored outto Warden Koopf, the Van Warden country-seat--and, according to thenewspapers, was a devil of a fellow and in no sense cold or unsociable. So far as the Keeps read of him, he was always being arrested foroverspeeding, or breaking his collar-bone out hunting, or losing hisfront teeth at polo. This greatly annoyed the proud sisters at WardenKoopf; not because Harry was arrested or had broken his collar-bone, butbecause it dragged the family name into the newspapers. 

"If you would only play polo or ride to hounds instead of playing golf, "sighed Winnie Keep to her husband, "you would meet Harry Van Warden, andhe'd introduce you to his sisters, and then we could break in anywhere. "

"If I was to ride to hounds, " returned her husband, "the only thing I'dbreak would be my neck. "

The country-place of the Keeps was completely satisfactory, and for thepurposes of their social comedy the stage-setting was perfect. Thehouse was one they had rented from a man of charming taste and inflatedfortune; and with it they had taken over his well-disciplined butler, his pictures, furniture, family silver, and linen. It stood upon aneminence, was heavily wooded, and surrounded by many gardens; but itschief attraction was an artificial lake well stocked with trout that laydirectly below the terrace of the house and also in full view from theroad to Albany. 

This latter fact caused Winnie Keep much concern. In the neighborhoodwere many Italian laborers, and on several nights the fish had temptedthese born poachers to trespass; and more than once, on hot summerevenings, small boys from Tarrytown and Ossining had broken through thehedge, and used the lake as a swimming-pool. 

"It makes me nervous, " complained Winnie. "I don't like the idea ofpeople prowling around so near the house. And think of those twelvehundred convicts, not one mile away, in Sing Sing. Most of them areburglars, and if they ever get out, our house is the very first onethey'll break into. "

"I haven't caught anybody in this neighborhood breaking into our houseyet, " said Fred, "and I'd be glad to see even a burglar!"

They were seated on the brick terrace that overlooked the lake. It wasjust before the dinner hour, and the dusk of a wonderful Octobernight had fallen on the hedges, the clumps of evergreens, the rowsof close-clipped box. A full moon was just showing itself above thetree-tops, turning the lake into moving silver. Fred rose from hiswicker chair and, crossing to his young bride, touched her hairfearfully with the tips of his fingers. 

"What if we don't know anybody, Win, " he said, "and nobody knows us?It's been a perfectly good honeymoon, hasn't it? If you just look at itthat way, it works out all right. We came here really for our honeymoon, to be together, to be alone--"

Winnie laughed shortly. "They certainly have left us alone!" she sighed. 

"But where else could we have been any happier?" demanded the younghusband loyally. "Where will you find any prettier place than this, justas it is at this minute, so still and sweet and silent? There's nothingthe matter with that moon, is there? Nothing the matter with the lake?Where's there a better place for a honeymoon? It's a bower--a bower ofpeace, solitude a--bower of--"

As though mocking his words, there burst upon the sleeping countrysidethe shriek of a giant siren. It was raucous, virulent, insulting. Itcame as sharply as a scream of terror, it continued in a bellow of rage. Then, as suddenly as it had cried aloud, it sank to silence; only aftera pause of an instant, as though giving a signal, to shriek again in twosharp blasts. And then again it broke into the hideous long drawn screamof rage, insistent, breathless, commanding; filling the soul of him whoheard it, even of the innocent, with alarm. 

"In the name of Heaven!" gasped Keep, "what's that?"

Down the terrace the butler was hastening toward them. When he stopped, he spoke as though he were announcing dinner. "A convict, sir, " he said, "has escaped from Sing Sing. I thought you might not understand thewhistle. I thought perhaps you would wish Mrs. Keep to come in-doors. "

"Why?" asked Winnie Keep. 

"The house is near the road, madam, " said the butler. "And there areso many trees and bushes. Last summer two of them hid here, and thekeepers--there was a fight. " The man glanced at Keep. Fred touched hiswife on the arm. 

"It's time to dress for dinner, Win, " he said. 

"And what are you going to do?" demanded Winnie. 

"I'm going to finish this cigar first. It doesn't take me long tochange. " He turned to the butler. "And I'll have a cocktail, too I'llhave it out here. "

The servant left them, but in the French window that opened from theterrace to the library Mrs. Keep lingered irresolutely. "Fred, " shebegged, "you--you're not going to poke around in the bushes, areyou?--just because you think I'm frightened?"

Her husband laughed at her. "I certainly am NOT!" he said. "And you'renot frightened, either. Go in. I'll be with you in a minute. "

But the girl hesitated. Still shattering the silence of the night thesiren shrieked relentlessly; it seemed to be at their very door, to beatand buffet the window-panes. The bride shivered and held her fingers toher ears. 

"Why don't they stop it!" she whispered. "Why don't they give him achance!"

When she had gone, Fred pulled one of the wicker chairs to the edgeof the terrace, and, leaning forward with his chin in his hands, satstaring down at the lake. The moon had cleared the tops of the trees, had blotted the lawns with black, rigid squares, had disguised thehedges with wavering shadows. Somewhere near at hand a criminal--amurderer, burglar, thug--was at large, and the voice of the prison hehad tricked still bellowed in rage, in amazement, still clamored notonly for his person but perhaps for his life. The whole countrysideheard it: the farmers bedding down their cattle for the night; theguests of the Briar Cliff Inn, dining under red candle shades; the joyriders from the city, racing their cars along the Albany road. It wokethe echoes of Sleepy Hollow. It crossed the Hudson. The granite wallsof the Palisades flung it back against the granite walls of the prison. Whichever way the convict turned, it hunted him, reaching for him, pointing him out--stirring in the heart of each who heard it the lust ofthe hunter, which never is so cruel as when the hunted thing is a man. 

"Find him!" shrieked the siren. "Find him! He's there, behind yourhedge! He's kneeling by the stone wall. THAT'S he running in themoonlight. THAT'S he crawling through the dead leaves! Stop him! Draghim down! He's mine! Mine!"

But from within the prison, from within the gray walls that made thehome of the siren, each of twelve hundred men cursed it with his soul. Each, clinging to the bars of his cell, each, trembling with a fearfuljoy, each, his thumbs up, urging on with all the strength of his willthe hunted, rat-like figure that stumbled panting through the crispOctober night, bewildered by strange lights, beset by shadows, staggering and falling, running like a mad dog in circles, knowing thatwherever his feet led him the siren still held him by the heels. 

As a rule, when Winnie Keep was dressing for dinner, Fred, in the roomadjoining, could hear her unconsciously and light-heartedly singingto herself. It was a habit of hers that he loved. But on this night, although her room was directly above where he sat upon the terrace, heheard no singing. He had been on the terrace for a quarter of an hour. Gridley, the aged butler who was rented with the house, and who fortwenty years had been an inmate of it, had brought the cocktail andtaken away the empty glass. And Keep had been alone with his thoughts. They were entirely of the convict. If the man suddenly confronted himand begged his aid, what would he do? He knew quite well what he woulddo. He considered even the means by which he would assist the fugitiveto a successful get-away. 

The ethics of the question did not concern Fred. He did not weigh hisduty to the State of New York, or to society. One day, when he hadvisited "the institution, " as a somewhat sensitive neighborhood prefersto speak of it, he was told that the chance of a prisoner's escapingfrom Sing Sing and not being at once retaken was one out of sixthousand. So with Fred it was largely a sporting proposition. Any manwho could beat a six-thousand-to-one shot commanded his admiration. 

And, having settled his own course of action, he tried to imaginehimself in the place of the man who at that very moment was endeavoringto escape. Were he that man, he would first, he decided, rid himselfof his tell-tale clothing. But that would leave him naked, and inWestchester County a naked man would be quite as conspicuous as one inthe purple-gray cloth of the prison. How could he obtain clothes? Hemight hold up a passer-by, and, if the passer-by did not flee fromhim or punch him into insensibility, he might effect an exchange ofgarments; he might by threats obtain them from some farmer; he mightdespoil a scarecrow. 

But with none of these plans was Fred entirely satisfied. The questiondeeply perplexed him. How best could a naked man clothe himself? And ashe sat pondering that point, from the bushes a naked man emerged. He wasnot entirely undraped. For around his nakedness he had drawn a canvasawning. Fred recognized it as having been torn from one of the row-boatsin the lake. But, except for that, the man was naked to his heels. Hewas a young man of Fred's own age. His hair was cut close, his facesmooth-shaven, and above his eye was a half-healed bruise. He had thesharp, clever, rat-like face of one who lived by evil knowledge. Waterdripped from him, and either for that reason or from fright the youngman trembled, and, like one who had been running, breathed in short, hard gasps. 

Fred was surprised to find that he was not in the least surprised. Itwas as though he had been waiting for the man, as though it had been anappointment. 

