"Now tell me the story," I said. "Have you done

murder? Is the offense treasonable?"

"It was a tenants' row in Galway, and I smashed a

constable. I smashed him pretty hard, I dare say, from

the row they kicked up in the newspapers. I lay low

for a couple of weeks, caught a boat to Queenstown, and

here I am, waiting for a chance to get back to The Sod

without going in irons."

"You were certainly born to be hanged, Larry. You'd

better stay in America. There's more room here than

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anywhere else, and it's not easy to kidnap a man in

America and carry him off."

"Possibly not; and yet the situation isn't wholly tranquil,"

he said, transfixing a bit of pompano with his

fork. "Kindly note the florid gentleman at your right

-at the table with four-he's next the lady in pink.

It may interest you to know that he's the British

consul."

"Interesting, but not important. You don't for a

moment suppose-"

"That he's looking for me? Not at all. But he undoubtedly

has my name on his tablets. The detective

that's here following me around is pretty dull. He lost

me this morning while I was talking to you in the

bank. Later on I had the pleasure of trailing him for

an hour or so until he finally brought up at the British

consul's office. Thanks; no more of the fish. Let us

banish care. I wasn't born to be hanged; and as I'm a

political offender, I doubt whether I can be deported if

they lay hands on me."

He watched the bubbles in his glass dreamily, holding

it up in his slim well-kept fingers.

"Tell me something of your own immediate present

and future," he said.

I made the story of my Grandfather Glenarm's legacy

as brief as possible, for brevity was a definite law of our

intercourse.

"A year, you say, with nothing to do but fold your

hands and wait. It doesn't sound awfully attractive to

me. I'd rather do without the money."

"But I intend to do some work. I owe it to my grandfather's

memory to make good, if there's any good in

me."

"The sentiment is worthy of you, Glenarm," he said

mockingly. "What do you see-a ghost?"

I must have started slightly at espying suddenly

Arthur Pickering not twenty feet away. A party of

half a dozen or more had risen, and Pickering and a

girl were detached from the others for a moment.

She was young,-quite the youngest in the group

about Pickering's table. A certain girlishness of height

and outline may have been emphasized by her juxtaposition

to Pickering's heavy figure. She was in black,

with white showing at neck and wrists,-a somber contrast

to the other women of the party, who were arrayed

with a degree of splendor. She had dropped her fan,

and Pickering stooped to pick it up. In the second that

she waited she turned carelessly toward me, and our

eyes met for an instant. Very likely she was Pickering's

sister, and I tried to reconstruct his family, which I had

known in my youth; but I could not place her. As she

walked out before him my eyes followed her,-the erect

figure, free and graceful, but with a charming dignity

and poise, and the gold of her fair hair glinting under

her black toque.




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