"I have a feeling," said Booverman, as though puzzled but not duped by what had happened—"I have a strange feeling that I'm not going to get into trouble here. That would be too obvious. It's at the seventh or eighth holes that something is lurking around for me. Well, I won't waste time."

He slapped down his ball, took a full swing, and carried the far-off bank with a low, shooting drive that continued bounding on.

"That ought to roll forever," said Pickings, red with excitement.

"The course is fast—dry as a rock," said Booverman, deprecatingly.

Pickings put three balls precisely into the bubbling water, and drew alongside on his eighth shot. Booverman's drive had skimmed over the dried plain for a fair two hundred and seventy-five yards. His second shot, a full brassy, rolled directly on the green.

"If he makes a four here," said Pickings to himself, "he'll be playing five under four—no, by thunder! seven under four!" Suddenly he stopped, overwhelmed. "Why, he's actually around threes—two under three now. Heavens! if he ever suspects it, he'll go into a thousand pieces."

As a result, he missed his own ball completely, and then topped it for a bare fifty yards.

"I've never seen you play so badly," said Booverman in a grumbling tone. "You'll end up by throwing me off."

When they arrived at the green, Booverman's ball lay about thirty feet from the flag.

"It's a four, a sure four," said Pickings under his breath.

Suddenly Booverman burst into an exclamation.

"Picky, come here. Look—look at that!"

The tone was furious. Pickings approached.

"Do you see that?" said Booverman, pointing to a freshly laid circle of sod ten inches from his ball. "That, my boy, was where the cup was yesterday. If they hadn't moved the flag two hours ago, I'd have had a three. Now, what do you think of that for rotten luck?"

"Lay it dead," said Pickings, anxiously, shaking his head sympathetically. "The green's a bit fast."

The put ran slowly up to the hole, and stopped four inches short.

"By heavens! why didn't I put over it!" said Booverman, brandishing his putter. "A thirty-foot put that stops an inch short—did you ever see anything like it? By everything that's just and fair I should have had a three. You'd have had it, Picky. Lord! if I only could put!"

"One under three," said Pickings to his fluttering inner self. "He can't realize it. If I can only keep his mind off the score!"

The seventh tee is reached by a carefully planned, fatiguing flight of steps to the top of a bluff, where three churches at the back beckon so many recording angels to swell the purgatory lists. As you advance to the abrupt edge, everything is spread before you; nothing is concealed. In the first plane, the entangling branches of a score of apple-trees are ready to trap a topped ball and bury it under impossible piles of dry leaves. Beyond, the wired tennis-courts give forth a musical, tinny note when attacked. In the middle distance a glorious sycamore draws you to the left, and a file of elms beckon the sliced way to a marsh, wilderness of grass and an overgrown gully whence no balls return. In front, one hundred and twenty yards away, is a formidable bunker, running up to which is a tract of long grass, which two or three times a year is barbered by a charitable enterprise. The seventh hole itself lies two hundred and sixty yards away in a hollow guarded by a sunken ditch, a sure three or—a sure six.

Booverman was still too indignant at the trick fate had played him on the last green to yield to any other emotion. He forgot that a dozen good scores had ended abruptly in the swale to the right. He was only irritated. He plumped down his ball, dug his toes in the ground, and sent off another long, satisfactory drive, which added more fuel to his anger.

"Any one else would have had a three on the six," he muttered as he left the tee. "It's too ridiculous."

He had a short approach and an easy put, plucked his ball from the cup, and said in an injured tone:

"Picky, I feel bad about that sixth hole, and the fourth, too. I've lost a stroke on each of them. I'm playing two strokes more than I ought to be. Hang it all! that sixth wasn't right! You told me the green was fast."

"I'm sorry," said Pickings, feeling his fingers grow cold and clammy on the grip.

The eighth hole has many easy opportunities. It is five hundred and twenty yards long, and things may happen at every stroke. You may begin in front of the tee by burying your ball in the waving grass, which is always permitted a sort of poetical license. There are the traps to the seventh hole to be crossed, and to the right the paralleling river can be reached by a short stab or a long, curling slice, which the prevailing wind obligingly assists to a splashing descent.

"And now we have come to the eighth hole," said Booverman, raising his hat in profound salutation. "Whenever I arrive here with a good score I take from eight to eighteen, I lose one to three balls. On the contrary, when I have an average of six, I always get a five and often a four. How this hole has changed my entire life!" He raised his ball and addressed it tenderly: "And now, little ball, we must part, you and I. It seems a shame; you're the nicest little ball I ever have known. You've stuck to me an awful long while. It's a shame."

He teed up, and drove his best drive, and followed it with a brassy that laid him twenty yards off the green, where a good approach brought the desired four.

"Even threes," said Pickings to himself, as though he had seen a ghost. Now he was only a golfer of one generation; there was nothing in his inheritance to steady him in such a crisis. He began slowly to disintegrate morally, to revert to type. He contained himself until Booverman had driven free of the river, which flanks the entire green passage to the ninth hole, and then barely controlling the impulse to catch Booverman by the knees and implore him to discretion, he burst out:

"I say, dear boy, do you know what your score is?"

"Something well under four," said Booverman, scratching his head.

"Under four, nothing; even threes!"

"What?"

"Even threes."

They stopped, and tabulated the holes.

"So it is," said Booverman, amazed. "What an infernal pity!"

"Pity?"

"Yes, pity. If only some one else could play it out!"

He studied the hundred and fifty yards that were needed to reach the green that was set in the crescent of surrounding trees, changed his brassy for his cleek, and his cleek for his midiron.

"I wish you hadn't told me," he said nervously.

Pickings on the instant comprehended his blunder. For the first time Booverman's shot went wide of the mark, straight into the trees that bordered the river to the left.

"I'm sorry," said Pickings with a feeble groan.

"My dear Picky, it had to come," said Booverman, with a shrug of his shoulders. "The ball is now lost, and all the score goes into the air, the most miraculous score any one ever heard of is nothing but a crushed egg!"

"It may have bounded back on the course," said Pickings, desperately.

"No, no, Picky; not that. In all the sixty thousand times I have hit trees, barns, car-tracks, caddies, fences,—"

"There it is!" cried Pickings, with a shout of joy.

Fair on the course, at the edge of the green itself, lay the ball, which soon was sunk for a four. Pickings felt a strange, unaccountable desire to leap upon Booverman like a fluffy, enthusiastic dog; but he fought it back with the new sense of responsibility that came to him. So he said artfully: "By George! old man, if you hadn't missed on the fourth or the sixth, you'd have done even threes!"

"You know what I ought to do now—I ought to stop," said Booverman, in profound despair—"quit golf and never lift another club. It's a crime to go on; it's a crime to spoil such a record. Twenty-eight for nine holes, only forty-two needed for the next nine to break the record, and I have done it in thirty-three—and in fifty-three! I ought not to try; it's wrong."

He teed his ball for the two-hundred-yard flight to the easy tenth, and took his cleek.

"I know just what'll happen now; I know it well."

But this time there was no varying in the flight; the drive went true to the green, straight on the flag, where a good but not difficult put brought a two.

"Even threes again," said Pickings, but to himself. "It can't go on. It must turn."

"Now, Pickings, this is going to stop," said Booverman angrily. "I'm not going to make a fool of myself. I'm going right up to the tee, and I'm going to drive my ball right smack into the woods and end it. And I don't care."

"What!"

"No, I don't care. Here goes."

Again his drive continued true, the mashy pitch for the second was accurate, and his put, after circling the rim of the cup, went down for a three.

The twelfth hole is another dip into the long grass that might serve as an elephant's bed, and then across the Housatonic River, a carry of one hundred and twenty yards to the green at the foot of an intruding tree.

"Oh, I suppose I'll make another three here, too," said Booverman, moodily. "That'll only make it worse."

He drove with his midiron high in the air and full on the flag.

"I'll play my put carefully for three," he said, nodding his head. Instead, it ran straight and down for two.

He walked silently to the dreaded thirteenth tee, which, with the returning fourteenth, forms the malignant Scylla and Charybdis of the course. There is nothing to describe the thirteenth hole. It is not really a golf-hole; it is a long, narrow breathing spot, squeezed by the railroad tracks on one side and by the river on the other. Resolute and fearless golfers often cut them out entirely, nor are ashamed to acknowledge their terror. As you stand at the thirteenth tee, everything is blurred to the eye. Near by are rushes and water, woods to the left and right; the river and the railroad; and the dry land a hundred yards away looks tiny and distant, like a rock amid floods.

A long drive that varies a degree is doomed to go out of bounds or to take the penalty of the river.

"Don't risk it. Take an iron—play it carefully," said Pickings in a voice that sounded to his own ears unrecognizable.

Booverman followed his advice and landed by the fence to the left, almost off the fair. A midiron for his second put him in position for another four, and again brought his score to even threes.

When the daring golfer has passed quaking up the narrow way and still survives, he immediately falls a victim to the fourteenth, which is a bend hole, with all the agonies of the preceding thirteenth, augmented by a second shot over a long, mushy pond. If you play a careful iron to keep from the railroad, now on the right, or to dodge the river on your left, you are forced to approach the edge of the swamp with a cautious fifty-yard-running-up stroke before facing the terrors of the carry. A drive with a wooden club is almost sure to carry into the swamp, and only a careful cleek shot is safe.

"I wish I were playing this for the first time," said Booverman, blackly. "I wish I could forget—rid myself of memories. I have seen class A amateurs take twelve, and professionals eight. This is the end of all things, Picky, the saddest spot on earth. I won't waste time. Here goes."

To Pickings's horror, the drive began slowly to slice out of bounds, toward the railroad tracks.

"I knew it," said Booverman, calmly, "and the next will go there, too; then I'll put one in the river, two the swamp, slice into—"

All at once he stopped, thunderstruck. The ball, hitting tire or rail, bounded high in the air, forward, back upon the course, lying in perfect position; Pickings said something in a purely reverent spirit.

"Twice in sixty thousand times," said Booverman, unrelenting. "That only evens up the sixth hole. Twice in sixty thousand times!"

From where the ball lay an easy brassy brought it near enough to the green to negotiate another four. Pickings, trembling like a toy dog in zero weather, reached the green in ten strokes, and took three more puts.

The fifteenth, a short pitch over the river, eighty yards to a slanting green entirely surrounded by more long grass, which gave it the appearance of a chin spot on a full face of whiskers, was Booverman's favorite hole. While Pickings held his eyes to the ground and tried to breathe in regular breaths, Booverman placed his ball, drove with the requisite back spin, and landed dead to the hole. Another two resulted.

