He ran his hands through his pockets and produced a handful of change. Inspired by this success he rose and went to the closet and continued his search through a choice collection of coats, waistcoats, and trowsers that hung upon its hooks. "Nine dollars and seventy-six cents!" he said, when he had counted the proceeds of his investigation. "Well, I've had a great variety of ups and downs in my short but checkered career, but I never thought the sum total of my cash assets would be expressed in nine dollars and seventy-six cents! After all, life is but an insubstantial pageant, so I think I'll take a pony of brandy and go to bed."

The next day Mr. Gallivant was at his office bright and early. His face shone with its perennial radiance, but his mustache told a cheerless tale. Mr. Gallivant had a number of principles. That which led all the rest was his steadfast refusal to borrow money. He sat down to the contemplation of ways and means, therefore, without the usual recourse taken by impecunious gentlemen with a large circle of wealthy acquaintances to relieve temporary embarrassments. He drew his check-book from his desk and made a careful calculation. "There's the judgment and costs in the Gauber case," he said, "the interest of Robbins's mortgage, the $3000 paid to settle Riker vs. Buckmaster, and the money Hunt paid my client Frabsley. Deduct these from my balance in bank, and I have left of my own money the munificent sum of $2.17. There's no way out of it—I must draw on Thwicket!"

It must be owned that in the privacy of his office this conclusion brought something very like a frown upon Mr. Gallivant's brow. "It'll ruin me!" he said. "It'll show Thwicket that I'm as dry as Mother Hubbard's pantry, and when a man loses credit with his broker he might as well shut up shop. But, gad! there's no other way. I must have that balance, positively must, can't wait an hour longer. I've got $380 with Thwicket—$380, all that remains of—well never mind, there's no use grumbling over what's gone. I had a royal good time while it lasted, so I'll just think of the good time and not of what it took to get it. But that $380! H'm, I'll step down and see Thwicket!"

Mr. Gallivant slid into his overcoat, prinked up his scarlet tie, and walked breezily into Wall Street. He chanced to meet Thwicket on the street, and they greeted each other effusively.

"Where under the sun have you been for the last month or so?" exclaimed the broker. "I haven't seen a thing of you."

"Oh, I've been around," answered Mr. Gallivant, with a general wave of the hand.

Mr. Thwicket's face assumed a reproachful look.

"Oh, no," said Gallivant, responsively, "I haven't been doing business with anybody else. Fact is, old fellow, I think I've got a bit flustered. I don't seem able to get the hang of the market. Gad, I've lost a whole fortune since September—must have lost every dollar of a hundred thousand. Now I can't go on like that forever, you know. I give you my word of honor I couldn't stand another such loss. It would put me in a hole."

"Nonsense!" said Thwicket; "come, walk down to the office and we'll talk it over. By the way, where are you living now? I dropped in at your hotel and they said you'd given up your rooms and gone into the country. Queer time o' year to go to the country?"

"Um—well, dunno 'bout that. Found my rooms stuffy. Like country, sleighing, skating, ice yachting, don't you know. Fine air, healthy. Think I'll buy a place up the Hudson. Fact is, negotiating now."

"Really? How's your stock farm?"

"Oh, sold it long 'go. Got tired of it. Can't play with one toy forever, you know. How's the market?"

"It looks to me a little queer to-day," replied the broker.

"That's it! That's what I say. That's the reason I haven't been in lately. Found I was getting rattled. More I figured, further away I got from real conditions."

"It's time to try again."

"H'm; not so sure."

"Luck must change."

"Think so?"

"Oh, I'm certain."

"How's Hollyoke Central selling?"

"It closed yesterday at 86-3/4."

"Good time to buy."

"I doubt that, Mr. Gallivant. It seems to be slowly going the wrong way for buying. But you might sell to advantage."

"There, now, that shows you. I tell you I'm rattled. You see, the very first thing I suggest you discourage. Think I'd better hold off."

They had now reached the broker's office, in which Mr. Gallivant was presently ensconced at ease.