Two thoughts alone concerned him: that before he could rid himself ofhis visitor his wife might return and take alarm, and that the man, notknowing his friendly intentions, and in a state to commit murder, mightrush him. But the stranger made no hostile move, and for a moment in themoonlight the two young men eyed each other warily. 

Then, taking breath and with a violent effort to stop the chattering ofhis teeth, the stranger launched into his story. 

"I took a bath in your pond, " he blurted forth, "and--and they stole myclothes! That's why I'm like this!"

Fred was consumed with envy. In comparison with this ingenious narrativehow prosaic and commonplace became his own plans to rid himself ofaccusing garments and explain his nakedness. He regarded the strangerwith admiration. But even though he applauded the other's invention, hecould not let him suppose that he was deceived by it. 

"Isn't it rather a cold night to take a bath?" he said. 

As though in hearty agreement, the naked man burst into a violent fit ofshivering. 

"It wasn't a bath, " he gasped. "It was a bet!"

"A what!" exclaimed Fred. His admiration was increasing. "A bet? Thenyou are not alone?"

"I am NOW--damn them!" exclaimed the naked one. He began againreluctantly. "We saw you from the road, you and a woman, sitting herein the light from that room. They bet me I didn't dare strip and swimacross your pond with you sitting so near. I can see now it was framedup on me from the start. For when I was swimming back I saw them run towhere I'd left my clothes, and then I heard them crank up, and when Igot to the hedge the car was gone!"

Keep smiled encouragingly. "The car!" he assented. "So you've beenriding around in the moonlight?"

The other nodded, and was about to speak when there burst in upon themthe roaring scream of the siren. The note now was of deeper rage, andcame in greater volume. Between his clinched teeth the naked one cursedfiercely, and then, as though to avoid further questions, burst into afit of coughing. Trembling and shaking, he drew the canvas cloak closerto him. But at no time did his anxious, prying eyes leave the eyes ofKeep. 

"You--you couldn't lend me a suit of clothes could you?" he stuttered. "Just for to-night? I'll send them back. It's all right, " he added;reassuringly. "I live near here. "

With a start Keep raised his eyes, and distressed by his look, the youngman continued less confidently. 

"I don't blame you if you don't believe it, " he stammered, "seeing melike this; but I DO live right near here. Everybody around here knowsme, and I guess you've read about me in the papers, too. I'm--that is, my name--" like one about to take a plunge he drew a short breath, andthe rat-like eyes regarded Keep watchfully--"my name is Van Warden. I'mthe one you read about--Harry--I'm Harry Van Warden!"

After a pause, slowly and reprovingly Fred shook his head; but his smilewas kindly even regretful, as though he were sorry he could not longerenjoy the stranger's confidences. 

"My boy!" he exclaimed, "you're MORE than Van Warden! You're a genius!"He rose and made a peremptory gesture. "Sorry, " he said, "but this isn'tsafe for either of us. Follow me, and I'll dress you up and send youwhere you want to go. " He turned and whispered over his shoulder: "Someday let me hear from you. A man with your nerve--"

In alarm the naked one with a gesture commanded silence. 

The library led to the front hall. In this was the coat-room. Firstmaking sure the library and hall were free of servants, Fred tiptoed tothe coat-room and, opening the door, switched: on the electric light. The naked man, leaving in his wake a trail of damp footprints, followedat his heels. 

Fred pointed at golf-capes, sweaters, greatcoats hanging from hooks, andon the floor at boots and overshoes. 

"Put on that motor-coat and the galoshes, " he commanded. "They'll coveryou in case you have to run for it. I'm going to leave you here whileI get you some clothes. If any of the servants butt in, don't lose yourhead. Just say you're waiting to see me--Mr. Keep. I won't be long. Wait. "

"Wait!" snorted the stranger. "You BET I'll wait!"

As Fred closed the door upon him, the naked one was rubbing himselfviolently with Mrs. Keep's yellow golf-jacket. 

In his own room Fred collected a suit of blue serge, a tennis shirt, boots, even a tie. Underclothes he found ready laid out for him, and hesnatched them from the bed. From a roll of money in his bureau drawerhe counted out a hundred dollars. Tactfully he slipped the money in thetrousers pocket of the serge suit and with the bundle of clothes in hisarms raced downstairs and shoved them into the coat-room. 

"Don't come out until I knock, " he commanded. "And, " he added in avehement whisper, "don't come out at all unless you have clothes on!"

The stranger grunted. 

Fred rang for Gridley and told him to have his car brought around to thedoor. He wanted it to start at once within two minutes. When the butlerhad departed, Fred, by an inch, again opened the coat-room door. Thestranger had draped himself in the underclothes and the shirt, and atthe moment was carefully arranging the tie. 

"Hurry!" commanded Keep. "The car'll be here in a minute. Where shall Itell him to take you?"

The stranger chuckled excitedly; his confidence seemed to be returning. "New York, " he whispered, "fast as he can get there! Look here, " headded doubtfully, "there's a roll of bills in these clothes. "

"They're yours, " said Fred. 

The stranger exclaimed vigorously. "You're all right!" he whispered. "Iwon't forget this, or you either. I'll send the money back same time Isend the clothes. "

"Exactly!" said Fred. 

The wheels of the touring-car crunched on the gravel drive, and Fredslammed to the door, and like a sentry on guard paced before it. Aftera period which seemed to stretch over many minutes there came from theinside a cautious knocking. With equal caution Fred opened the door ofthe width of a finger, and put his ear to the crack. 

"You couldn't find me a button-hook, could you?" whispered the stranger. 

Indignantly Fred shut the door and, walking to the veranda, hailed thechauffeur. James, the chauffeur, was a Keepsburg boy, and when Keep hadgone to Cambridge James had accompanied him. Keep knew the boy could betrusted. 

"You're to take a man to New York, " he said, "or wherever he wantsto go. Don't talk to him. Don't ask any questions. So, if YOU'REquestioned, you can say you know nothing. That's for your own good!"

The chauffeur mechanically touched his cap and started down the steps. As he did so, the prison whistle, still unsatisfied, still demanding itsprey, shattered the silence. As though it had hit him a physical blow, the youth jumped. He turned and lifted startled, inquiring eyes to whereKeep stood above him. 

"I told you, " said Keep, "to ask no questions. "

As Fred re-entered the hall, Winnie Keep was coming down the stairstoward him. She had changed to one of the prettiest evening gowns of hertrousseau, and so outrageously lovely was the combination of herself andthe gown that her husband's excitement and anxiety fell from him, and hewas lost in admiration. But he was not for long lost. To his horror; thedoor of the coat-closet opened toward his wife and out of the closet thestranger emerged. Winnie, not accustomed to seeing young men suddenlyappear from among the dust-coats, uttered a sharp shriek. 

With what he considered great presence of mind, Fred swung upon thevisitor. 

"Did you fix it?" he demanded. 

The visitor did not heed him. In amazement in abject admiration, hiseyes were fastened upon the beautiful and radiant vision presented byWinnie Keep. But he also still preserved sufficient presence of mind tonod his head dully. 

"Come, " commanded Fred. "The car is waiting. "

Still the stranger did not move. As though he had never before seen awoman, as though her dazzling loveliness held him in a trance, he stoodstill, gazing, gaping, devouring Winnie with his eyes. In her turn, Winnie beheld a strange youth who looked like a groom out of livery, so overcome by her mere presence as to be struck motionless andinarticulate. For protection she moved in some alarm toward her husband. 

The stranger gave a sudden jerk of his body that might have beenintended for a bow. Before Keep could interrupt him, like a parrotreciting its lesson, he exclaimed explosively:

"My name's Van Warden. I'm Harry Van Warden. "

He seemed as little convinced of the truth of his statement as thoughhe had announced that he was the Czar of Russia. It was as though astage-manager had drilled him in the lines. 

But upon Winnie, as her husband saw to his dismay, the words producedan instant and appalling effect. She fairly radiated excitement anddelight. How her husband had succeeded in capturing the social prize ofScarboro she could not imagine, but, for doing so, she flashed towardhim a glance of deep and grateful devotion. 

Then she beamed upon the stranger. "Won't Mr. Van Warden stay todinner?" she asked. 

Her husband emitted a howl. "He will NOT!" he cried. "He's not that kindof a Van Warden. He's a plumber. He's the man that fixes the telephone!"