"Even threes—fifteen holes in even threes," said Pickings to himself, his head beginning to throb. He wanted to sit down and take his temples in his hands, but for the sake of history he struggled on.

"Damn it!" said Booverman all at once.

"What's the matter?" said Pickings, observing his face black with fury.

"Do you realize, Pickings, what it means to me to have lost those two strokes on the fourth and sixth greens, and through no fault of mine, neither? Even threes for the whole course—that's what I could do if I had those two strokes—the greatest thing that's ever been seen on a golf-course. It may be a hundred years before any human being on the face of this earth will get such a chance. And to think I might have done it with a little luck!"

Pickings felt his heart begin to pump, but he was able to say with some degree of calm:

"You may get a three here."

"Never. Four, three and four is what I'll end."

"Well, good heavens! what do you want?"

"There's no joy in it, though," said Booverman, gloomily. "If I had those two strokes back, I'd go down in history, I'd be immortal. And you, too, Picky, you'd be immortal, because you went around with me. The fourth hole was bad enough, but the sixth was heartbreaking."

His drive cleared another swamp and rolled well down the farther plateau. A long cleek laid his ball off the green, a good approach stopped a little short of the hole, and the put went down.

"Well, that ends it," said Booverman, gloomily.

"I've got to make a two and a three to do it. The two is quite possible; the three absurd."

The seventeenth hole returns to the swamp that enlivens the sixth. It is a full cleek, with about six mental hazards distributed in Indian ambush, and in five of them a ball may lie until the day of judgment before rising again.

Pickings turned his back, unable to endure the agony of watching. The click of the club was sharp and true. He turned to see the ball in full flight arrive unerringly hole high on the green.

"A chance for a two," he said under his breath. He sent two balls into the lost land to the left and one into the rough to the right.

"Never mind me," he said, slashing away in reckless fashion.

Booverman with a little care studied the ten-foot route to the hole and putted down.

"Even threes!" said Pickings, leaning against a tree.

"Blast that sixth hole!" said Booverman, exploding. "Think of what it might be, Picky—what it ought to be!"

Pickings retired hurriedly before the shaking approach of Booverman's frantic club. Incapable of speech, he waved him feebly to drive. He began incredulously to count up again, as though doubting his senses.

"One under three, even threes, one over, even, one under—"

"Here! What the deuce are you doing?" said Booverman, angrily. "Trying to throw me off?"

"I didn't say anything," said Pickings.

"You didn't—muttering to yourself."

"I must make him angry to keep his mind off the score," said Pickings, feebly to himself. He added aloud, "Stop kicking about your old sixth hole! You've had the darndest luck I ever saw, and yet you grumble."

Booverman swore under his breath, hastily approached his ball, drove perfectly, and turned in a rage.

"Luck?" he cried furiously. "Pickings, I've a mind to wring your neck. Every shot I've played has been dead on the pin, now, hasn't it?"

"How about the ninth hole—hitting a tree?"

"Whose fault was that? You had no right to tell me my score, and, besides, I only got an ordinary four there, anyway."

"How about the railroad track?"

"One shot out of bounds. Yes, I'll admit that. That evens up for the fourth."

"How about your first hole in two?"

"Perfectly played; no fluke about it at all—once in sixty thousand times. Well, any more sneers? Anything else to criticize?"

"Let it go at that."

Booverman, in this heckled mood, turned irritably to his ball, played a long midiron, just cleared the crescent bank of the last swale, and ran up on the green.



"Damn that sixth hole!" said Booverman, flinging down his club and glaring at Pickings. "One stroke back, and I could have done it."

Pickings tried to address, but the moment he swung his club, his legs began to tremble. He shook his head, took a long breath, and picked up his ball.

They approached the green on a drunken run in the wild hope that a short put was possible. Unfortunately the ball lay thirty feet away, and the path to the hole was bumpy and riddled with worm-casts. Still, there was a chance, desperate as it was.

Pickings let his bag slip to the ground and sat down, covering his eyes while Booverman with his putter tried to brush away the ridges.

"Stand up!"

Pickings rose convulsively.

"For heaven's sake, Picky, stand up! Try to be a man!" said Booverman, hoarsely. "Do you think I've any nerve when I see you with chills and fever? Brace up!"

"All right."

Booverman sighted the hole, and then took his stance; but the cleek in his hand shook like an aspen. He straightened up and walked away.

"Picky," he said, mopping his face, "I can't do it. I can't put it."

"You must."

"I've got buck fever. I'll never be able to put it—never."

At the last, no longer calmed by an invincible pessimism, Booverman had gone to pieces. He stood shaking from head to foot.

"Look at that," he said, extending a fluttering hand. "I can't do it; I can never do it."

"Old fellow, you must," said Pickings; "you've got to. Bring yourself together. Here!" He slapped him on the back, pinched his arms, and chafed his fingers. Then he led him back to the ball, braced him into position, and put the putter in his hands.

"Buck fever," said Booverman in a whisper. "Can't see a thing."

Pickings, holding the flag in the cup, said savagely:

"Shoot!"

The ball advanced in a zigzag path, running from worm-cast to a worm-cast, wobbling and rocking, and at the last, as though preordained, fell plump into the cup!

At the same moment, Pickings and Booverman, as though carried off by the same cannon-ball, flattened on the green.



III

Five minutes later, wild-eyed and hilarious, they descended on the clubhouse with the miraculous news. For an hour the assembled golfers roared with laughter as the two stormed, expostulated, and swore to the truth of the tale.



They journeyed from house to house in a vain attempt to find some convert to their claim. For a day they passed as consummate comedians, and the more they yielded to their rage, the more consummate was their art declared. Then a change took place. From laughing the educated town of Stockbridge turned to resentment, then to irritation, and finally to suspicion. Booverman and Pickings began to lose caste, to be regarded as unbalanced, if not positively dangerous. Unknown to them, a committee carefully examined the books of the club. At the next election another treasurer and another secretary were elected.

Since then, month in and month out, day after day, in patient hope, the two discredited members of the educated community of Stockbridge may be seen, accompanied by caddies, toiling around the links in a desperate belief that the miracle that would restore them to standing may be repeated. Each time as they arrive nervously at the first tee and prepare to swing, something between a chuckle and a grin runs through the assemblage, while the left eyes contract waggishly, and a murmuring may be heard,

"Even threes."

* * * * *

The Stockbridge golf-links is a course of ravishing beauty and the Housatonic River, as has been said, goes wriggling around it as though convulsed with merriment.



A MAN OF NO IMAGINATION



I

Inspector Frawley, of the Canadian Secret Service, stood at attention, waiting until the scratch of a pen should cease throughout the dim, spacious office and the Honorable Secretary of Justice should acquaint him with his desires.

He held himself deferentially, body compact, eyes clear and steady, face blank and controlled, without distinction, without significance, a man mediocre as a crowd. His hands were joined loosely behind his back; his glance, without deviating, remained persistently on the profile of the Honorable Secretary, as though in that historic room the human note alone could compel his curiosity.

The thin squeak of the pen faded into the silences of the great room. The Secretary of Justice ran his fingers over his forehead, looked up, and met the Inspector's gaze—fixed, profound, and mathematical. With a sudden unease he pushed back his chair, troubled by the analysis of his banal man, who, in another turn of Fate, might pursue him as dispassionately as he now stood before him for his commands. With a few rapid strides he crossed the room, lit a cigar, blew into the swirl of smoke this caprice of his imagination, and returned stolidly, as became a man of facts and figures.

Flinging himself loosely in an easy chair, he threw a rapid glance at his watch, locked his fingers, and began with the nervous directness of one who wishes to be rid of formalities:

"Well, Inspector, you returned this morning?"

"An hour ago, sir."

"A creditable bit of work, Inspector Frawley—the department is pleased."

"Thank you indeed, sir."

"Does the case need you any more?"

"I should say not, sir—no, sir."

"You are ready to report for duty?"

"Oh, yes, sir."

"How soon?"

"I think I'm ready now, sir—yes, sir."

"Glad to hear it, Inspector, very glad. You're the one man I wanted." As though the civilities had been sufficiently observed, the Secretary stiffened in his chair and continued rapidly: "It's that Toronto affair; you've read the details. The government lost $350,000. We caught four of the gang, but the ringleader got away with the money. Have you studied it? What did you make of it? Sit down."

Frawley took a chair stiffly, hanging his hat between his knees and considering.

"It did look like work from the States," he said thoughtfully. "I beg pardon, did you say they'd caught some of the gang?"

"Four—this morning. The telegram's just in."

The Honorable Secretary, a little strange yet to the routine of the office, looked at Frawley with a sudden desire to test his memory.

"Do you know the work?" he asked; "could you recognize the ringleader?"

"That might not be so hard, sir," said Frawley, with a nod; "we know pretty well, of course, who's able to handle such jobs as that. Would you have a description anywhere?"

The Honorable Secretary rose, took from his desk a paper, and began to read. In his seat Inspector Frawley crossed his legs carefully, drew his fists up under his chin, and stared at the reader, but without focusing his glance on him. Once during the recital he started at some item of description, but immediately relaxed. The report finished, the Secretary let it drop into his lap and waited, impressed, despite himself, at the thought of the immense galleries of crime through which the Inspector was seeking his victim. All at once into the unseeing stare there flickered a light of understanding. Frawley returned to the room, saw the Secretary, and nodded.

"It's Bucky," he said tentatively. A moment his glance went reflectively to a far corner, then he nodded slowly, looked at the Secretary, and said with conviction: "It looks very much, sir, like Bucky Greenfield."

"It is Greenfield," replied the Secretary, without attempting to conceal his astonishment.

"I would like to observe," said Frawley thoughtfully, without noticing his surprise, "that there is a bit of an error in that description, sir. It's the left ear that's broken. Furthermore, he don't toe out—excepting when he does it on a purpose. So it's Bucky Greenfield I'm to bring back, sir?"

The Secretary nodded, penciling Frawley's correction on the paper.

"Bucky—well, now, that is odd!" said Frawley musingly. He rose and took a step to the desk. "Very odd." Mechanically he saw the straggling papers on the top and arranged them into orderly piles. "Well, he can't say I didn't warn him!"

"What!" broke in the Secretary in quick astonishment, "you know the fellow?"

"Indeed, yes, sir," said Frawley, with a nod. "We know most of the crooks in the States. We're good friends, too—so long as they stay over the line. It's useful, you know. So I'm to go after Bucky?"

The Secretary, judging the moment had arrived to be impressive, said solemnly:

"Inspector Frawley, if you have to stick to it until he dies of old age, you're never to let up until you get Bucky Greenfield! While the British Empire holds together, no man shall rob Her Majesty of a farthing and sleep in security. You understand the situation?"