"You are right," said Thwicket, handing out a case of cigars, "in saying that the market is queer. Something very curious has got hold of it. As you know, I avoid giving advice to my customers, and I'm not going to advise you; but if you will notice the state of affairs with regard to Snapshot Consolidated, you will see something that ought to make you open your eyes."

"What is it?"

"Didn't you read the market reports in this morning's papers?"

"Haven't looked at a market report for three weeks."

"I guess that explains why you don't understand the situation, then. Well, Snapshot Consolidated opened at 42. At about noon it began to mount, and it rose peg by peg till it closed at 57-1/2. Now, what do you think of that?"

"I think it's a warning for discreet men like me to keep away from Snapshot. I have no overweening desire to monkey with Mr. Gould, Thwicket." Mr. Gallivant jingled the remnant of six or seven dollars in his pocket and softly added, "He has more money than I."

"You're your own best judge, of course. But if that stock opens this morning above the point at which it closed last night, there's going to be more fun to-day in Wall Street than we've had for many a year. It looks to me like a rock-ribbed corner."

Mr. Juniper Gallivant bowed his head as if in deep reflection. As a matter of fact, he was fermenting with excitement. He looked at his watch. It was within fifteen minutes of the time for the Exchange to open. "A corner!" he softly exclaimed to himself. "A corner, ye gods! and my balance in the Chemical Bank is $2.17. A corner, and I not in it!"

Mr. Gallivant's fingers began to itch viciously, and the perspiration broke out copiously under his thick red hair. By a great struggle he managed to suppress all outward signs of his emotion, while he continued to commune with his own mind. "It's no use," he thought. "I must give up all idea of laying in with a corner when I haven't got money enough to set up a decent champagne supper. No, I must draw that $380, and the question is, how to do it and keep my credit good. Ha! an idea strikes me!" He turned quietly to the broker and said aloud: "Give me a pen, Thwicket!"

He took a blank check from his pocket-book—a check on the Chemical Bank, wherein $2.17 reposed peacefully to his credit.

"I don't think you have very much money of mine here, Thwicket?" he continued, as he slowly wrote the date-line in the check.

"Don't think we have. Robert, what is Mr. Gallivant's balance?"

The clerk turned over his ledger and presently replied: "Mr. Gallivant has a credit of $382.22."

"I don't think we'll bother with Snapshot Consolidated, Thwicket. Truth is, I'm afraid of it. My wits haven't been working right here lately. But I'll just give you a check for $20,000, and you can buy me a nice little block of Michigan Border—say a hundred shares, just to see how the cat jumps, you know."

Thwicket took the check, but with a troubled air. "My dear Gallivant," he said, "why do a thing like that? I'm very glad to have another order from you, but I don't want to see a valuable customer like you lose any more money. Michigan Border was doing very well a month ago, but it is declining now, and for good reasons. Let's take a flyer in Snapshot!"

"Hand me that check!" said Mr. Gallivant in a most decisive tone and with a profoundly irritated air. "Hand it back, Thwicket! Hand it right over, and draw me a check for my balance of $382.22. I'm going to cut the d—d Gordian knot and get out of this! No use talking, my head's all bemuddled. 'F I was to go into the Street to-day I'd lose my whole fortune. Now, don't argue with me, old man, I'm out of sorts, and the best thing for me to do is to stop right short till I get clear-headed again. Draw me that check. Let me have every penny I've got on your books. I'm going up to my place in the country and spend a month reading Greek plays. If anything 'll calm me, that will."

The broker looked vastly disappointed, but smiled consentingly. He returned the $20,000 check, which Mr. Gallivant tore to pieces with a great show of nervousness and irritation, and in another moment, possessed of his precious $382.22, he departed gloomily.

But a long and cheery smile, that reached nearly to the tips of his mustache and almost sufficed to give them a faint curl, spread itself over his face as he turned from Wall Street into Broadway. He caressed the check with his fingers and softly observed, "H'm, I flatter myself that was well done. I have the money, and Thwicket has an abiding confidence in my wealth,—but oh, ye gods! what would I give to be able to put my fine Italian hand into that Snapshot corner!"