He seized the visitor by the sleeve of the long motor-coat and draggedhim down the steps. Reluctantly, almost resistingly, the visitorstumbled after him, casting backward amazed glances at the beautifullady. Fred thrust him into the seat beside the chauffeur. Pointing atthe golf-cap and automobile goggles which the stranger was stupidlytwisting in his hands, Fred whispered fiercely:

"Put those on! Cover your face! Don't speak! The man knows what to do. "

With eager eyes and parted lips James the chauffeur was waiting for thesignal. Fred nodded sharply, and the chauffeur stooped to throw in theclutch. But the car did not start. From the hedge beside the driveway, directly in front of the wheels, something on all fours threw itselfupon the gravel; something in a suit of purple-gray; something tornand bleeding, smeared with sweat and dirt; something that cringed andcrawled, that tried to rise and sank back upon its knees, lifting to theglare of the head-lights the white face and white hair of a very old, old man. The kneeling figure sobbed; the sobs rising from far down inthe pit of the stomach, wrenching the body like waves of nausea. The manstretched his arms toward them. From long disuse his voice cracked andbroke. 

"I'm done!" he sobbed. "I can't go no farther! I give myself up!"

Above the awful silence that held the four young people, the prisonsiren shrieked in one long, mocking howl of triumph. 

It was the stranger who was the first to act. Pushing past Fred, andslipping from his own shoulders the long motor-coat, he flung it overthe suit of purple-gray. The goggles he clapped upon the old man'sfrightened eyes, the golf-cap he pulled down over the white hair. Withone arm he lifted the convict, and with the other dragged and pushed himinto the seat beside the chauffeur. Into the hands of the chauffeur hethrust the roll of bills. 

"Get him away!" he ordered. "It's only twelve miles to the Connecticutline. As soon as you're across, buy him clothes and a ticket to Boston. Go through White Plains to Greenwich--and then you're safe!"

As though suddenly remembering the presence of the owner of the car, heswung upon Fred. "Am I right?" he demanded. 

"Of course!" roared Fred. He flung his arm at the chauffeur as thoughthrowing him into space. 

"Get-to-hell-out-of-here!" he shouted. 

The chauffeur, by profession a criminal, but by birth a human being, chuckled savagely and this time threw in the clutch. With a grinding ofgravel the racing-car leaped into the night, its ruby rear lamp winkingin farewell, its tiny siren answering the great siren of the prison injeering notes of joy and victory. 

Fred had supposed that at the last moment the younger convict proposedto leap to the running-board, but instead the stranger remainedmotionless. 

Fred shouted impotently after the flying car. In dismay he seized thestranger by the arm. 

"But you?" he demanded. "How are you going to get away?"

The stranger turned appealingly to where upon the upper step stoodWinnie Keep. 

"I don't want to get away, " he said. "I was hoping, maybe, you'd let mestay to dinner. "

A terrible and icy chill crept down the spine of Fred Keep. He moved sothat the light from the hall fell full upon the face of the stranger. 

"Will you kindly tell me, " Fred demanded, "who the devil you are?"

The stranger exclaimed peevishly. "I've BEEN telling you all evening, "he protested. "I'm Harry Van Warden!"

Gridley, the ancient butler, appeared in the open door. 

"Dinner is served, madam, " he said. 

The stranger gave an exclamation of pleasure. "Hello, Gridley!" hecried. "Will you please tell Mr. Keep who I am? Tell him, if he'll askme to dinner, I won't steal the spoons. "

Upon the face of Gridley appeared a smile it never had been theprivilege of Fred Keep to behold. The butler beamed upon the strangerfondly, proudly, by the right of long acquaintanceship, with theaffection of an old friend. Still beaming, he bowed to Keep. 

"If Mr. Harry--Mr. Van Warden, " he said, "is to stay to dinner, might Isuggest, sir, he is very partial to the Paul Vibert, '84. "

Fred Keep gazed stupidly from his butler to the stranger and then at hiswife. She was again radiantly beautiful and smilingly happy. 

Gridley coughed tentatively. "Shall I open a bottle, sir?" he asked. 

Hopelessly Fred tossed his arms heavenward. 

"Open a case!" he roared. 

At ten o'clock, when they were still at table and reaching a state ofsuch mutual appreciation that soon they would be calling each other bytheir first names, Gridley brought in a written message he had takenfrom the telephone. It was a long-distance call from Yonkers, sent byJames, the faithful chauffeur. 

Fred read it aloud. 

"I got that party the articles he needed, " it read, "and saw him safe ona train to Boston. On the way back I got arrested for speeding the caron the way down. Please send money. I am in a cell in Yonkers. "

Chapter 8. THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF

Before he finally arrested him, "Jimmie" Sniffen had seen the man withthe golf-cap, and the blue eyes that laughed at you, three times. Twice, unexpectedly, he had come upon him in a wood road and once on RoundHill where the stranger was pretending to watch the sunset. Jimmieknew people do not climb hills merely to look at sunsets, so he was notdeceived. He guessed the man was a German spy seeking gun sites, andsecretly vowed to "stalk" him. From that moment, had the stranger knownit, he was as good as dead. For a boy scout with badges on hissleeve for "stalking" and "path-finding, " not to boast of othersfor "gardening" and "cooking, " can outwit any spy. Even had, GeneralBaden-Powell remained in Mafeking and not invented the boy scout, JimmieSniffen would have been one. Because, by birth he was a boy, and byinheritance, a scout. In Westchester County the Sniffens are one ofthe county families. If it isn't a Sarles, it's a Sniffen; and withBrundages, Platts, and Jays, the Sniffens date back to when the acres ofthe first Charles Ferris ran from the Boston post road to the coachroad to Albany, and when the first Gouverneur Morris stood on one ofhis hills and saw the Indian canoes in the Hudson and in the Sound andrejoiced that all the land between belonged to him. 

If you do not believe in heredity, the fact that Jimmie'sgreat-great-grandfather was a scout for General Washington and hunteddeer, and even bear, over exactly the same hills where Jimmie huntedweasles will count for nothing. It will not explain why to Jimmie, fromTarrytown to Port Chester, the hills, the roads, the woods, and thecow-paths, caves, streams, and springs hidden in the woods were asfamiliar as his own kitchen garden, nor explain why, when you could notsee a Pease and Elliman "For Sale" sign nailed to a tree, Jimmie couldsee in the highest branches a last year's bird's nest. 

Or why, when he was out alone playing Indians and had sunk his scout'saxe into a fallen log and then scalped the log, he felt that once beforein those same woods he had trailed that same Indian, and with his owntomahawk split open his skull. Sometimes when he knelt to drink at asecret spring in the forest, the autumn leaves would crackle and hewould raise his eyes fearing to see a panther facing him. 

"But there ain't no panthers in Westchester, " Jimmie would reassurehimself. And in the distance the roar of an automobile climbing a hillwith the muffler open would seem to suggest he was right. But stillJimmie remembered once before he had knelt at that same spring, and thatwhen he raised his eyes he had faced a crouching panther. "Mebbe dadtold me it happened to grandpop, " Jimmie would explain, "or I dreamedit, or, mebbe, I read it in a story book. "

The "German spy" mania attacked Round Hill after the visit to the boyscouts of Clavering Gould, the war correspondent. He was spending theweek end with "Squire" Harry Van Vorst, and as young Van Vorst, besidesbeing a justice of the peace and a Master of Beagles and Presidentof the Country Club, was also a local "councilman" for the Round HillScouts, he brought his guest to a camp-fire meeting to talk to them. Indeference to his audience, Gould told them of the boy scouts he had seenin Belgium and of the part they were playing in the great war. It washis peroration that made trouble. 

"And any day, " he assured his audience, "this country may be at war withGermany; and every one of you boys will be expected to do his bit. Youcan begin now. When the Germans land it will be near New Haven, or NewBedford. They will first capture the munition works at Springfield, Hartford, and Watervliet so as to make sure of their ammunition, andthen they will start for New York City. They will follow the New Havenand New York Central railroads, and march straight through this village. I haven't the least doubt, " exclaimed the enthusiastic war prophet, "that at this moment German spies are as thick in Westchester asblackberries. They are here to select camp sites and gun positions, tofind out which of these hills enfilade the others and to learn to whatextent their armies can live on the country. They are counting the cows, the horses, the barns where fodder is stored; and they are marking downon their maps the wells and streams. "

As though at that moment a German spy might be crouching behind thedoor, Mr. Gould spoke in a whisper. "Keep your eyes open!" he commanded. "Watch every stranger. If he acts suspiciously, get word quick to yoursheriff, or to Judge Van Vorst here. Remember the scouts' motto, 'Beprepared!'"

That night as the scouts walked home, behind each wall and hayrick theysaw spiked helmets. 

Young Van Vorst was extremely annoyed. 