"I do, sir."

The Honorable Secretary, only half satisfied, continued:

"Your credit is unlimited—there'll be no question of that. If you need to buy up a whole South American government—buy it! By the way, he will make for South America, will he not?"

"Probably—yes, sir. Chile or the Argentine—there's no extradition treaty there."

"But even then," broke in the Secretary with a nervous frown—"there are ways—other ways?"

"Oh, yes." Frawley, picking up a paper-cutter, stood by the mantel tapping his palm. "Oh, yes—there are other ways! So it's Bucky—well, I warned him!"

"Now, Inspector, to settle the matter," interrupted the Secretary, anxious to return to his routine, "when can you go on the case?"

"If the papers are ready, sir—"

"They are—everything. The Home Office has been cabled. To-morrow every British official throughout the world will be notified to render you assistance and honor your drafts."

Inspector Frawley heard with approval and consulted his watch.

"There's an express for New York leaves at noon," he said reflectively—then, with a glance at the clock, "thirty-five minutes; I can make that, sir."

"Good, very good."

"If I might suggest, sir—if the Inspector who has had the case in hand could go a short distance with me?"

"Inspector Keech shall join you at the station."

"Thank you, sir. Is there anything further?"

The Secretary shook his head, and springing up, held out his hand enthusiastically.

"Good luck to you, Inspector—you have a big thing ahead of you, a very big thing."

"Thank you, sir."

"By the way—you're not married?"

"No, sir."

"This is pretty short notice. How long have you been on this other case?"

"A trifle over six months, sir."

"Don't you want a couple of days to rest up? I can let you have that very easily."

"It really makes no difference—I think I'll leave to-day, sir."

"Oh, a moment more, Inspector—"

Frawley halted.

"How long do you think this ought to take you?"

Frawley considered, and answered carefully:

"It'll be long, I think. You see, there are several circumstances that are unusual about this case."

"How so?"

"Well, Buck is clever—there's no gainsaying that—quite at the top of the profession. Then, he's expecting me."

"You?"

"They're a queer lot," Frawley explained with a touch of pride. "Crooks are full of little vanities. You see, Bucky knows I've never dropped a trail, and I think it's rather gotten on his nerves. I think he wasn't satisfied until he dared me. He's very odd—very odd indeed. It's a little personal. I doubt, sir, if I bring him back alive."

"Inspector Frawley," said the new Secretary, "I hope I have sufficiently impressed upon you the importance of your mission."

Frawley stared at his chief in surprise.

"I'm to stick to him until I get him," he said in wonder; "that's all, isn't it, sir?"

The Secretary, annoyed by his lack of imagination, essayed a final phrase.

"Inspector, this is my last word," he said with a frown; "remember that you represent Her Majesty's government—you are Her Majesty's government! I have confidence in you."

"Thank you, sir."

Frawley moved slowly to the door and with his hand on the knob hesitated. The Secretary saw in the movement a reluctance to take the decisive step that must open before him the wide stretches of the world.

"After all, he must have a speck of imagination," he thought, reassured.

"I beg pardon, sir."

Frawley had turned in embarrassment.

"Well, Inspector, what can I do for you?"

"If you please, sir," said Frawley, "I was just thinking—after all, it has been a bit of a while since I've been home—indeed, I should like it very much if I could take a good English mutton-chop and a musty ale at old Nell's, sir. I can still get the two o'clock express."

"Granted!"

"If you'd prefer not, sir," said Frawley, surprised at the vexation in his answer.

"Not at all—take the two o'clock—good day, good day!"

Inspector Frawley, sorely puzzled, shifted his balance, opened his mouth, then with a bob of his head answered hastily:

"A—good day, sir!"



II

Sam Greenfield, known as "Bucky," age about 42, height about 5 feet 10 inches, weight between 145 and 150. Hair mouse-colored, thinning out over forehead, parted in middle, showing scalp beneath; mustache would be lighter than hair—if not dyed; usually clipped to about an inch. Waxy complexion, light blue eyes a little close together, thin nose, a prominent dimple on left cheek—may wear whiskers. Laughs in low key. Left ear lobe broken. Slightly bowlegged. While in conversation strokes chin. When standing at a counter or bar goes through motions, as if jerking himself together, crowding his elbows slowly to his side for a moment, then, throwing back his head, jumps up from his heels. When dreaming, attempts to bite mustache with lower lip. When he sits in a chair places himself sidewise and hangs both arms over back. In walking strikes back part of heel first, and is apt to waver from time to time. Dresses neatly, carries hands in side-pockets only—plays piano constantly, composing as he goes along. During day smokes twenty to thirty cigarettes, cutting them in half for cigarette-holder and throwing them away after three or four whiffs. After dinner invariably smokes one cigar. Cut is good likeness. Cut of signature is facsimile of his original writing.

With this overwhelming indictment against the liberty of the fugitive, to escape which Greenfield would have to change his temperament as well as his physical aspect, Inspector Frawley took the first steamer from New York to the Isthmus of Panama.

He had slight doubt of Greenfield's final destination, for the flight of the criminal is a blind instinct for the south as though a frantic return to barbarism. At this time Chile and the Argentine had not yet accepted the principle of extradition, and remained the Mecca of the lawbreakers of the world.

Yet though Frawley felt certain of Greenfield's objective, he did not at once strike for the Argentine. The Honorable Secretary of Justice had eliminated the necessity for considering time. Frawley had no need to guess, nor to risk. He had simply to become a wheel in the machinery of the law, to grind slowly, tirelessly, and inexorably. This idea suited admirably his temperament and his desires.

He arrived at Colon, took train for Panama across the laborious path where a thousand little men were scratching endlessly, and on the brink of the Pacific began his search. No one had heard of Greenfield.

At the end of a week's waiting he boarded a steamer and crawled down the western coast of South America, investigating every port, braving the yellow fever at Guayaquil, Ecuador, and facing a riot at Callao, Peru, before he found at Lima the trail of the fugitive. Greenfield had passed the day there and left for Chile. Dragging each intermediate port with the same caution, Frawley followed the trail to Valparaiso. Greenfield had stayed a week and again departed.

Frawley at once took steamer for the Argentine, passed down the tongue of South America, through the Straits of Magellan, and arrived at length in the harbor of Buenos Ayres.

An hour later, as he took his place at the table in the Criterion Gardens, a hand fell on his shoulder and some one at his back said:

"Well, Bub!"

He turned. A thin man of medium height, with blue eyes and yellow complexion, was laughing in expectation of his discomfiture. Frawley laid down the menu carefully, raised his head, and answered quietly:

"Why, how d'ye do, Bucky?"



III

"We shake, of course," said Greenfield, holding out his hand.

"Why not? Sit down."

The fugitive slid into a chair and hung his arms over the back, asking immediately:

"What took you so long? You're after me, of course?"

"Am I?" Frawley answered, looking at him steadily. Greenfield, with a twitch of his shoulders, returned to his question:

"What took you so long? Didn't you guess I'd come direct?"

"I'm not guessing," said Frawley.

"What do you say to dining on me?" said Greenfield with a malicious smile. "I owe you that. I clipped your vacation pretty short. Besides—guess you know it yourself—you can't touch me here. Why not talk things over frankly? Say, Bub, shall it be on me?"

"I'm willing."

A waiter sidled up and took the order that Greenfield gave without hesitation.

"You see, even the dinner was ready for you," he said with a wink; "see how you like it." With a gesture of impatience he pushed aside the menu, squared his arms on the table, and looked suddenly at his pursuer with the deviltry of a schoolboy glistening in his eyes. "Well, Bub, I went into your all-fired Canady!"

"So you did—why?"

"Well," said Greenfield, drawing lines with his knife-point on the nap, "one reason was I wanted to see if Her Majesty's shop has such an all-fired long arm—"

"And the other reason was I warned you to keep over the line."

"Why, Bub, you are a bright boy!"

"It ain't me, Bucky," Frawley answered, with a shake of his head; "it's the all-fired government that's after you."

"Good—first rate—then we'll have a little excitement!"

"You'll have plenty of that, Bucky!"

"Maybe, Bub, maybe. Well, I made a neat job of it, didn't I?"

"You did," admitted Frawley with an appreciative nod. "But you were wrong—you were wrong—you should have kept off. The Canadian Government ain't like your bloomin' democracy. It don't forgive—it don't forget. Tack that up, Bucky. It's a principle we've got at stake with you!"

"Don't I know it?" cried Greenfield, striking the table. "What else do you think I did it for?"

Frawley gazed at him, then said slowly: "I told them it was a personal matter."

"Sure it was! Do you think I could keep out after you served notice on me? D—— your English pride and your English justice! I'm a good enough Yank to see if your dinky police is such an all-fired cute little bunch of wonder-workers as you say! Bub—you think you're going to get Mr. Greenfield—don't you?"

"I'm not thinking, Bucky—"

"Eh?"

"I'm simply sticking to you."

"Sticking to me!" cried Greenfield with a roar of disgust. "Why, you unimaginative, lumbering, beef-eating Canuck, you can't get me that way! Why in tarnation didn't you strike plump for here—instead of rubbin' yourself down the whole coast of South Ameriky?"

"Bucky, you don't understand the situation properly," objected Frawley, without varying the level tone of his voice. "Supposing it had been a bloomin' corporation had sent me—? that's what I'd have done. But it's the government this time—Her Majesty's government! Time ain't no consideration. I'd have raked down the whole continent if I'd had to—though I knew where you were."

"Well, and now what? You can't touch me, Bub," he added earnestly. "I like straight talk, man to man. Now, what's your game?"

"Business."

"All right then," said Greenfield, with a frown, "but you can't touch me—now. There's an extradition treaty coming, but then there'd have to be a retroactive clause to do you any good." He paused, studying the expression on the Inspector's face. "There's enough of the likes of me here to see that don't occur. Say, Bub?"

"Well?"

"You deal a square pack, don't you?"

"That's my reputation, Bucky."

"Give me your word you'll play me square."

Inspector Frawley, leaning forward, helped himself busily. Greenfield, with pursed lips, studied every movement.

"No kidnapping tricks?"

Without lifting his eyes Frawley sharpened his knife vigorously against his fork and fell to eating.

"Well, Bub?"

"What?"

"No fancy kidnapping?"

"I'm promising nothing, Bucky."

There was a blank moment while Greenfield considered. Suddenly he shot out his hand, saying with a nod: "You're a white man, Bub, and I never heard a word against that." He filled a glass and shoved it toward Frawley. "We might as well clink on it. For I rather opinionate before we get through this little business—there'll be something worth talking about."

"Here's to you then, Bucky," said Frawley, nodding.