Mr. Gallivant returned to his office and endeavored to fasten his attention upon the records of a title search prepared by his clerk, but he found himself ever going over the figures, 57-1/2, 57-1/2, 57-1/2.

"Heavens!" he said presently, "I can't stand this any longer. I must see the ticker. I must find out how it opened to-day. Gad, I'll go crazy if I sit here all day mumbling '57-1/2!'"

He started up and had half put on his coat, when the office door was flung open and Thwicket rushed in breathless.

"Seventy-two," he shouted wildly. "Opened at sixty-five! Leaped right up to 68, then to 70, then to 72. Now's your chance, old man. Say the word and say it quick. Never mind about the $20,000. We'll settle up when the day is over, and every second you lose now will cost you hundreds of dollars. It's sure to go to 160. Don't keep me waiting—say the word?"

Mr. Gallivant jammed his hands deep into his pockets to prevent their betraying his excitement, and hemmed and hawed.

"Do you really think it's worth while, Thwicket!"

"Great guns, man! You make me—"

"Now, don't be nervous, Thwicket. When I trust a man to spend my money for me I want him cool and calm."

"But you're losing valuable time! It's jumping up every minute. The Exchange has gone wild! Everybody's in a furor. You can make a mint if you go right in."

"All right, drive ahead. But use judgment, Thwicket. Remember I don't want to invest more than $20,000, and you should preserve your equanim—"

But Thwicket was gone, and when the door closed behind him Mr. Gallivant gave a leap from the floor where he stood to the sofa eight feet away! Then he leaped back. Then he picked up a pair of dumb-bells and swung them fiercely at the imminent risk of his head and the furniture of the room. Then finally he drew from his desk a bottle of brandy and took a long, strong pull.

"Ah," he said, smacking his lips, "now I'll get ready and go to the street and watch the tumult."

Disposing, as soon as he could, of the correspondence on his desk, he presently made his way to Thwicket's office. The broker was still at the Stock Exchange. He grabbed at the tapes and looked for Snapshot. There was nothing on them but Snapshot. "Snap. Col. 93," "Snap. Col. 96-3/8," "Snap. Col."—even as he stood by the ticker and watched the machine roll out its stream of white paper—"Snap. Col. 108!"

Mr. Gallivant's eyes blurred. He felt queer in his knees. The perspiration broke out fiercely all over his plump little body. "Why the mischief doesn't Thwicket come in?" he murmured. "Why don't he sell and get out of this? Ten, twenty, thirty—great guns! I've made $50,000 already! It can't go on like this much longer. It'll break in half an hour, 'gad, I know it will—I feel it in my bones! If Thwicket doesn't sell inside of thirty minutes I'm a goner, and what's worse, he'll be a goner with me! What's this! 117! By the great horn spoon, I must get hold of Thwicket! Thwicket! Thwicket! My kingdom for Thwicket!"

Mr. Gallivant dropped the tapes and rushed frantically into the street and across to the entrance of the Exchange. He dispatched a messenger across the floor to find his broker, but who could find which in that tumultuous mob? The Exchange floor was crowded with a crazy body of yelling men, their faces boiled into crimson, their eyes glowing with a fierce fire, their hats banged out of shape, their coats in many cases torn into shreds, jostling, tumbling, jumping, stretching all over each other in riotous confusion. Fat men were being squeezed into pancakes, little men were being covered out of sight, tall men were being clambered upon as if their manifest destiny were to serve as poles, and every man of them, big, short, thin, fat, lank, and heavy, was flourishing his arms in the air and howling at the top of his voice!

Mr. Gallivant's messenger returned in a few moments with the report that Mr. Thwicket could not be found. Quivering with excitement, Mr. Gallivant started forth in further search. At the door of the Exchange he met his office-boy, who told him the broker was searching for him high and low—had been at the office and was now in the Savarin café. Thither Mr. Gallivant rushed as fast as his legs could carry him, only to learn that Thwicket had just gone out asking every man he met if he had seen Gallivant. The lawyer was in despair. He glanced at the ticker—"Snap. Col. 134-1/2!"

"Heavens!" he shrieked, "will nobody seize that crazy Thwicket and hold him till I come!"