"Next time you talk to my scouts, " he declared, "you'll talk on 'Votesfor Women. ' After what you said to-night every real estate agent whodares open a map will be arrested. We're not trying to drive people awayfrom Westchester, we're trying to sell them building sites. "

"YOU are not!" retorted his friend, "you own half the county now, andyou're trying to buy the other half. "

"I'm a justice of the peace, " explained Van Vorst. "I don't know WHY Iam, except that they wished it on me. All I get out of it is trouble. The Italians make charges against my best friends for overspeeding andI have to fine them, and my best friends bring charges against theItalians for poaching, and when I fine the Italians, they send me BlackHand letters. And now every day I'll be asked to issue a warrant fora German spy who is selecting gun sites. And he will turn out to be amillionaire who is tired of living at the Ritz-Carlton and wants to'own his own home' and his own golf-links. And he'll be so hot at beingarrested that he'll take his millions to Long Island and try to breakinto the Piping Rock Club. And, it will be your fault!"

The young justice of the peace was right. At least so far as JimmieSniffen was concerned, the words of the war prophet had filled one mindwith unrest. In the past Jimmie's idea of a holiday had been to spend itscouting in the woods. In this pleasure he was selfish. He did not wantcompanions who talked, and trampled upon the dead leaves so that theyfrightened the wild animals and gave the Indians warning. Jimmieliked to pretend. He liked to fill the woods with wary and hostileadversaries. It was a game of his own inventing. If he crept to thetop of a hill and on peering over it, surprised a fat woodchuck, hepretended the woodchuck was a bear, weighing two hundred pounds; if, himself unobserved, he could lie and watch, off its guard, a rabbit, squirrel, or, most difficult of all, a crow, it became a deer and thatnight at supper Jimmie made believe he was eating venison. Sometimes hewas a scout of the Continental Army and carried despatches to GeneralWashington. The rules of that game were that if any man ploughing inthe fields, or cutting trees in the woods, or even approaching along thesame road, saw Jimmie before Jimmie saw him, Jimmie was taken prisoner, and before sunrise was shot as a spy. He was seldom shot. Or else whyon his sleeve was the badge for "stalking. " But always to have to makebelieve became monotonous. Even "dry shopping" along the Rue de la Paixwhen you pretend you can have anything you see in any window, leaves onejust as rich, but unsatisfied. So the advice of the war correspondentto seek out German spies came to Jimmie like a day at the circus, like aweek at the Danbury Fair. It not only was a call to arms, to protect hisflag and home, but a chance to play in earnest the game in which hemost delighted. No longer need he pretend. No longer need he waste hisenergies in watching, unobserved, a greedy rabbit rob a carrot field. The game now was his fellow-man and his enemy; not only his enemy, butthe enemy of his country. 

In his first effort Jimmie was not entirely successful. The man lookedthe part perfectly; he wore an auburn beard, disguising spectacles, andhe carried a suspicious knapsack. But he turned out to be a professorfrom the Museum of Natural History, who wanted to dig for Indianarrow-heads. And when Jimmie threatened to arrest him, the indignantgentleman arrested Jimmie. Jimmie escaped only by leading the professorto a secret cave of his own, though on some one else's property, whereone not only could dig for arrow-heads, but find them. The professorwas delighted, but for Jimmie it was a great disappointment. The weekfollowing Jimmie was again disappointed. 

On the bank of the Kensico Reservoir, he came upon a man who was actingin a mysterious and suspicious manner. He was making notes in a book, and his runabout which he had concealed in a wood road was stuffed withblue-prints. It did not take Jimmie long to guess his purpose. He wasplanning to blow up the Kensico dam, and cut off the water supply ofNew York City. Seven millions of people without water! With out firinga shot, New York must surrender! At the thought Jimmie shuddered, andat the risk of his life by clinging to the tail of a motor truck, hefollowed the runabout into White Plains. But there it developed themysterious stranger, so far from wishing to destroy the Kensico dam, was the State Engineer who had built it, and, also, a large part of thePanama Canal. Nor in his third effort was Jimmie more successful. Fromthe heights of Pound Ridge he discovered on a hilltop below him a manworking alone upon a basin of concrete. The man was a German-American, and already on Jimmie's list of "suspects. " That for the use of theGerman artillery he was preparing a concrete bed for a siege gun wasonly too evident. But closer investigation proved that the concrete wasonly two inches thick. And the hyphenated one explained that the basinwas built over a spring, in the waters of which he planned to erecta fountain and raise gold fish. It was a bitter blow. Jimmie becamediscouraged. Meeting Judge Van Vorst one day in the road he told himhis troubles. The young judge proved unsympathetic. "My advice to you, Jimmie, " he said, "is to go slow. Accusing everybody of espionage is avery serious matter. If you call a man a spy, it's sometimes hard forhim to disprove it; and the name sticks. So, go slow--very slow. Beforeyou arrest any more people, come to me first for a warrant. "

So, the next time Jimmie proceeded with caution. 

Besides being a farmer in a small way, Jimmie's father was a handy manwith tools. He had no union card, but, in laying shingles along a bluechalk line, few were as expert. It was August, there was no school, andJimmie was carrying a dinner-pail to where his father was at work on anew barn. He made a cross-cut through the woods, and came upon the youngman in the golf-cap. The stranger nodded, and his eyes, which seemed tobe always laughing, smiled pleasantly. But he was deeply tanned, and, from the waist up, held himself like a soldier, so, at once, Jimmiemistrusted him. Early the next morning Jimmie met him again. It had notbeen raining, but the clothes of the young man were damp. Jimmie guessedthat while the dew was still on the leaves the young man had beenforcing his way through underbrush. The stranger must have rememberedJimmie, for he laughed and exclaimed:

"Ah, my friend with the dinner-pail! It's luck you haven't got it now, or I'd hold you up. I'm starving!"

Jimmie smiled in sympathy. "It's early to be hungry, " said Jimmie; "whendid you have your breakfast?"

"I didn't, " laughed the young man. "I went out to walk up an appetite, and I lost myself. But, I haven't lost my appetite. Which is theshortest way back to Bedford?"

"The first road to your right, " said Jimmie. 

"Is it far?" asked the stranger anxiously. That he was very hungry wasevident. 

"It's a half-hour's walk, " said Jimmie

"If I live that long, " corrected the young man; and stepped out briskly. 

Jimmie knew that within a hundred yards a turn in the road would shuthim from sight. So, he gave the stranger time to walk that distance, and, then, diving into the wood that lined the road, "stalked" him. Frombehind a tree he saw the stranger turn and look back, and seeing no onein the road behind him, also leave it and plunge into the woods. 

He had not turned toward Bedford; he had turned to the left. Like arunner stealing bases, Jimmie slipped from tree to tree. Ahead of him heheard the stranger trampling upon dead twigs, moving rapidly as one whoknew his way. At times through the branches Jimmie could see the broadshoulders of the stranger, and again could follow his progress only bythe noise of the crackling twigs. When the noises ceased, Jimmie guessedthe stranger had reached the wood road, grass-grown and moss-covered, that led to Middle Patent. So, he ran at right angles until he alsoreached it, and as now he was close to where it entered the main road, he approached warily. But, he was too late. There was a sound like thewhir of a rising partridge, and ahead of him from where it had beenhidden, a gray touring-car leaped into the highway. The stranger wasat the wheel. Throwing behind it a cloud of dust, the car raced towardGreenwich. Jimmie had time to note only that it bore a ConnecticutState license; that in the wheel-ruts the tires printed little V's, likearrow-heads. 

For a week Jimmie saw nothing of the spy, but for many hot and dustymiles he stalked arrow-heads. They lured him north, they lured himsouth, they were stamped in soft asphalt, in mud, dust, and fresh-spreadtarvia. Wherever Jimmie walked, arrow-heads ran before. In his sleep asin his copy-book, he saw endless chains of V's. But not once could hecatch up with the wheels that printed them. A week later, just at sunsetas he passed below Round Hill, he saw the stranger on top of it. On theskyline, in silhouette against the sinking sun, he was as conspicuousas a flagstaff. But to approach him was impossible. For acres Round Hilloffered no other cover than stubble. It was as bald as a skull. Untilthe stranger chose to descend, Jimmie must wait. And the stranger wasin no haste. The sun sank and from the west Jimmie saw him turn his faceeast toward the Sound. A storm was gathering, drops of rain began tosplash and as the sky grew black the figure on the hilltop faded intothe darkness. And then, at the very spot where Jimmie had last seenit, there suddenly flared two tiny flashes of fire. Jimmie leaped fromcover. It was no longer to be endured. The spy was signalling. The timefor caution had passed, now was the time to act. Jimmie raced to thetop of the hill, and found it empty. He plunged down it, vaulted a stonewall, forced his way through a tangle of saplings, and held his breathto listen. Just beyond him, over a jumble of rocks, a hidden stream wastripping and tumbling. Joyfully, it laughed and gurgled. Jimmie turnedhot. It sounded as though from the darkness the spy mocked him. Jimmieshook his fist at the enshrouding darkness. Above the tumult of thecoming storm and the tossing tree-tops, he raised his voice. 