"Remember what I tell you," said Greenfield, looking over his glass, "there's going to be something to live for."

"I say, Bucky," said Frawley with a lazy interest, "would they serve you five-o'clock tea here, I wonder?"

Greenfield, drawing back, laughed a superior laugh.

"Bub, I'm sorry for you—'pon my word I am."

"How so, Bucky?"

"Why, you plodding little English lamb, you don't have the slightest suspicion what you're gettin' into!"

"What am I getting into, Bucky?"

Greenfield threw back his head with a chuckle.

"If you get me, it'll be the last job you ever pull off."

"Maybe, maybe."

"Since things are aboveboard—listen here," said Greenfield with sudden seriousness. "Bub, you'll not get me alive. Nothing personal, you understand, but it'll have to be your life or mine. If it comes to the pinch, look out for yourself—"

"Oh, yes," said Frawley, with a matter-of-fact nod, "I understand."

"I ain't tried to bribe you," said Greenfield, rising. "Thank me for that—though another man might have been sent up for life."

"Thanks," Frawley said with a drawl. "And you'll notice I haven't advised you to come back and face the music. Seems to me we understand each other."

"Here's my address," said Greenfield, handing him a card; "may save you some trouble. I'm here every night." He held out his hand. "Turn up and meet the profesh. They're a clever lot here. They'd appreciate meeting you, too."

"Perhaps I will."

"Ta-ta, then."

Greenfield took a few steps, halted, and lounged back with a smile full of mischief.

"By the way, Bub—how long has Her Majesty's dinkies given you?"

"It's a life appointment, Bucky."

"Really—bless me—then your bloomin' government has some sense after all."

The two men saluted gravely, with a parting exchange.

"Now, Bub—keep fit."

"Same to you, Bucky."



IV

The view of Greenfield sauntering lightly away among the noisy tables, bravado in his manner, deviltry in his heart, was the last glimpse Inspector Frawley was destined to have of him in many months. True, Greenfield had not lied: the address was genuine, but the man was gone. For days Frawley had the city scoured without gaining a clue. No steamer had left the harbor, not even a tramp. If Greenfield was not in hiding, he must have buried himself in the interior.

It was a week before Frawley found the track. Greenfield had walked thirty miles into the country and taken the train for Rio Mendoza on the route across the Andes to Valparaiso.

Frawley followed the same day, somewhat mystified at this sudden change of base. In the train the thermometer stood at 116 deg.. The heat made of everything a solitude. Frawley, lifeless, stifling, and numbed, glued himself to the air-holes with eyes fastened on the horizon, while the train sped across the naked, singeing back of the plains like the welt that springs to meet the fall of the lash. For two nights he watched the distended sun, exhausted by its own madness, drop back into the heated void, and the tortured stars rise over the stricken desert. At the end of thirty-six hours of agony he arrived at Rio Mendoza. Thence he reached Punta de Vacas, procured mules and a guide, and prepared for the ascent over the mountains.

At two o'clock the next morning he began to climb out of hell. The tortured plains settled below him. A divine freshness breathed upon him with a new hope of life. He left the burning conflict of summer and passed into the aroma of spring.

Then the air grew intense, a new suffocation pressed about his temples—the suffocation of too much life. In an hour he had run the gamut of the seasons. The cold of everlasting winter descended and stung his senses. Up and up and up they went—then suddenly down, with the half-breed guide and the tireless mule always at the same distance before him; and again began the insistent mechanical toiling upward. He grew listless and indifferent, acquiescent in these steep efforts that the next moment must throw away. The horror of immense distance rose about him. From time to time a stone dislodged by their passage rushed from under him, struck the brink, and spun into the void, to fall endlessly. The face of the earth grew confused and dropped in a mist from before his eyes.

Then as they toiled still upward, a gale as though sent in anger rushed down upon them, sweeping up whirlwinds of snow, raging and shrieking, dragging them to the brink, and threatening to blot them out.

Frawley clutched the saddle, then flung his arms about the neck of his mule. His head was reeling, the indignant blood rushed to his nostrils and his ears, his lungs no longer could master the divine air. Then suddenly the mules stopped, exhausted. Through the maelstrom the guide shrieked to him not to use the spur. Frawley felt himself in danger of dying, and had no resentment.

For a day they affronted the immense wilds until they had forced themselves thousands of feet above the race of men. Then they began to descend.

Below them the clouds lapped and rolled like the elements before the creation. Still they descended, and the moist oblivion closed about them, like the curse of a world without color. The bleak mists separated and began to roll up above them, a cloud split asunder, and through the slit the earth jumped up, and the solid land spread before them as when at the dawn it obeyed the will of the Creator. They saw the hills and the mountains grow, and the rivers trickle toward the sea. The masses of brown and green began to be splashed with red and yellow as the fields became fertile and fructified; and the insect race of men began to crawl to and fro.

The half-breed, who saw the scene for the hundredth time, bent his head in awe. Frawley straightened in his saddle, stretched the stiffness out of his limbs, patted his mule solicitously, glanced at the guide, and stopped in perplexity at the mute, reverential attitude.

"What's he starin' at now?" he muttered in as then, with a glance at his watch, he added anxiously, "I say, Sammy, when do we get a bit to eat?"



V

In Valparaiso he readily found the track of Greenfield. Up to the time of his departure, two boats had sailed: one for the north, and one by the Straits of Magellan to Buenos Ayres. Greenfield had bought a ticket for each, after effecting the withdrawal of his account at a local bank. Frawley was in perplexity: for Greenfield to flee north was to run into the jaws of the law. The withdrawal of the account decided him. He returned to Buenos Ayres by the route he had come, arriving the day before the steamer. To his discomfiture Greenfield was not on board. By ridiculously casting away his protection he had thrown the detective off the track and gained three weeks. Without more concern than he might have shown in taking a trip from Toronto to New York, Frawley a third time crossed the Andes and set himself to correcting his first error.

He traced Greenfield laboriously up the coast back to Panama and there lost the trail. At the end of two months he learned that Greenfield had shipped as a common sailor on a freighter that touched at Hawaii. From here he followed him to Yokohama, Singapore, Ceylon, and Bombay.

Thence Greenfield, suddenly abandoning the water route, had proceeded by land to Bagdad, and across the Turkish Empire to Constantinople. Without a pause, Frawley traced him next into the Balkans, through Bulgaria, Roumania, amid massacre and revolution to Budapest, back to Odessa, and across the back of Russia by Moscow and Riga to Stockholm. A year had elapsed.

Several times he might have gained on the fugitive had he trusted to his instinct; but he bided his time, renouncing a stroke of genius, in order to be certain of committing no error, awaiting the moment when Greenfield would pause and he might overtake him. But the fugitive, as though stung by a gad-fly, continued to plunge madly over sea and continent. Four months, five months behind, Frawley continued the tireless pursuit.

From Stockholm the chase led to Copenhagen, to Christiansand, down the North Sea to Rotterdam. From thence Greenfield had rushed by rail to Lisbon and taken steamer to Africa, touching at Gibraltar, Portuguese and French Guinea, Sierra Leone, and proceeding thence into the Congo. For a month all traces disappeared in the veldt, until by chance, rather than by his own merits, Frawley found the trail anew in Madagascar, whither Greenfield had come after a desperate attempt to bury his trail on the immense plains of Southern Africa.

From Madagascar, Frawley followed him to Aden in Arabia and by steamer to Melbourne. Again for weeks he sought the confused track vainly through Australia, up through Sydney, down again to Tasmania and New Zealand on a false clue, back to Queensland, where at last in Cooktown he learned anew of the passing of his man.

The third year began without appreciable gain. Greenfield still was three months in advance, never pausing, scurrying from continent to continent, as though instinctively aware of the progress of his pursuer.

In this year Frawley visited Sumatra, Java, and Borneo, stopped at Manila, jumped immediately to Korea, and hurried on to Vladivostok, where he found that Greenfield had procured passage on a sealer bound for Auckland. There he had taken the steamer by the Straits of Magellan back to Buenos Ayres.

There, within the first hour, he heard a report that his man had gone on to Rio Janeiro, caught the cholera, and died there. Undaunted by the epidemic, Frawley took the next boat and entered the stricken city by swimming ashore. For a week he searched the hospitals and the cemeteries. Greenfield had indeed been stricken, but, escaping with his life, had left for the northern part of Brazil. The delay resulted in a gain of three months for Frawley, but without heat or excitement he began anew the pursuit, passing up the coast to Para and the mouth of the Amazon, by Bogota and Panama into Mexico, on up toward the border of Texas. The months between him and Greenfield shortened to weeks, then to days without troubling his equanimity. At El Paso he arrived a few hours after Greenfield had left, going toward the Salt Basin and the Guadalupe Mountains. Frawley took horses and a guide and followed to the edge of the desert. At three o'clock in the afternoon a horseman grew out of the horizon, a figure that remained stationary and attentive, studying his approach through a spy-glass. Suddenly, as though satisfied, the stranger took off his hat and waved it above his head in challenge, and digging his heels into his horse, disappeared into the desert.



VI

Frawley understood the challenge—the end was to be in the desert. Failing to move his guide by threat or promise, he left him clamoring frantically on the edge of the desert and rode on toward where the figure of Greenfield had disappeared on the horizon in a puff of dust.

For three days they went their way grimly into the parched sands, husbanding every particle of strength, within plain sight of each other, always at the same unvarying walk. At night they slept by fits and starts, with an ear trained for the slightest hostile sound. Then they cast aside their saddles, their rifles, and superfluous clothing, in a vain effort to save their mounts.

The horses, heaving and staggering, crawled over the yielding sands like silhouettes drawn by a thread. In the sky not a cloud appeared; below, the yellow monotony extended as flat as a dish. Above them a lazy buzzard, wheeling in languid circles, followed with patient conviction.

On the fourth morning Frawley's horse stopped, shuddered, and went down in a heap. Greenfield halted and surveyed his discomfiture grimly, without a sign of elation.

"That's bad, very bad," Frawley said judicially. "I ought to have sent word to the department. Still, it's not over yet—his horse won't last long. Well, I mustn't carry much."

He abandoned his revolver, a knife, $200 in gold, and continued on foot, preserving only the water-bag with its precious mouthful. Greenfield, who had waited immovably, allowed him to approach within a quarter of a mile before putting his horse in motion.

"He's going to make sure I stay here," said Frawley to himself, seeing that Greenfield made no attempt to increase the lead. "Well, we'll see."

Twelve hours later Greenfield's horse gave out. Frawley uttered a cry of joy, but the handicap of half a day was a serious one; he was exhausted, famished, and in the bag there remained only sufficient water to moisten his lips.