He ran at full speed to the broker's office. Thwicket had left two minutes before, having learned that Gallivant was at the Savarin. He turned around again and started once more to dash forth, when he saw the broker coming along in reckless haste.

In an instant Mr. Gallivant was all repose—all serenity and ease. He dropped quietly into a chair and picked up the morning paper. In rushed Thwicket, disheveled, frantic, breathless.

"At last!" he cried. "It's 136. It'll break in another ten minutes! Hadn't I better get from under?"

"Still excited, Thwicket?" answered Mr. Gallivant reproachfully. "My dear boy, I'm afraid you've not got a proper hold upon yourself. Yes, probably you'd better unload. Perhaps now's as good a moment as any. But be—"

Thwicket did not wait for the rest. He fled. When he returned half an hour later his face was radiant, but his collar wilted. "Sold!" he cried, "at 148, and busted at 152!"

By a quick, spontaneous motion, Mr. Gallivant's mustaches drew themselves in a loving curl around his nose, but for the rest he was merely cheery—gently cheery—as he always was.

"You've done very well, Thwicket," he said commendingly. "You've quite justified my confidence. You're a knowing fellow, and I'll—er—what's the proceeds?"

"A hundred and thirteen thousand—rather a fair day's work."

"That it is. Send around your check for the hundred, and let the thirteen stay on account. By-by, I'll see you again in a day or two."

Mr. Gallivant walked out into the street upon his usual ramble. "Strikes me," he said musingly, "that I ought to do something handsome for Thwicket now—I really ought. My profit is $113,000. I doubt if his will reach even $500. That doesn't look quite fair, seeing that he did the business all on his own money. The deuce of it is, though, that it's demoralizing to make presents to your brokers. After all, business is business!"

VIII.

It was in default of that sum, $5000, that Tulitz, commonly called the Baron Tulitz, alias d'Ercevenne, commonly called the Marquis d'Ercevenne, was committed to the Tombs Prison to await the action of the Grand Jury. At this time Tulitz—I call him Tulitz without intending any partiality for that name over the alias of d'Ercevenne, but merely because Tulitz is a shorter word to write. I doubt if he had any preference between them himself, except in the way of business. He was just as likely, other things being equal, to present his card bearing the words "M. le Marquis d'Ercevenne," as his other card with the words upon it "Freiherr von Tulitz." It has been remarked frequently that when he was the Baron his tone and manner were exceedingly French, while when he was the Marquis he spoke with a distinct German accent. None of his acquaintances was able to account for this.

But as I was saying, when Tulitz was sent to the Tombs he was in hard luck. Formerly he had whipped the social trout-stream with great success. As the Marquis he had composed some pretty odes, had led the German at Mrs. de Folly's assembly, had driven to Hempstead with the Coaching Club, and had been seen in Mrs. Castor's box at the opera. As the Baron Tulitz, he had attended the races, and had been a frequenter of all the great gaming resorts. The newspapers called him a "plunger," and a story went the rounds, in which he was represented to have wrecked a pool-seller, who thereupon committed suicide. The Baron always denied this story, which the Marquis often repeated. Indeed the Marquis was often quoted to the Baron as an authority for it.

But the tide had turned, and now Tulitz was on his back with never a friend to help him. "Fi' t'ousan' tollaire!" he exclaimed, as the Justice fixed his bail, blending both his French and his German accent with strict impartiality, "V'y you not make him den, dwenty, a huntret t'ousandt!"

A penniless prisoner in the Tombs is not an object of much consideration, as Tulitz discovered to his profound disgust. For two days he paced his cell with the restless, incessant tread of a caged hyena. He disdainfully rejected the beef soup, the hunk of bread and the black coffee served to him more or less frequently, and for two days and nights he neither ate nor spoke. The Tombs cells are built of thick stone, entered through a heavy iron door, that is provided with a small grating. Tulitz's cell was on the second tier. Around this tier extends a narrow gallery, along which the guard walks every now and then, to see that all is as it should be. The guard annoyed Tulitz. Every time he passed he would peer in and give a sort of grunt. This became painfully exasperating to the Baron.