"You wait!" he shouted. "I'll get you yet! Next time, I'll bring a gun. "

Next time, was the next morning. There had been a hawk hovering overthe chicken yard, and Jimmie used that fact to explain his borrowing thefamily shotgun. He loaded it with buckshot, and, in the pocket of hisshirt buttoned his license to "hunt, pursue and kill, to take with trapsor other devices. "

He remembered that Judge Van Vorst had warned him, before he arrestedmore spies, to come to him for a warrant. But with an impatient shake ofthe head Jimmie tossed the recollection from him. After what he had seenhe could not possibly be again mistaken. He did not need a warrant. Whathe had seen was his warrant--plus the shotgun. 

As a "pathfinder" should, he planned to take up the trail where he hadlost it, but, before he reached Round Hill, he found a warmer trail. Before him, stamped clearly in the road still damp from the rain of thenight before, two lines of little arrow-heads pointed the way. They wereso fresh that at each twist in the road, lest the car should be justbeyond him, Jimmie slackened his steps. After half a mile the scentgrew hot. The tracks were deeper, the arrow-heads more clearly cut, andJimmie broke into a run. Then, the arrow-heads swung suddenly to theright, and in a clearing at the edge of a wood, were lost. But the tireshad pressed deep into the grass, and just inside the wood, he found thecar. It was empty. Jimmie was drawn two ways. Should he seek the spyon the nearest hilltop, or, until the owner returned, wait by the car. Between lying in ambush and action, Jimmie preferred action. But, he didnot climb the hill nearest the car; he climbed the hill that overlookedthat hill. 

Flat on the ground, hidden in the golden-rod he lay motionless. Beforehim, for fifteen miles stretched hills and tiny valleys. Six miles awayto his right rose the stone steeple, and the red roofs of Greenwich. Directly before him were no signs of habitation, only green forests, green fields, gray stone walls, and, where a road ran up-hill, a splashof white, that quivered in the heat. The storm of the night before hadwashed the air. Each leaf stood by itself. Nothing stirred; and in theglare of the August sun every detail of the landscape was as distinct asthose in a colored photograph; and as still. 

In his excitement the scout was trembling. 

"If he moves, " he sighed happily, "I've got him!"

Opposite, across a little valley was the hill at the base of whichhe had found the car. The slope toward him was bare, but the top wascrowned with a thick wood; and along its crest, as though establishingan ancient boundary, ran a stone wall, moss-covered and wrapped inpoison-ivy. In places, the branches of the trees, reaching out to thesun, overhung the wall and hid it in black shadows. Jimmie divided thehill into sectors. He began at the right, and slowly followed the wall. With his eyes he took it apart, stone by stone. Had a chipmunk raisedhis head, Jimmie would have seen him. So, when from the stone wall, likethe reflection of the sun upon a window-pane, something flashed, Jimmieknew he had found his spy. A pair of binoculars had betrayed him. Jimmie now saw him clearly. He sat on the ground at the top of the hillopposite, in the deep shadow of an oak, his back against the stone wall. With the binoculars to his eyes he had leaned too far forward, and uponthe glass the sun had flashed a warning. 

Jimmie appreciated that his attack must be made from the rear. Backward, like a crab he wriggled free of the golden-rod, and hidden by thecontour of the hill, raced down it and into the woods on the hillopposite. When he came to within twenty feet of the oak beneath whichhe had seen the stranger, he stood erect, and as though avoiding a livewire, stepped on tip-toe to the wall. The stranger still sat against it. The binoculars hung from a cord around his neck. Across his knees wasspread a map. He was marking it with a pencil, and as he worked, hehummed a tune. 

Jimmie knelt, and resting the gun on the top of the wall, covered him. 

"Throw up your hands!" he commanded. 

The stranger did not start. Except that he raised his eyes he gave nosign that he had heard. His eyes stared across the little sun-filledvalley. They were half closed as though in study, as though perplexedby some deep and intricate problem. They appeared to see beyond thesun-filled valley some place of greater moment, some place far distant. 

Then the eyes smiled, and slowly, as though his neck were stiff, butstill smiling, the stranger turned his head. When he saw the boy, hissmile was swept away in waves of surprise, amazement, and disbelief. These were followed instantly by an expression of the most acute alarm. "Don't point that thing at me!" shouted the stranger. "Is it loaded?"With his cheek pressed to the stock and his eye squinted down the lengthof the brown barrel, Jimmie nodded. The stranger flung up his openpalms. They accented his expression of amazed incredulity. He seemed tobe exclaiming, "Can such things be?"

"Get up!" commanded Jimmie. 

With alacrity the stranger rose. 

"Walk over there, " ordered the scout. "Walk backward. Stop! Take offthose field-glasses and throw them to me. " Without removing his eyesfrom the gun the stranger lifted the binoculars from his neck and tossedthem to the stone wall. "See here!" he pleaded, "if you'll only pointthat damned blunderbuss the other way, you can have the glasses, and mywatch, and clothes, and all my money; only don't--"

Jimmie flushed crimson. "You can't bribe me, " he growled. At least, hetried to growl, but because his voice was changing, or because he wasexcited the growl ended in a high squeak. With mortification, Jimmieflushed a deeper crimson. But the stranger was not amused. At Jimmie'swords he seemed rather the more amazed. 

"I'm not trying to bribe you, " he protested. "If you don't wantanything, why are you holding me up?"

"I'm not, " returned Jimmie, "I'm arresting you!"

The stranger laughed with relief. Again his eyes smiled. "Oh, " he cried, "I see! Have I been trespassing?"

With a glance Jimmie measured the distance between himself and thestranger. Reassured, he lifted one leg after the other over the wall. "If you try to rush me, " he warned, "I'll shoot you full of buckshot. "

The stranger took a hasty step BACKWARD. "Don't worry about that, " heexclaimed. "I'll not rush you. Why am I arrested?"

Hugging the shotgun with his left arm, Jimmie stopped and lifted thebinoculars. He gave them a swift glance, slung them over his shoulder, and again clutched his weapon. His expression was now stern andmenacing. 

"The name on them" he accused, "is 'Weiss, Berlin. ' Is that your name?"The stranger smiled, but corrected himself, and replied gravely, "That'sthe name of the firm that makes them. "

Jimmie exclaimed in triumph. "Hah!" he cried, "made in Germany!"

The stranger shook his head. 

"I don't understand, " he said. "Where WOULD a Weiss glass be made?"With polite insistence he repeated, "Would you mind telling me why I amarrested, and who you might happen to be?"

Jimmie did not answer. Again he stooped and picked up the map, and as hedid so, for the first time the face of the stranger showed that he wasannoyed. Jimmie was not at home with maps. They told him nothing. Butthe penciled notes on this one made easy reading. At his first glance hesaw, "Correct range, 1, 800 yards"; "this stream not fordable"; "slope ofhill 15 degrees inaccessible for artillery. " "Wire entanglements here";"forage for five squadrons. "

Jimmie's eyes flashed. He shoved the map inside his shirt, and with thegun motioned toward the base of the hill. "Keep forty feet ahead of me, "he commanded, "and walk to your car. " The stranger did not seem to hearhim. He spoke with irritation. 

"I suppose, " he said, "I'll have to explain to you about that map. "

"Not to me, you won't, " declared his captor. "You're going to drivestraight to Judge Van Vorst's, and explain to HIM!"

The stranger tossed his arms even higher. "Thank God!" he exclaimedgratefully. 

With his prisoner Jimmie encountered no further trouble. He made awilling captive. And if in covering the five miles to Judge Van Vorst'she exceeded the speed limit, the fact that from the rear seat Jimmieheld the shotgun against the base of his skull was an extenuatingcircumstance. 

They arrived in the nick of time. In his own car young Van Vorst and abag of golf clubs were just drawing away from the house. Seeing the carclimbing the steep driveway that for a half-mile led from his lodge tohis front door, and seeing Jimmie standing in the tonneau brandishing agun, the Judge hastily descended. The sight of the spy hunter filled himwith misgiving, but the sight of him gave Jimmie sweet relief. ArrestingGerman spies for a small boy is no easy task. For Jimmie the strain wasgreat. And now that he knew he had successfully delivered him into thehands of the law, Jimmie's heart rose with happiness. The added presenceof a butler of magnificent bearing and of an athletic looking chauffeurincreased his sense of security. Their presence seemed to afford afeeling of security to the prisoner also. As he brought the car to ahalt, he breathed a sigh. It was a sigh of deep relief. 

Jimmie fell from the tonneau. In concealing his sense of triumph, he wasnot entirety successful. 

"I got him!" he cried. "I didn't make no mistake about THIS one!"

"What one?" demanded Van Vorst. 

Jimmie pointed dramatically at his prisoner. With an anxious expressionthe stranger was tenderly fingering the back of his head. He seemed towish to assure himself that it was still there. 