The fifth day broke with an angry sun and no sign on the horizon to relieve the eternal monotony. Only the buzzard at the same distance aloft bided his time. Hunter and hunted, united perforce by their common suffering, plodded on with the weary, hopeless straining of human beings harnessed to a plow, covering scarcely a mile an hour. From time to time, by common consent, they sat down, gaunt, exhausted figures, eyeing each other with the instinct of beasts, their elbows on their bony knees. Whether from a fear of losing energy, whether under the spell of the frightful stillness, neither had uttered a word.

Frawley was afire with thirst. The desert entered his body with its dry mortal heat, and ran its consuming dryness through his veins; his eyes started from his face as the sun above him hung out of the parched sky. He began to talk to himself, to sing. Under his feet the sand sifted like the soft protest of autumn leaves. He imagined himself back in the forest, marking the rustle of leafy branches and the intermittent dropping of acorns and twigs. All at once his legs refused to move. He stood still, his gaze concentrated on the figure of Greenfield a long moment, then his body crumpled under him and he sank without volition to the ground.

Greenfield stopped, sat down, and waited. After half an hour he drew himself to his feet, moved on, then stopped, returned, approached, and listened to the crooning of the delirious man. Suddenly satisfied, he flung both arms into the air in frenzied triumph, turned, staggered, and reeled away, while back over the desert came the grotesque, hideous refrain, in maddened victory:

"Yankee Doodle Dandy oh! Yankee Doodle Dandy!"

Frawley watched him go, then with a sigh of relief turned his glance to the black revolving form in the air—at least that remained to break the horror of the solitude. Then he lost consciousness.

The beat of wings across his face aroused him with a start and a cry of agony. The great bird of carrion, startled in its inspection, flew clumsily off and settled fearlessly on the ground, blinking at him.

An immense revolt, a furious anger brought with it new strength. He rose and rushed at the bird with clenched fist, cursing it as it lumbered awkwardly away. Then he began desperately to struggle on, following the tracks in the sand.

At the end of an hour specks appeared on the horizon. He looked at them in his delirium and began to laugh uneasily.

"I must be out of my head," he said to himself seriously. "It's a mirage. Well, I suppose it is the end. Who'll they put on the case now? Keech, I suppose; yes, Keech; he's a good man. Of course it's a mirage."

As he continued to stumble forward, the dots assumed the shape of trees and hills. He laughed contemptuously and began to remonstrate with himself, repeating:

"It's a mirage, or I'm out of my head." He began to be worried, saying over and over: "That's a bad sign, very bad. I mustn't lose control of myself. I must stick to him—stick to him until he dies of old age. Bucky Greenfield! Well, he won't get out of this either. If the department could only know!"

The nearer he drew to life, the more indignant he became. He arrived thus at the edge of trees and green things.

"Why don't they go?" he said angrily. "They ought to, now. Come, I think I'm keeping my head remarkably well."

All at once a magnificent idea came to him—he would walk through the mirage and end it. He advanced furiously against an imaginary tree, struck his forehead, and toppled over insensible.



VII

Frawley returned to consciousness to find himself in the hut of a half-breed Indian, who was forcing a soup of herbs between his lips.

Two days later he regained his strength sufficiently to reach a ranch owned by Englishmen. Fitted out by them, he started at once to return to El Paso; to take up the unending search anew.

In the late afternoon, tired and thirsty, he arrived at a shanty where a handful of Mexican children were lolling in the cool of the wall. At the sound of his approach a woman came running to the door, shrieking for assistance in a Mexican gibberish. He ran hastily to the house, his hand on his pistol. The woman, without stopping her chatter, huddled in the doorway, pointing to the dim corner opposite. Frawley, following her glance, saw the figure of a man stretched on a hasty bed of leaves. He took a few quick steps and recognized Greenfield.

At the same moment the bundle shot to a sitting position, with a cry:

"Who's that?"

Frawley, with a quick motion, covered him with his revolver, crying:

"Hands up. It's me, Bucky, and I've got you now!"

"Frawley!"

"That's it, Bucky—Hands up!"

Greenfield, without obeying, stared at him wildly.

"God, it is Frawley!" he cried, and fell back in a heap.

Inspector Frawley, advancing a step, repeated his command with no uncertain ring:

"Hands up! Quick!"

On the bed the distorted body contracted suddenly into a ball.

"Easy, Bub," Greenfield said between his teeth. "Easy; don't get excited. I'm dying."

"You?"

Frawley approached cautiously, suspiciously.

"Fact. I'm cashin' in."

"What's the matter?"

"Bug. Plain bug—the desert did the rest."

"A what?"

"Tarantula bite—don't laugh, Bub."

Frawley, at his side, needed but a glance to see that it was true. He ran his hand over Greenfield's belt and removed his pistol.

"Sorry," he said curtly, standing up.

"Quite keerect, Bub!"

"Can I do anything for you?"

"Nope."

Suddenly, without warning, Greenfield raised himself, glared at him, stretched out his hands, and fell into a passionate fit of weeping. Frawley's English reserve was outraged.

"What's the matter?" he said angrily. "You're not going to show the white feather now, are you?"

With an oath Greenfield sat bolt upright, silent and flustered.

"D—— you, Bub—show some imagination," he said after a pause. "Do you think I mind dying—me? That's a good one. It ain't that—no—it's ending, ending like this. After all I've been through, to be put out of business by a bug—an ornery little bug."

Then Frawley comprehended his mistake.

"I say, Bucky, I'll take that back," he said awkwardly.

"No imagination, no imagination," Greenfield muttered, sinking back. "Why, man, if I'd chased you three times around the world and got you, I'd fall on you and beat you to a pulp or—or I'd hug you like a long-lost brother."

"I asked your pardon," said Frawley again.

"All right, Bub—all right," Greenfield answered with a short laugh. Then after a pause he added seriously: "So you've come—well, I'm glad it's over. Bub," he continued, raising himself excitedly on his elbow, "here's something strange, only you won't understand it. Do you know, the whole time I knew just where you were—I had a feeling somewhere in the back of my neck. At first you were 'way off, over the horizon; then you got to be a spot coming over the hill. Then I began to feel that spot growin' bigger and bigger—after Rio Janeiro, crawling up, creeping up. Gospel truth, I felt you sneaking up on my back. It got on my nerves. I dreamed about it, and that morning on the trail when you was just a speck on any old hoss—I knew! You—you don't understand such things, Bub, do you?"

Frawley made an effort, failed, and answered helplessly:

"No, Bucky, no, I can't say I do understand."

"Why do you think I ran you into Rio Janeiro?" said Greenfield, twisting on the leaves. "Into the cholery? What do you think made me lay for this desert? Bub, you were on my back, clinging like a catamount. I was bound to shake you off. I was desperate. It had to end one way or t'other. That's why I stuck to you until I thought it was over with you."

"Why didn't you make sure of it?" said Frawley with curiosity; "you could have done for me there."

Greenfield looked at him hard and nodded.

"Keerect, Bub; quite so!"

"Why didn't you?"

"Why!" cried Greenfield angrily. "Ain't you ever had any imagination? Did I want to shoot you down like a common ordinary pickpocket after taking you three times around the world? That was no ending! God, what a chase it was!"

"It was long, Bucky," Frawley admitted. "It was a good one!"

"Can't you understand anything?" Greenfield cried querulously. "Where's anything bigger, more than what we've done? And to have it end like this—to have a bug—a miserable, squashy bug beat you after all!"

For a long moment there was no sound, while Greenfield lay, twisting, his head averted, buried in the leaves.

"It's not right, Bucky," said Frawley at last, with an effort at sympathy. "It oughtn't to have ended this way."

"It was worth it!" Greenfield cried. "Three years! There ain't much dirt we haven't kicked up! Asia, Africa—a regular Cook's tour through Europe, North and South Ameriky. And what seas, Bub!" His voice faltered. The drops of sweat stood thickly on his forehead; but he pulled himself together gamely. "Do you remember the Sea of Japan with its funny little toy junks? Man, we've beaten out Columbus, Jools Verne, and the rest of them—hollow, Bub!"

"I say, what did you do it for?"

"You are a rum un," said Greenfield with a broken laugh. The words began to come shorter and with effort. "Excitement, Bub! Deviltry and cussedness!"

"How do you feel, Bucky?" asked Frawley.

"Half in hell already—stewing for my sins—but it's not that—it's—"

"What, Bucky?"

"That bug! Me, Bucky Greenfield—to go down and out on account of a bug—a little squirmy bug! But I swear even he couldn't have done it if the desert hadn't put me out of business first! No, by God! I'm not downed so easy as that!"

Frawley, in a lame attempt to show his sympathy, went closer to the dying man:

"I say, Bucky."

"Shout away."

"Wouldn't you like to go out, standing, on your feet—with your boots on?"

Greenfield laughed, a contented laugh.

"What's the matter, pal?" said Frawley, pausing in surprise.

"You darned old Englishman," said Greenfield affectionately. "Say, Bub."

"Yes, Bucky."

"The dinkies are all right—but—but a Yank, a real Yank, would 'a' got me in six months."

"All right, Bucky. Shall I raise you up?"

"H'ist away."

"Would you like the feeling of a gun in your hand again?" said Frawley, raising him up.

This time Greenfield did not laugh, but his hand closed convulsively over the butt, and he gave a savage sigh of delight. His limbs contracted violently, his head bore heavily on the shoulder of Frawley, who heard him whisper again:

"A bug—a little—"

Then he stopped and appeared to listen. Outside, the evening was soft and stirring. Through the door the children appeared, tumbling over one another, in grotesque attitudes.

Suddenly, as though in the breeze he had caught the sound of a step, Greenfield jerked almost free of Frawley's arms, shuddered, and fell back rigid. The pistol, flung into the air, twirled, pitched on the floor, and remained quiet.

Frawley placed the body back on the bed of leaves, listened a moment, and rose satisfied. He threw a blanket over the face, picked up the revolver, searched a moment for his hat, and went out to arrange with the Mexican for the night. In a moment he returned and took a seat in the corner, and began carefully to jot down the details on a piece of paper. Presently he paused and looked reflectively at the bed of leaves.

"It's been a good three years," he said reflectively. He considered a moment, rapping the pencil against his teeth, and repeated: "A good three years. I think when I get home I'll ask for a week or so to stretch myself." Then he remembered with anxiety how Greenfield had railed at his lack of imagination and pondered a moment seriously. Suddenly, as though satisfied, he said with a nod of conviction:

"Well, now, we did jog about a bit!"



LARRY MOORE



I

The base-ball season had closed, and we were walking down Fifth avenue, Larry Moore and I. We were discussing the final series for the championship, and my friend was estimating his chances of again pitching the Giants to the top, when a sudden jam on the avenue left us an instant looking face to face at a woman and a child seated in a luxurious victoria.

Larry Moore, who had hold of my arm, dropped it quickly and wavered in his walk. The woman caught her breath and put her muff hastily to her face; but the child saw us without surprise. All had passed within a second, yet I retained a vivid impression of a woman of strange attraction, elegant and indolent, with something in her face which left me desirous of seeing it again, and of a pretty child who seemed a little too serious for that happy age. Larry Moore forgot what he had begun to say. He spoke no further word, and I, in glancing at his face, comprehended that, incredible as it seemed, there was some bond between the woman I had seen and this raw-boned, big-framed, and big-hearted idol of the bleachers.

Without comment I followed Larry Moore, serving his mood as he immediately left the avenue and went east. At first he went with excited strides, then he slowed down to a profound and musing gait, then he halted, laid his hand heavily on my shoulder, and said:

"Get into the car, Bob. Come up to the rooms."

I understood that he wished to speak to me of what had happened, and I followed. We went thus, without another word exchanged, to his rooms, and entered the little parlor hung with the trophies of his career, which I looked at with some curiosity. On the mantel in the center I saw at once a large photograph of the Hon. Joseph Gilday, a corporation lawyer of whom we reporters told many hard things, a picture I did not expect to find here among the photographs of the sporting celebrities who had sent their regards to my friend of the diamond. In some perplexity I approached and saw across the bottom written in large firm letters: "I'm proud to know you, Larry Moore."

I smiled, for the tribute of the great man of the law seemed incongruous here to me, who knew of old my simple-minded, simple-hearted friend whom, the truth be told, I patronized perforce. Then I looked about more carefully, and saw a dozen photographs of a woman, sometimes alone, sometimes holding a pretty child, and the faces were the faces I had seen in the victoria. I feigned not to have seen them; but Larry, who had watched me, said:

"Look again, Bob; for that is the woman you saw in the carriage, and that is the child."

So I took up a photograph and looked at it long. The face had something more dangerous than beauty in it—the face of a Cleopatra with a look in the deep restless eyes I did not fancy; but I did not tell that to Larry Moore. Then I put it back in its place and turned and said gravely:

"Are you sure that you want to tell me, Larry Moore?"

"I do," he said. "Sit down."

He did not seek preliminaries, as I should have done, but began at once, simply and directly—doubtless he was retelling the story more to himself than to me.

"She was called Fanny Montrose," he said, "a slip of a girl, with wonderful golden hair, and big black eyes that made me tremble, the day I went into the factory at Bridgeport, the day I fell in love. 'I'm Larry Moore; you may have heard of me,' I said, going straight up to her when the whistle blew that night, 'and I'd like to walk home with you, Fanny Montrose.'

"She drew back sort of quick, and I thought she'd been hearing tales of me up in Fall River; so I said: 'I only meant to be polite. You may have heard a lot of bad of me, and a lot of it's true, but you never heard of Larry Moore's being disrespectful to a lady,' and I looked her in the eye and said: 'Will you let me walk home with you, Fanny Montrose?'

"She swung on her foot a moment, and then she said: 'I will.'

"I heard a laugh go up at that, and turned round, with the bit in my teeth; but it was only the women, and you can't touch them. Fanny Montrose hurried on, and I saw she was upset by it, so I said humbly: 'You're not sorry now, are you?'

"'Oh, no,' she said.

"'Will you catch hold of my arm?' I asked her.

"She looked first in my face, and then she slipped in her hand so prettily that it sent all the words from my tongue. 'You've just come to Bridgeport, ain't you?' she said timidly.

"'I have,' I said, 'and I want you to know the truth. I came because I had to get out of Fall River. I had a scrap—more than one of them.'

"'Did you lick your man?' she said, glancing at me.

"'I licked every one of them, and it was good and fair fighting—if I was on a tear,' I said; 'but I'm ashamed of it now.'

"'You're Larry Moore, who pitched on the Fall Rivers last season?' she said.

"'I am.'

"'You can pitch some!' she said with a nod.

"'When I'm straight I can.'

"'And why don't you go at it like a man then? You could get in the Nationals,' she said.

"'I've never had anyone to work for—before,' I said.

"'We go down here; I'm staying at Keene's boarding-house,' she said at that.

"I was afraid I'd been too forward; so I kept still until we came to the door. Then I pulled off my hat and made her a bow and said: 'Will you let me walk home with you steady, Fanny Montrose?'

"And she stopped on the door-step and looked at me without saying a word, and I asked it again, putting out my hand, for I wanted to get hold of hers. But she drew back and reached for the knob. So I said:

"'You needn't be frightened; for it's me that ought to be afraid.'

"'And what have you to be afraid of, you great big man?' she said, stopping in wonder.

"'I'm afraid of your big black eyes, Fanny Montrose, 'I said, 'and I'm afraid of your slip of a body that I could snap in my hands,' I said; 'for I'm going to fall in love with you, Fanny Montrose.'

"Which was a lie, for I was already. With that I ran off like a fool. I ran off, but from that night I walked home with Fanny Montrose.

"For a month we kept company, and Bill Coogan and Dan Farrar and the rest of them took my notice and kept off. The women laughed at me and sneered at her; but I minded them not, for I knew the ways of the factory, and besides there wasn't a man's voice in the lot—that I heard.

"But one night as we were wandering back to Keene's boarding-house, Fanny Montrose on my arm, Bill Coogan planted himself before us, and called her something to her face that there was no getting around.

"I took her on a bit, weeping and shaking, and I said to her: 'Stand here.'

"And I went back, and caught Bill Coogan by the throat and the belt, and swung him around my head, and flung him against the lamp-post. And the post broke off with a crash, and Coogan lay quiet, with nothing more to say.

"I went back to Fanny Montrose, who had stopped her crying, and said, shaking with anger at the dirty insult: 'Fanny Montrose, will you be my wife? Will you marry me this night?'

"She pushed me away from her, and looked up into my face in a frightened way and said: 'Do you mean to be your wife?'

"'I do,' I said, and then because I was afraid that she didn't trust in me enough yet to marry me I said solemnly: 'Fanny Montrose, you need have no fear. If I've been drunk and riotous, it's because I wanted to be, and now that I've made up my mind to be straight, there isn't a thing living that could turn me back again. Fanny Montrose, will you say you'll be my wife?'

"Then she put out her two hands to me and tumbled into my arms, all limp."



II

Larry Moore rose and walked the length of the room. When he came back he went to the wall and took down a photograph; but with what emotion I could not say, for his back was to me. I glanced again at the odd volatile beauty in the woman's face and wondered what was the word Bill Coogan had said and what was his reason for saying it.

"From that day it was all luck for me," Larry Moore said, settling again in the chair, where his face returned to the shadow. "She had a head on her, that little woman. She pulled me up to where I am. I pitched that season for the Bridgeports. You know the record, Bob, seven games lost out of forty-three, and not so much my fault either. When they were for signing me again, at big money too, the little woman said:

"'Don't you do it, Larry Moore; they're not your class. Just hold out a bit.'

"You know, Bob, how I signed then with the Giants, and how they boosted my salary at the end of that first year; but it was Fanny Montrose who made the contracts every time. We had the child then, and I was happy. The money came quick, and lots of it, and I put it in her lap and said:

"'Do what you want with it; only I want you to enjoy it like a lady.'

"Maybe I was wrong there—maybe I was. It was pride, I'll admit; but there wasn't a lady came to the stands that looked finer than Fanny Montrose, as I always used to call her. I got to be something of a figure, as you know, and the little woman was always riding back and forth to the games in some automobile, and more often with Paul Bargee.

"One afternoon Ed Nichols, who was catching me then, came up with a serious face and said: 'Where's your lady to-day, Larry—and Paul Bargee?' And by the way he said it I knew what he had in mind, and good friend that he was of mine I liked to have throttled him. They told me to pitch the game, and I did. I won it too. Then I ran home without changing my clothes, the people staring at me, and ran up the stairs and flung open the door and stopped and called: 'Fanny Montrose!'

"And I called again, and I called a third time, and only the child came to answer me. Then I knew in my heart that Fanny Montrose had left me and run off with Paul Bargee.



III

"I waited all that night without tasting food or moving, listening for her step on the stairs. And in the morning the postman came without a line or a word for me. I couldn't understand; for I had been a good husband to her, and though I thought over everything that had happened since we'd been married, I couldn't think of a thing that I'd done to hurt her—for I wasn't thinking then of the millions of Paul Bargee.

"In the afternoon there came a dirty little lawyer shuffling in to see me, with blinking little eyes behind his black-rimmed spectacles—a toad of a man.

"'Who are you?' I said, 'and what are you doing here?'

"'I'm simply an attorney,' he said, cringing before my look—'Solomon Scholl, on a very disagreeable duty,' he said.

"'Do you come from her?' I said, and I caught my breath.

"'I come from Mr. Paul Bargee,' he said, 'and I'd remind you, Mr. Moore, that I come as an attorney on a disagreeable duty.'

"With that I drew back and looked at him in amazement, and said: 'What has he got to say to me?'

"'My client,' he said, turning the words over with the tip of his tongue, 'regrets exceedingly—'

"'Don't waste words!' I said angrily. 'What are you here for?'

"'My client,' he said, looking at me sidelong, 'empowers me to offer you fifteen thousand dollars if you will promise to make no trouble in this matter.'

"I sat down all in a heap; for I didn't know the ways of a gentleman then, Bob, and covered my face with the horror I had of the humiliation he had done me. The lawyer, he misunderstood it, for he crept up softly and whispered in my ear:

"'That's what he offers—if you're fool enough to take it; but if you'll stick to me, we can wring him to the tune of ten times that.'

"I got up and took him and kicked him out of the room, and kicked him down the stairs, for he was a little man, and I wouldn't strike him.

"Then I came back and said to myself: 'If matters are so, I must get the best advice I can.'

"And I knew that Joseph Gilday was the top of the lot. So I went to him, and when I came in I stopped short, for I saw he looked perplexed, and I said: 'I'm in trouble, sir, and my life depends on it, and other lives, and I need the best of advice; so I've come to you. I'm Larry Moore of the Giants; so you may know I can pay.' Then I sat down and told him the story, every word as I've told you; and when I was all through, he said quietly:

"'What are you thinking of doing, Mr. Moore?'

"'I think it would be better if she came back, sir,' I said, 'for her and for the child. So I thought the best thing would be to write her a letter and tell her so; for I think if you could write the right sort of a letter she'd come back. And that's what I want you to show me how to write,' I said.