"THAT one!" cried Jimmie. "He's a German spy!"

The patience of Judge Van Vorst fell from him. In his exclamation wasindignation, anger, reproach. 

"Jimmie!" he cried. 

Jimmie thrust into his hand the map. It was his "Exhibit A. " "Look whathe's wrote, " commanded the scout. "It's all military words. And theseare his glasses. I took 'em off him. They're made in GERMANY! I beenstalking him for a week. He's a spy!"

When Jimmie thrust the map before his face, Van Vorst had glanced at it. Then he regarded it more closely. As he raised his eyes they showed thathe was puzzled. 

But he greeted the prisoner politely. 

"I'm extremely sorry you've been annoyed, " he said. "I'm only glad it'sno worse. He might have shot you. He's mad over the idea that everystranger he sees--"

The prisoner quickly interrupted. 

"Please!" he begged, "Don't blame the boy. He behaved extremely well. Might I speak with you--ALONE?" he asked. 

Judge Van Vorst led the way across the terrace, and to the smoking-room, that served also as his office, and closed the door. The stranger walkeddirectly to the mantelpiece and put his finger on a gold cup. 

"I saw your mare win that at Belmont Park, " he said. "She must have beena great loss to you?"

"She was, " said Van Vorst. "The week before she broke her back, Irefused three thousand for her. Will you have a cigarette?"

The stranger waved aside the cigarettes. 

"I brought you inside, " he said, "because I didn't want your servants tohear; and because I don't want to hurt that boy's feelings. He's a fineboy; and he's a damned clever scout. I knew he was following me and Ithrew him off twice, but to-day he caught me fair. If I really had beena German spy, I couldn't have got away from him. And I want him to thinkhe has captured a German spy. Because he deserves just as much creditas though he had, and because it's best he shouldn't know whom he DIDcapture. "

Van Vorst pointed to the map. "My bet is, " he said, "that you're anofficer of the State militia, taking notes for the fall manoeuvres. Am Iright?"

The stranger smiled in approval, but shook his head. 

"You're warm, " he said, "but it's more serious than manoeuvres. It's theReal Thing. " From his pocketbook he took a visiting card and laid it onthe table. "I'm 'Sherry' McCoy, " he said, "Captain of Artillery in theUnited States Army. " He nodded to the hand telephone on the table. 

"You can call up Governor's Island and get General Wood or his aide, Captain Dorey, on the phone. They sent me here. Ask THEM. I'm notpicking out gun sites for the Germans; I'm picking out positions ofdefense for Americans when the Germans come!"

Van Vorst laughed derisively. 

"My word!" he exclaimed. "You're as bad as Jimmie!"

Captain McCoy regarded him with disfavor. 

"And you, sir, " he retorted, "are as bad as ninety million otherAmericans. You WON'T believe! When the Germans are shelling this hill, when they're taking your hunters to pull their cook-wagons, maybe, you'll believe THEN. "

"Are you serious?" demanded Van Vorst. "And you an army officer?"

"That's why I am serious, " returned McCoy. "WE know. But when we try toprepare for what is coming, we must do it secretly--in underhand ways, for fear the newspapers will get hold of it and ridicule us, and accuseus of trying to drag the country into war. That's why we have to prepareunder cover. That's why I've had to skulk around these hills like achicken thief. And, " he added sharply, "that's why that boy must notknow who I am. If he does, the General Staff will get a calling down atWashington, and I'll have my ears boxed. "

Van Vorst moved to the door. 

"He will never learn the truth from me, " he said. "For I will tell himyou are to be shot at sunrise. "

"Good!" laughed the Captain. "And tell me his name. If ever we fightover Westchester County, I want that lad for my chief of scouts. Andgive him this. Tell him to buy a new scout uniform. Tell him it comesfrom you. "

But no money could reconcile Jimmie to the sentence imposed upon hiscaptive. He received the news with a howl of anguish. "You mustn't, " hebegged; "I never knowed you'd shoot him! I wouldn't have caught him, ifI'd knowed that. I couldn't sleep if I thought he was going to be shotat sunrise. " At the prospect of unending nightmares Jimmie's voice shookwith terror. "Make it for twenty years, " he begged. "Make it for ten, "he coaxed, "but, please, promise you won't shoot him. "

When Van Vorst returned to Captain McCoy, he was smiling, and the butlerwho followed, bearing a tray and tinkling glasses, was trying not tosmile. 

"I gave Jimmie your ten dollars, " said Van Vorst, "and made it twenty, and he has gone home. You will be glad to hear that he begged me tospare your life, and that your sentence has been commuted to twentyyears in a fortress. I drink to your good fortune. "

"No!" protested Captain McCoy, "We will drink to Jimmie!"

When Captain McCoy had driven away, and his own car and the golf clubshad again been brought to the steps, Judge Van Vorst once more attemptedto depart; but he was again delayed. 

Other visitors were arriving. 

Up the driveway a touring-car approached, and though it limped on a flattire, it approached at reckless speed. The two men in the front seatwere white with dust; their faces, masked by automobile glasses, wereindistinguishable. As though preparing for an immediate exit, the carswung in a circle until its nose pointed down the driveway up which ithad just come. Raising his silk mask the one beside the driver shoutedat Judge Van Vorst. His throat was parched, his voice was hoarse and hotwith anger. 

"A gray touring-car, " he shouted. "It stopped here. We saw it from thathill. Then the damn tire burst, and we lost our way. Where did he go?"

"Who?" demanded Van Vorst, stiffly, "Captain McCoy?"

The man exploded with an oath. The driver with a shove of his elbow, silenced him. 

"Yes, Captain McCoy, " assented the driver eagerly. "Which way did hego?"

"To New York, " said Van Vorst. 

The driver shrieked at his companion. 

"Then, he's doubled back, " he cried. "He's gone to New Haven. " Hestooped and threw in the clutch. The car lurched forward. 

A cold terror swept young Van Vorst. 

"What do you want with him?" he called "Who are you?"

Over one shoulder the masked face glared at him. Above the roar of thecar the words of the driver were flung back. "We're Secret Service fromWashington, " he shouted. "He's from their embassy. He's a German spy!"

Leaping and throbbing at sixty miles an hour, the car vanished in acurtain of white, whirling dust. 

Chapter 9. THE CARD-SHARP

I had looked forward to spending Christmas with some people in Suffolk, and every one in London assured me that at their house there would bethe kind of a Christmas house party you hear about but see only in theillustrated Christmas numbers. They promised mistletoe, snapdragon, andSir Roger de Coverley. On Christmas morning we would walk to church, after luncheon we would shoot, after dinner we would eat plum puddingfloating in blazing brandy, dance with the servants, and listen to thewaits singing "God rest you, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay. "

To a lone American bachelor stranded in London it sounded fine. And inmy gratitude I had already shipped to my hostess, for her children, of whose age, number, and sex I was ignorant, half of Gamage's dolls, skees, and cricket bats, and those crackers that, when you pull them, sometimes explode. But it was not to be. Most inconsiderately mywealthiest patient gained sufficient courage to consent to an operation, and in all New York would permit no one to lay violent hands upon himsave myself. By cable I advised postponement. Having lived in lawfulharmony with his appendix for fifty years, I thought, for one weeklonger he might safely maintain the status quo. But his cable in replywas an ultimatum. So, on Christmas eve, instead of Hallam Hall anda Yule log, I was in a gale plunging and pitching off the coast ofIreland, and the only log on board was the one the captain kept tohimself. 

I sat in the smoking-room, depressed and cross, and it must have been onthe principle that misery loves company that I foregathered with Talbot, or rather that Talbot foregathered with me. Certainty, under happierconditions and in haunts of men more crowded, the open-faced mannerin which he forced himself upon me would have put me on my guard. But, either out of deference to the holiday spirit, as manifested in thefictitious gayety of our few fellow-passengers, or because the young manin a knowing, impertinent way was most amusing, I listened to him fromdinner time until midnight, when the chief officer, hung with snow andicicles, was blown in from the deck and wished all a merry Christmas. 

Even after they unmasked Talbot I had neither the heart nor theinclination to turn him down. Indeed, had not some of the passengerstestified that I belonged to a different profession, the smoking-roomcrowd would have quarantined me as his accomplice. On the first night Imet him I was not certain whether he was English or giving an imitation. All the outward and visible signs were English, but he told me that, though he had been educated at Oxford and since then had spent most ofhis years in India, playing polo, he was an American. He seemed to havespent much time, and according to himself much money, at the Frenchwatering-places and on the Riviera. I felt sure that it was in FranceI had already seen him, but where I could not recall. He was hard toplace. Of people at home and in London well worth knowing he talkedglibly, but in speaking of them he made several slips. It was his takingthe trouble to cover up the slips that first made me wonder if histalking about himself was not mere vanity, but had some special object. I felt he was presenting letters of introduction in order that later hemight ask a favor. Whether he was leading up to an immediate loan, or inNew York would ask for a card to a club, or an introduction to abanker, I could not tell. But in forcing himself upon me, except inself-interest, I could think of no other motive. The next evening Idiscovered the motive. 