"He took a sheet of paper and a pen, and looked at me steadily and said: 'What would you say to her?'

"So I drew my hands up under my chin and thought awhile and said: 'I think I'd say something like this, sir:

"'"My dear wife—I've been trying to think all this while what has driven you away, and I don't understand. I love you, Fanny Montrose, and I want you to come back to me. And if you're afraid to come, I want to tell you not a word will pass my lips on the subject; for I haven't forgotten that it was you made a man of me; and much as I try, I cannot hate you, Fanny Montrose."'

"He looked down and wrote for a minute, and then he handed me the paper and said: 'Send that.'

"I looked, and saw it was what I had told him, and I said doubtfully: 'Do you think that is best?'

"'I do.'

"So I mailed the letter as he said, and three days after came one from a lawyer, saying my wife could have no communication with me, and would I send what I had to say to him.

"So I went down to Gilday and told him, and I said: 'We must think of other things, sir, since she likes luxury and those things better; for I'm beginning to think that's it—and there I'm a bit to blame, for I did encourage her. Well, she'll have to marry him—that's all I can see to it," I said, and sat very quiet.

"'He won't marry her,' he said in his quick way.

"I thought he meant because she was bound to me, so I said: 'Of course, after the divorce.'

"'Are you going to get a divorce then from her?'

"'I've been thinking it over,' I said carefully, and I had, 'and I think the best way would be for her to get it. That can be done, can't it?' I said, 'because I've been thinking of the child, and I don't want her to grow up with any stain on the good name of her mother,' I said.

"'Then you will give up the child?' he said.

"And I said: 'Yes.'

"'Will he marry her?' he said again.

"'For what else did he take her away?'

"'If I was you,' he said, looking at me hard, 'I'd make sure of that—before.'

"That worried me a good deal, and I went out and walked around, and then I went to the station and bought a ticket for Chicago, and I said to myself: 'I'll go and see him'; for by that time I'd made up my mind what I'd do.

"And when I got there the next morning, I went straight to his house, and my heart sank, for it was a great place with a high iron railing all around it and a footman at the door—and I began to understand why Fanny Montrose had left me for him.

"I'd thought a long time about giving another name; but I said to myself: 'No, I'll him a chance first to come down and face me like a man,' so I said to the footman: 'Go tell Paul Bargee that Larry Moore has come to see him.'

"Then I went down the hall and into the great parlor, all hung with draperies, and I looked at myself in the mirrors and looked at the chairs, and I didn't feel like sitting down, and presently the curtains opened, and Paul Bargee stepped into the room. I looked at him once, and then I looked at the floor, and my breath came hard. Then he stepped up to me and stopped and said:

"'Well?'

"And though he had wronged me and wrecked my life, I couldn't help admiring his grit; for the boy was no match for me, and he knew it too, though he never flinched.

"'I've come from New York here to talk with you, Paul Bargee,' I said.

"'You've a right to.'

"'I have,' I said, 'and I want to have an understanding with you now, if you have the time, sir,' I said, and looked at the ground again.

"He drew off, and hearing me speak so low he mistook me as others have done before, and he looked at me hard and said: 'Well, how much?'

"My head went up, and I strode at him; but he never winced—if he had, I think I'd have caught him then and there and served him as I did Bill Coogan. But I stopped and said: 'That's the second mistake you've made, Paul Bargee; the first was when you sent a dirty little lawyer to pay me for taking my wife. And your lawyer came to me and told me to screw you to the last cent. I kicked him out of my sight; and what have you to say why I shouldn't do the same to you, Paul Bargee?'

"He looked white and hurt in his pride, and said: 'You're right; and I beg your pardon, Mr. Moore.'

"'I don't want your pardon,' I said, 'and I won't sit down in your house, and we won't discuss what has happened but what is to be. For there's a great wrong you've done, and I've a right to say what you shall do now, Paul Bargee.'

"He looked at me and said slowly: 'What is that?'

"'You took my wife, and I gave her a chance to come back to me,' I said; 'but she loved you and what you can give better than me. But she's been my wife, and I'm not going to see her go down into the gutter.'

"He started to speak; but I put up my hand and I said: 'I'm not here to discuss with you, Paul Bargee. I've come to say what's going to be done; for I have a child,' I said, 'and I don't intend that the mother of my little girl should go down to the gutter. You've chosen to take my wife, and she's chosen to stay with you. Now, you've got to marry her and make her a good woman,' I said.

"Then Paul Bargee stood off, and I saw what was passing through his mind. And I went up to him and laid my hand on his shoulder and said: 'You know what I mean, and you know what manner of man I am that talks to you like this; for you're no coward,' I said; 'but you marry Fanny Montrose within a week after she gets her freedom, or I am going to kill you wherever you stand. And that's the choice you've got to make, Paul Bargee,' I said.

"Then I stepped back and watched him, and as I did so I saw the curtains move and knew that Fanny Montrose had heard me.

"'You're going to give her the divorce?' he said.

"'I am. I don't intend there shall be a stain on her name,' I said; 'for I loved Fanny Montrose, and she's always the mother of my little girl.'

"Then he went to a chair and sat down and took his head in his hands, and I went out.



IV

"I came back to New York, and went to Mr. Gilday.

"'Will he marry her?' he said at once.

"'He will marry her,' I said. 'As for her, I want you to say; for I'll not write to her myself, since she wouldn't answer me. Say when she's the wife of Paul Bargee I'll bring the child to her myself, and she's to see me; for I have a word to say to her then,' I said, and I laid my fist down on the table. 'Until then the child stays with me.'

"They've said hard things of Mr. Joseph Gilday, and I know it; but I know all that he did for me. For he didn't turn it over to a clerk; but he took hold himself and saw it through as I had said. And when the divorce was given he called me down and told me that Fanny Montrose was a free woman and no blame to her in the sight of the law.

"Then I said: 'It is well. Now write to Paul Bargee that his week has begun. Until then I keep the child, law or no law.' Then I rose and said: 'I thank you, Mr. Gilday. You've been very kind, and I'd like to pay you what I owe you.'

"He sat there a moment and chewed on his mustache, and he said: 'You don't owe me a cent.'

"'It wasn't charity I came to you for, and I can pay for what I get, Mr. Gilday,' I said. 'Will you give me your regular bill?' I said.

"And he said at last: 'I will.'

"In the middle of the week Paul Bargee's mother came to me and went down on her knees and begged for her son, and I said to her: 'Why should there be one law for him and one law for the likes of me. He's taken my wife; but he sha'n't put her to shame, ma'am, and he sha'n't cast a cloud on the life of my child!'

"Then she stopped arguing, and caught my hands and cried: 'But you won't kill him, you won't kill my son, if he don't?'

"'As sure as Saturday comes, ma'am, and he hasn't made Fanny Montrose a good woman,' I said, 'I'm going to kill Paul Bargee wherever he stands.'

"And Friday morning Mr. Gilday called me down to his office and told me that Paul Bargee had done as I said he should do. And I pressed his hand and said nothing, and he let me sit awhile in his office.

"And after awhile I rose up and said: 'Then I must take the child to her, as I promised, to-night.'

"He walked with me from the office and said: 'Go home to your little girl. I'll see to the tickets, and will come for you at nine o'clock.'

"And at nine o'clock he came in his big carriage, and took me and the child to the station and said: 'Telegraph me when you're leaving to-morrow.'

"And I said: 'I will.'

"Then I went into the car with my little girl asleep in my arms and sat down in the seat, and the porter came and said:

"'Can I make up your berths?'

"And I looked at the child and shook my head. So I held her all night and she slept on my shoulder, while I looked from her out into the darkness, and from the darkness back to her again. And the porter kept passing and passing and staring at me and the child.

"And in the morning we went up to the great house and into the big parlor, and Fanny Montrose came in, as I had said she should, very white and not looking at me. And the child ran to her, and I watched Fanny Montrose catch her up to her breast, and I sobbed. And she looked at me, and saw it. So I said:

"'It's because now I know you love the child and that you'll be kind to her.'

"Then she fell down before me and tried to take my hand. But I stepped back and said:

"'I've made you an honest woman, Fanny Montrose, and now as long as I live I'm going to see you do nothing to disgrace my child.'

"And I went out and took the train back. And Mr. Gilday was at the station there waiting for me, and he took my arm, without a word, and led me to his carriage and drove up without speaking. And when we got to the house, he got out, and took off his hat and made me a bow and said: 'I'm proud to know you, Larry Moore.'"



MY WIFE'S WEDDING PRESENTS



I

I don't believe in wedding functions. I don't believe in honeymoons and particularly I abominate the inhuman custom of giving wedding presents. And this is why:

Clara was the fifth poor daughter of a rich man. I was respectably poor but artistic. We had looked forward to marriage as a time when two persons chose a home and garnished it with furnishings of their own choice, happy in the daily contact with beautiful things. We had often discussed our future home. We knew just the pictures that must hang on the walls, the tone of the rugs that should lie on the floors, the style of the furniture that should stand in the rooms, the pattern of the silver that should adorn our table. Our ideas were clear and positive.

Unfortunately Clara had eight rich relatives who approved of me and I had three maiden aunts, two of whom were in precarious health and must not be financially offended.

I am rather an imperious man, with theories that a woman is happiest when she finds a master; but when the details of the wedding came up for decision I was astounded to find myself not only flouted but actually forced to humiliating surrender. Since then I have learned that my own case was not glaringly exceptional. At the time, however, I was nonplused and rather disturbed in my dreams of the future. I had decided on a house wedding with but the family and a few intimate friends to be present at my happiness. After Clara had done me the honor to consult me, several thousand cards were sent out for the ceremony at the church and an addition was begun on the front veranda.

Clara herself led me to the library and analyzed the situation to me, in the profoundest manner.

"You dear, old, impracticable goose," she said with the wisdom of just twenty, "what do you know about such things? How much do you suppose it will cost us to furnish a house the way we want?"

I said airily, "Oh, about five hundred dollars."

"Take out your pencil," said Clara scornfully, "and write."

When she finished her dictation, and I had added up the items with a groan, I was dumbfounded. I said:

"Clara, do you think it is wise—do you think we have any right to get married?"

"Of course we have."

"Then we must make up our minds to boarding."

"Nonsense! we shall have everything just as we planned it."

"But how?"

"Wedding presents," said Clara triumphantly, "now do you see why it must be a church wedding?"

I began to see.

"But isn't it a bit mercenary?" I said feebly. "Does every one do it?"

"Every one. It is a sort of tax on the unmarried," said Clara with a determined shake of her head. "Quite right that it should be, too."

"Then every one who receives an invitation is expected to contribute to our future welfare?"