He was in the smoking-room playing solitaire, and at once I recalledthat it was at Aix-les-Bains I had first seen him, and that he held abank at baccarat. When he asked me to sit down I said: "I saw you lastsummer at Aix-les-Bains. "

His eyes fell to the pack in his hands and apparently searched it forsome particular card. 

"What was I doing?" he asked. 

"Dealing baccarat at the Casino des Fleurs. "

With obvious relief he laughed. 

"Oh, yes, " he assented; "jolly place, Aix. But I lost a pot of moneythere. I'm a rotten hand at cards. Can't win, and can't leave 'emalone. " As though for this weakness, so frankly confessed, he begged meto excuse him, he smiled appealingly. "Poker, bridge, chemin de fer, I like 'em all, " he rattled on, "but they don't like me. So I stick tosolitaire. It's dull, but cheap. " He shuffled the cards clumsily. Asthough making conversation, he asked: "You care for cards yourself?"

I told him truthfully I did not know the difference between a club and aspade and had no curiosity to learn. At this, when he found he had beenwasting time on me, I expected him to show some sign of annoyance, evenof irritation, but his disappointment struck far deeper. As though I hadhurt him physically, he shut his eyes, and when again he opened themI saw in them distress. For the moment I believe of my presence hewas utterly unconscious. His hands lay idle upon the table; like a manfacing a crisis, he stared before him. Quite improperly, I felt sorryfor him. In me he thought he had found a victim; and that the loss ofthe few dollars he might have won should so deeply disturb him showedhis need was great. Almost at once he abandoned me and I went on deck. When I returned an hour later to the smoking-room he was deep in a gameof poker. 

As I passed he hailed me gayly. 

"Don't scold, now, " he laughed; "you know I can't keep away from it. "

From his manner those at the table might have supposed we were friendsof long and happy companionship. I stopped behind his chair, but hethought I had passed, and in reply to one of the players answered:"Known him for years; he's set me right many a time. When I broke myright femur 'chasin, ' he got me back in the saddle in six weeks. All mypeople swear by him. "

One of the players smiled up at me, and Talbot turned. But his eyes metmine with perfect serenity. He even held up his cards for me to see. "What would you draw?" he asked. 

His audacity so astonished me that in silence I could only stare at himand walk on. 

When on deck he met me he was not even apologetic. Instead, as though wewere partners in crime, he chuckled delightedly. 

"Sorry, " he said. "Had to do it. They weren't very keen at my taking ahand, so I had to use your name. But I'm all right now, " he assured me. "They think you vouched for me, and to-night they're going to raise thelimit. I've convinced them I'm an easy mark. "

"And I take it you are not, " I said stiffly. 

He considered this unworthy of an answer and only smiled. Then the smiledied, and again in his eyes I saw distress, infinite weariness, andfear. 

As though his thoughts drove him to seek protection, he came closer. 

"I'm 'in bad, ' doctor, " he said. His voice was frightened, bewildered, like that of a child. "I can't sleep; nerves all on the loose. I don'tthink straight. I hear voices, and no one around. I hear knockings atthe door, and when I open it, no one there. If I don't keep fit I can'twork, and this trip I got to make expenses. You couldn't help me, couldyou--couldn't give me something to keep my head straight?"

The need of my keeping his head straight that he might the easier robour fellow-passengers raised a pretty question of ethics. I meanlydodged it. I told him professional etiquette required I should leave himto the ship's surgeon. 

"But I don't know HIM, " he protested. 

Mindful of the use he had made of my name, I objected strenuously:

"Well, you certainly don't know me. "

My resentment obviously puzzled him. 

"I know who you ARE, " he returned. "You and I--" With a deprecatorygesture, as though good taste forbade him saying who we were, hestopped. "But the ship's surgeon!" he protested, "he's an awful bounder!Besides, " he added quite simply, "he's watching me. "

"As a doctor, " I asked, "or watching you play cards?"

"Play cards, " the young man answered. "I'm afraid he was ship's surgeonon the P. & O. I came home on. There was trouble that voyage, and Ifancy he remembers me. "

His confidences were becoming a nuisance. 

"But you mustn't tell me that, " I protested. "I can't have you makingtrouble on this ship, too. How do you know I won't go straight from hereto the captain?"

As though the suggestion greatly entertained him, he laughed. 

He made a mock obeisance. 

"I claim the seal of your profession, " he said. "Nonsense, " I retorted. "It's a professional secret that your nerves are out of hand, but thatyou are a card-sharp is NOT. Don't mix me up with a priest. "

For a moment Talbot, as though fearing he had gone too far, looked at mesharply; he bit his lower lip and frowned. 

"I got to make expenses, " he muttered. "And, besides, all card gamesare games of chance, and a card-sharp is one of the chances. Anyway, " herepeated, as though disposing of all argument, "I got to make expenses. "

After dinner, when I came to the smoking-room, the poker party satwaiting, and one of them asked if I knew where they could find "myfriend. " I should have said then that Talbot was a steamer acquaintanceonly; but I hate a row, and I let the chance pass. 

"We want to give him his revenge, " one of them volunteered. 

"He's losing, then?" I asked. 

The man chuckled complacently. 

"The only loser, " he said. 

"I wouldn't worry, " I advised. "He'll come for his revenge. "

That night after I had turned in he knocked at my door. I switched onthe lights and saw him standing at the foot of my berth. I saw also thatwith difficulty he was holding himself in hand. 

"I'm scared, " he stammered, "scared!"

I wrote out a requisition on the surgeon for a sleeping-potion and sentit to him by the steward, giving the man to understand I wanted it formyself. Uninvited, Talbot had seated himself on the sofa. His eyes wereclosed, and as though he were cold he was shivering and hugging himselfin his arms. 

"Have you been drinking?" I asked. 

In surprise he opened his eyes. 

"I can't drink, " he answered simply. "It's nerves and worry. I'm tired. "

He relaxed against the cushions; his arms fell heavily at his sides; thefingers lay open. 

"God, " he whispered, "how tired I am!"

In spite of his tan--and certainly he had led the out-of-door life--hisface showed white. For the moment he looked old, worn, finished. 

"They're crowdin' me, " the boy whispered. "They're always crowdin'me. " His voice was querulous, uncomprehending, like that of a childcomplaining of something beyond his experience. "I can't remember whenthey haven't been crowdin' me. Movin' me on, you understand? Alwaysmovin' me on. Moved me out of India, then Cairo, then they closed Paris, and now they've shut me out of London. I opened a club there, veryquiet, very exclusive, smart neighborhood, too--a flat in BerkeleyStreet--roulette and chemin de fer. I think it was my valet sold me out;anyway, they came in and took us all to Bow Street. So I've plunged onthis. It's my last chance!"

"This trip?"

"No; my family in New York. Haven't seen 'em in ten years. They paid meto live abroad. I'm gambling on THEM; gambling on their takin' me back. I'm coming home as the Prodigal Son, tired of filling my belly with thehusks that the swine do eat; reformed character, repentant and all that;want to follow the straight and narrow; and they'll kill the fattedcalf. " He laughed sardonically. "Like hell they will! They'd rather seeME killed. "

It seemed to me, if he wished his family to believe he were returningrepentant, his course in the smoking-room would not help to reassurethem. I suggested as much. 

"If you get into 'trouble, ' as you call it, " I said, "and they send awireless to the police to be at the wharf, your people would hardly--"

"I know, " he interrupted; "but I got to chance that. I GOT to makeenough to go on with--until I see my family. "

"If they won't see you?" I asked. "What then?"

He shrugged his shoulders and sighed lightly, almost with relief, asthough for him the prospect held no terror. 

"Then it's 'Good-night, nurse, '" he said. "And I won't be a bother toanybody any more. "

I told him his nerves were talking, and talking rot, and I gave him thesleeping-draft and sent him to bed. 

It was not until after luncheon the next day when he made his firstappearance on deck that I again saw my patient. He was once more ahealthy picture of a young Englishman of leisure; keen, smart, and fit;ready for any exercise or sport. The particular sport at which he was soexpert I asked him to avoid. 

"Can't be done!" he assured me. "I'm the loser, and we dock to-morrowmorning. So tonight I've got to make my killing. "

It was the others who made the killing. 

I came into the smoking-room about nine o'clock. Talbot alone wasseated. The others were on their feet, and behind them in a widersemicircle were passengers, the smoking-room stewards and the ship'spurser. 