"An invitation to the house."

"Well, to the house—then?"

"Certainly."

"Ah, now, my dear, I begin to understand why the presents are always shown."

For all answer Clara extended the sheet of paper on which we had made our calculations.

I capitulated.



II

I pass over the wedding. In theory I have grown more and more opposed to such exhibitions. A wedding is more pathetic than a funeral, and nothing, perhaps, is more out of place than the jubilations of the guests. When a man and a woman, as husband and wife, have lived together five years, then the community should engage a band and serenade them, but at the outset—however, I will not insist—I am doubtless cynically inclined. I come to the moment when, having successfully weathered the pitfalls of the honeymoon (there's another mistaken theory—but let that pass) my wife and I found ourselves at last in our own home, in the midst of our wedding presents. I say in the midst advisably. Clara sat helplessly in the middle of the parlor rug and I glowered from the fireplace.

"My dear Clara," I said, with just a touch of asperity, "you've had your way about the wedding. Now you've got your wedding presents. What are you going to do with them?"

"If people only wouldn't have things marked!" said Clara irrelevantly.

"But they always do," I replied. "Also I may venture to suggest that your answer doesn't solve the difficulty."

"Don't be cross," said Clara.

"My dear," I replied with excellent good-humor, "I'm not. I'm only amused—who wouldn't be?"

"Don't be horrid, George," said Clara.

"It is deliciously humorous," I continued. "Quite the most humorous thing I have ever known. I am not cross and I am not horrid; I have made a profound discovery. I know now why so many American marriages are not happy."

"Why, George?"

"Wedding presents," I said savagely, "exactly that, my dear. This being forced to live years of married life surrounded by things you don't want, you never will want, and which you've got to live with or lose your friends."

"Oh, George!" said Clara, gazing around helplessly, "it is terrible, isn't it?"

"Look at that rug you are sitting on," I said, glaring at a six by ten modern French importation. "Cauliflowers contending with unicorns, surrounded by a border of green roses and orange violets—expensive! And until the lamp explodes or the pipes burst we have got to go on and on and on living over that, and why?—because dear Isabel will be here once a week!"

"I thought Isabel would have better taste," said Clara.

"She has—Isabel has perfect taste, depend upon it," I said, "she did it on purpose!"

"George!"

"Exactly that. Have you noticed that married people give the most impossible presents? It is revenge, my dear. Society has preyed upon them. They will prey upon society. Wait until we get a chance!"

"It is awful!" said Clara.

"Let us continue. We have five French rugs; no two could live together. Five rooms desecrated. Our drawing-room is Art Nouveau, furnished by your Uncle James, who is strong and healthy and may live twenty years. I particularly abominate Art Nouveau furniture."

"So do I."

"Our dining-room is distinctly Grand Rapids."

"Now, George!"

"It is."

"Well, it was your Aunt Susan."

"It was, but who suggested it? I pass over the bedrooms. I will simply say that they are nightmares. Expensive nightmares! I come to the lamps—how many have we?"

"Fourteen."

"Fourteen atrocities, imitation Louis Seize, bogus Oriental, feathered, laced and tasseled. So much for useful presents. Now for decoration. We have three Sistine Madonnas (my particular abomination). Two, thank heaven, we can inflict on the next victims, one we have got to live with and why?—so that each of our three intimate friends will believe it his own. We have water colors and etchings which we don't want, and a photograph copy of every picture that every one sees in every one's house. Some original friend has even sent us a life-size, marble reproduction of the Venus de Milo. These things will be our artistic home. Then there are vases—"

"Now you are losing your temper."

"On the contrary, I'm reserving it. I shan't characterize the bric-a-brac, that was to be expected."

"Don't!"

"At least that is not marked. I come at last to the silver. Give me the list."

Clara sighed and extended it.

"Four solid silver terrapin dishes."

"Marked."

"Marked—Terrapin—ha! ha! Two massive, expensive, solid silver champagne coolers."

"Marked."

"Marked, my dear—for each end of the table when we give our beefsteak dinners. Almond dishes."

"Don't!"

"Forty-two individual, solid or filigree almond dishes; forty-two, Clara."

"Marked."

"Right again, dear. One dozen bonbon dishes, five nouveau riche sugar shakers (we never use them), three muffineers—in heaven's name, what's that? Solid silver bread dishes, solid silver candlesticks by the dozen, solid silver vegetable dishes, and we expect one servant and an intermittent laundress to do the cooking, washing, make the beds and clean the house besides."

"All marked," said Clara dolefully.

"Every one, my dear. Then the china and the plates, we can't even eat out of the plates we want or drink from the glasses we wish; everything in this house, from top to bottom has been picked out and inflicted upon us against our wants and in defiance of our own taste and we—we have got to go on living with them and trying not to quarrel!"

"You have forgotten the worst of all," said Clara.

"No, my darling, I have not forgotten it. I have thought of nothing else, but I wanted you to mention it."

"The flat silver, George."

"The flat silver, my darling. Twelve dozen, solid silver and teaset to match, bought without consulting us, by your two rich bachelor uncles in collusion. We wanted Queen Anne or Louis Seize, simple, dignified, something to live with and grow fond of, and what did we get?"

"Oh, dear, they might have asked me!"

"But they don't, they never do, that is the theory of wedding presents, my dear. We got Pond Lily pattern, repousse until it scratches your fingers. Pond Lily pattern, my dear, which I loathe, detest, and abominate!"

"I too, George."

"And that, my dear, we shall never get rid of; we not only must adopt and assume the responsibility, but must pass it down to our children and our children's children."

"Oh, George, it is terrible—terrible! What are we going to do?"

"My darling Clara, we are going to put a piece of bric-a-brac a day on the newel post, buy a litter of puppies to chew up the rugs, select a butter-fingered, china-breaking waitress, pay storage on the silver and try occasionally to set fire to the furniture."

"But the flat silver, George, what of that?"

"Oh, the flat silver," I said gloomily, "each one has his cross to bear, that shall be ours."



III

We were, as has been suggested, a relatively rich couple. That's a pun! At the end of five years a relative on either side left us a graceful reminder. The problem of living became merely one of degree. At the end of this period we had made considerable progress in the building up of a home which should be in fact and desire entirely ours. That is, we had been extensively fortunate in the preservation of our wedding presents. Our twenty-second housemaid broke a bottle of ink over the parlor rug, her twenty-one predecessors (whom I had particularly selected) had already made the most gratifying progress among the bric-a-brac, two intelligent Airdale puppies had chewed satisfactory holes in the Art Nouveau furniture, even the Sistine Madonna had wrenched loose from its supports and considerately annihilated the jewel-studded Oriental lamp in the general smashup.

Our little home began at last to really reflect something of the artistic taste on which I pride myself. There remained at length only the flat silver and a few thousand dollars' worth of solid silver receptacles for which we had now paid four hundred dollars storage. But these remained, secure, fixed beyond the assaults of the imagination.

One morning at the breakfast table I laid down my cup with a crash.

Clara gave an exclamation of alarm.

"George dear, what is it?"

For all reply I seized a handful of the Pond Lily pattern silver and gazed at it with a savage joy.

"George, George, what has happened?"

"My dear, I have an idea—a wonderful idea."

"What idea?"

"We will spend the summer in Lone Tree, New Jersey."

Clara screamed.

"Are you in your senses, George?"

"Never more so."

"But it's broiling hot!"

"Hotter than that."

"It is simply deluged with mosquitoes."

"There are several mosquitoes there."

"It's a hole in the ground!"

"It certainly is."

"And the only people we know there are the Jimmy Lakes, whom I detest."

"I can't bear them."

"And, George, there are burglars!"

"Yes, my dear," I said triumphantly, "heaven be praised there are burglars!"

Clara looked at me. She is very quick.

"You are thinking of the silver."

"Of all the silver."

"But, George, can we afford it?"

"Afford what?"

"To have the silver stolen."

"Supposing there was a burglar insurance, as a reward."

The next moment Clara was laughing in my arms.

"Oh, George, you are a wonderful, brilliant man: how did you ever think of it?"

"I just put my mind to it," I said loftily.



IV

We went to Lone Tree, New Jersey. We went there early to meet the migratory spring burglar. We released from storage two chests and three barrels of solid silver wedding presents, took out a burglar insurance for three thousand dollars and proceeded to decorate the dining-room and parlor.

"It looks rather—rather nouveau riche," said Clara, surveying the result.

"My dear, say the word—it is vulgar. But what of that? We have come here for a purpose and we will not be balked. Our object is to offer every facility to the gentlemen who will relieve us of our silver. Nothing concealed, nothing screwed to the floor."

"I think," said Clara, "that the champagne coolers are unnecessary."

The solid silver champagne coolers adorned either side of the fireplace.

"As receptacles for potted ferns they are, it is true, not quite in the best of taste," I admitted. "We might leave them in the hall for umbrellas and canes. But then they might be overlooked, and we must take no chances on a careless burglar."

Clara sat down and began to laugh, which I confess was quite the natural thing to do. Solid silver bread dishes holding sweet peas, individual almond dishes filled with matches, silver baskets for cigars and cigarettes crowded the room, with silver candlesticks sprouting from every ledge and table. The dining-room was worse—but then solid silver terrapin dishes and muffineers, not to mention the two dozen almond dishes left over from the parlor, are not at all appropriate decorations.

"I'm sure the burglars will never come," said Clara, woman fashion.

"If there's anything will keep them away," I said, a little provoked, "it's just that attitude of mind."

"Well, at any rate, I do hope they'll be quick about it, so we can leave this dreadful place."

"They'll never come if you're going to watch them," I said angrily.

We had quite a little quarrel on that point.

The month of June passed and still we remained in possession of our wedding silver. Clara was openly discouraged and if I still clung to my faith, at the bottom I was anxious and impatient. When July passed unfruitfully even our sense of humor was seriously endangered.

"They will never come," said Clara firmly.

"My dear," I replied, "the last time they came in July. All the more reason that they should change to August."

"They will never come," said Clara a second time.

"Let's bait the hook," I said, trying to turn the subject into a facetious vein. "We might strew a dozen or so of those individual dishes down the path to the road."

"They'll never come," said Clara obstinately.

And yet they came.

On the second of August, about two o'clock in the morning I was awakened out of a deep sleep by the voice of my wife crying:

"George, here's a burglar!"

I thought the joke obvious and ill-timed and sleepily said so.

"But, George dear, he's here—in the room!"

There was something in my wife's voice, a note of ringing exultation, that brought me bolt upright in bed.

"Put up your hands—quick!" said a staccato voice.

It was true, there at the end of the bed, flashing the conventional bull's-eye lantern, stood at last a real burglar.