Talbot sat with his back against the bulkhead, his hands in thepockets of his dinner coat; from the corner of his mouth his longcigarette-holder was cocked at an impudent angle. There was a tumultof angry voices, and the eyes of all were turned upon him. Outwardlyat least he met them with complete indifference. The voice of one ofmy countrymen, a noisy pest named Smedburg, was raised in excitedaccusation. 

"When the ship's surgeon first met you, " he cried, "you called yourselfLord Ridley. "

"I'll call myself anything I jolly well like, " returned Talbot. "If Ichoose to dodge reporters, that's my pidgin. I don't have to give myname to every meddling busybody that--"

"You'll give it to the police, all right, " chortled Mr. Smedburg. In theconfident, bullying tones of the man who knows the crowd is with him, heshouted: "And in the meantime you'll keep out of this smoking-room!"

The chorus of assent was unanimous. It could not be disregarded. Talbotrose and with fastidious concern brushed the cigarette ashes from hissleeve. As he moved toward the door he called back: "Only too delightedto keep out. The crowd in this room makes a gentleman feel lonely. "

But he was not to escape with the last word. 

His prosecutor pointed his finger at him. 

"And the next time you take the name of Adolph Meyer, " he shouted, "makesure first he hasn't a friend on board; some one to protect him fromsharpers and swindlers--"

Talbot turned savagely and then shrugged his shoulders. 

"Oh, go to the devil!" he called, and walked out into the night. 

The purser was standing at my side and, catching my eye, shook his head. 

"Bad business, " he exclaimed. 

"What happened?" I asked. 

"I'm told they caught him dealing from the wrong end of the pack, " hesaid. "I understand they suspected him from the first--seems our surgeonrecognized him--and to-night they had outsiders watching him. Theoutsiders claim they saw him slip himself an ace from the bottom of thepack. It's a pity! He's a nice-looking lad. "

I asked what the excited Smedburg had meant by telling Talbot not tocall himself Meyer. 

"They accused him of travelling under a false name, " explained thepurser, "and he told 'em he did it to dodge the ship's news reporters. Then he said he really was a brother of Adolph Meyer, the banker; but itseems Smedburg is a friend of Meyer's, and he called him hard! It wasa silly ass thing to do, " protested the purser. "Everybody knows Meyerhasn't a brother, and if he hadn't made THAT break he might have gotaway with the other one. But now this Smedburg is going to wirelessahead to Mr. Meyer and to the police. "

"Has he no other way of spending his money?" I asked. 

"He's a confounded nuisance!" growled the purser. "He wants to show ushe knows Adolph Meyer; wants to put Meyer under an obligation. It meansa scene on the wharf, and newspaper talk; and, " he added with disgust, "these smoking-room rows never helped any line. "

I went in search of Talbot; partly because I knew he was on the verge ofa collapse, partly, as I frankly admitted to myself, because I was sorrythe young man had come to grief. I searched the snow-swept decks, andthen, after threading my way through faintly lit tunnels, I knocked athis cabin. The sound of his voice gave me a distinct feeling of relief. But he would not admit me. Through the closed door he declared he was"all right, " wanted no medical advice, and asked only to resume thesleep he claimed I had broken. I left him, not without uneasiness, and the next morning the sight of him still in the flesh was a genuinethrill. I found him walking the deck carrying himself nonchalantlyand trying to appear unconscious of the glances--amused, contemptuous, hostile--that were turned toward him. He would have passed me withoutspeaking, but I took his arm and led him to the rail. We had long passedquarantine and a convoy of tugs were butting us into the dock. 

"What are you going to do?" I asked. 

"Doesn't depend on me, " he said. "Depends on Smedburg. He's a busylittle body!"

The boy wanted me to think him unconcerned, but beneath the flippancy Isaw the nerves jerking. Then quite simply he began to tell me. He spokein a low, even monotone, dispassionately, as though for him the incidentno longer was of interest. 

"They were watching me, " he said. "But I knew they were, and besides, nomatter how close they watched I could have done what they said I did andthey'd never have seen it. But I didn't. "

My scepticism must have been obvious, for he shook his head. 

"I didn't!" he repeated stubbornly. "I didn't have to! I was playingin luck--wonderful luck--sheer, dumb luck. I couldn't HELP winning. Butbecause I was winning and because they were watching, I was careful notto win on my own deal. I laid down, or played to lose. It was the cardsthey GAVE me I won with. And when they jumped me I told 'em that. Icould have proved it if they'd listened. But they were all up in theair, shouting and spitting at me. They believed what they wanted tobelieve; they didn't want the facts. "

It may have been credulous of me, but I felt the boy was tellingthe truth, and I was deeply sorry he had not stuck to it. So, ratherharshly, I said:

"They didn't want you to tell them you were a brother to Adolph Meyer, either. Why did you think you could get away with anything like that?"

Talbot did not answer. 

"Why?" I insisted. 

The boy laughed impudently. 

"How the devil was I to know he hadn't a brother?" he protested. "It wasa good name, and he's a Jew, and two of the six who were in the game areJews. You know how they stick together. I thought they might stick byme. "

"But you, " I retorted impatiently, "are not a Jew!"

"I am not, " said Talbot, "but I've often SAID I was. It's helped--lotsof times. If I'd told you my name was Cohen, or Selinsky, or Meyer, instead of Craig Talbot, YOU'D have thought I was a Jew. " He smiled andturned his face toward me. As though furnishing a description for thepolice, he began to enumerate:

"Hair, dark and curly; eyes, poppy; lips, full; nose, Roman or Hebraic, according to taste. Do you see?"

He shrugged his shoulders. 

"But it didn't work, " he concluded. "I picked the wrong Jew. "

His face grew serious. "Do you suppose that Smedburg person haswirelessed that banker?"

I told him I was afraid he had already sent the message. 

"And what will Meyer do?" he asked. "Will he drop it or make a fuss?What sort is he?"

Briefly I described Adolph Meyer. I explained him as the richest Hebrewin New York; given to charity, to philanthropy, to the betterment of hisown race. 

"Then maybe, " cried Talbot hopefully, "he won't make a row, and myfamily won't hear of it!"

He drew a quick breath of relief. As though a burden had been lifted, his shoulders straightened. 

And then suddenly, harshly, in open panic, he exclaimed aloud:

"Look!" he whispered. "There, at the end of the wharf--the little Jew infurs!"

I followed the direction of his eyes. Below us on the dock, protectedby two obvious members of the strong-arm squad, the great banker, philanthropist, and Hebrew, Adolph Meyer, was waiting. 

We were so close that I could read his face. It was stern, set; the faceof a man intent upon his duty, unrelenting. Without question, of a badbusiness Mr. Smedburg had made the worst. I turned to speak to Talbotand found him gone. 

His silent slipping away filled me with alarm. I fought against agrowing fear. How many minutes I searched for him I do not know. Itseemed many hours. His cabin, where first I sought him, was empty anddismantled, and by that I was reminded that if for any desperate purposeTalbot were seeking to conceal himself there now were hundreds of otherempty, dismantled cabins in which he might hide. To my inquiries no onegave heed. In the confusion of departure no one had observed him; noone was in a humor to seek him out; the passengers were pressing to thegangway, the stewards concerned only in counting their tips. From deckto deck, down lane after lane of the great floating village, I racedblindly, peering into half-opened doors, pushing through groups of men, pursuing some one in the distance who appeared to be the man I sought, only to find he was unknown to me. When I returned to the gangway thelast of the passengers was leaving it. 

I was about to follow to seek for Talbot in the customs shed when awhite-faced steward touched my sleeve. Before he spoke his look told mewhy I was wanted. 

"The ship's surgeon, sir, " he stammered, "asks you please to hurry tothe sick-bay. A passenger has shot himself!"

On the bed, propped up by pillows, young Talbot, with glazed, shockedeyes, stared at me. His shirt had been cut away; his chest lay bare. Against his left shoulder the doctor pressed a tiny sponge which quicklydarkened. 

I must have exclaimed aloud, for the doctor turned his eyes. 

"It was HE sent for you, " he said, "but he doesn't need you. Fortunately, he's a damned bad shot!"

The boy's eyes opened wearily; before we could prevent it he spoke. 

"I was so tired, " he whispered. "Always moving me on. I was so tired!"

Behind me came heavy footsteps, and though with my arm I tried to barthem out, the two detectives pushed into the doorway. They shoved me toone side and through the passage made for him came the Jew in the sablecoat, Mr. Adolph Meyer. 

For an instant the little great man stood with wide, owl-like eyes, staring at the face on the pillow. 

Then he sank softly to his knees. In both his hands he caught the handof the card-sharp. 

"Heine!" he begged. "Don't you know me? It is your brother Adolph; yourlittle brother Adolph!"