Late in the afternoon of the second day of his imprisonment, Tulitz, desperate with hunger, rage, and despair, sat down upon the stool in his cell and glared viciously at the grating. The guard's face was there.

"Ha!" cried Tulitz, in a shrill voice, "keep avay! You tink I von tam mouse, and you ze cat, hey? You sit outside ze cage viz your claw out and your tail stiff, ready to pounce on ze mouse. Mon Dieu! How I hate!"

The guard unlocked the iron door and stepped inside. "Don't make sech a racket over nawthin'," he said. "De warden says yer gotter do some eatin'."

"I kill ze warden if he keep not his mechant chute!"

"Wotcher goin' ter do? Starve?"

"If I choose starve, how you prevent him, hey? How make you me eat? Voilà, bête!" Tulitz drew himself to his full height, turned up his shirt-sleeves and bared his great, muscular arm.

"Oh, all right," said the guard. "It's all one to me. Starve if yer wanter. I'm agreeable."

"I vant notting, rien, rien!" said Tulitz. "I vant to be leave alone."

"Dat aint much. Mos' people wat comes here is more graspin'. Mos' people wants ter git out."

"Ha!" said Tulitz.

"De warden said fer me ter come in here an' tell yer' he'd send fer anybody yer wanter see."

"Zere is nopotty."

"Aincher got no friends?"

"Ven I haf money, I have friend—beaucoup, more friend as I know vat to do viz. I haf no money now."

"Wot's your bail?"

"Fi' tousant tollaire! Bah! Vat is fi' tousant tollaire? Many time I spend him viz no more care as I light my cigar. A bagatelle! But," and he added this with a curiously grim expression, "I haf no bagatelle to-day."

The guard sidled up to Tulitz and whispered in his ear, "What'll yer gimme if I gitcher a bondsman?"

"Ha!" said Tulitz, "you haf ze man?"

"I knows a man," replied the guard reflectively, "who might do it on my recommend. Sometimes, w'en a man aint got no frien's, but kin lay aroun' 'im an' scoop tergedder a couple er hundred dollars, I mention him ter my frien' wid a recommend, an' dat settles it, out he comes."

"Two hundret tollaire!" cried Tulitz, almost piteously. "Ven I efer t'ink my liperty cost me two huntret tollaire and I haf not got him. Zis blow kill all zat is to me of my self-respect! Je suis hors de moi-même!"

"Why, you orter be able to raise dat much tin," said the guard.

Tulitz jumped from his bed to the floor with a cry such as a wild beast might have given as it sprang from peril into safety. He demanded pencil and paper, and with them he scribbled a message. "Send for me zat note!" he said. "Bring me a filet de b[oe]uf, a pâte de fois gras, and a bottle of Burgundy, and bring him all quick! Corinne! La belle Corinne! Chérie amie, vot I haf svear I lofe and cherish! I haf not remember you, Corinne!"

A throng of people, big and little, young and old, were waiting in the corridors of the warden's office the next morning, eager for the bell to strike the signal that would admit them into the prisons. They were mostly women. Here and there in the crowd was a little boy carrying a tin can with something in it good to eat, sent, doubtless, by his old mother to her scamp of a son. The little beggar has his first experiences of a prison administering to the comforts of his big, ruffianly brother, probably a great hero in his eyes.

For the most part, the crowd is made up of young women. There, muffled closely, is the wife of a defaulter, who was caught in the act. Three days ago she held her head as high as any. Now it is bent low and hidden with shame. Yonder, terrified and broken-hearted, is the sister of a man who shot another. He is no criminal. There was a quarrel about a matter of money. The lie was given, a blow followed, and then a shot. Her brother a murderer! Her brother, all kindness, docility, and goodness, locked up in a place like this with thieves and hardened convicts! It was a fatal shot—ah, me, so very fatal, so widely fatal!

Many of them, though, are laughing and joking with each other. They have got acquainted coming here to look after their husbands, lovers, brothers, fathers, and sons. They bow cheerily as they come in, and say what a fine day it is, and how they missed you yesterday, and they hope nothing was the matter at home. Among them are brazen jades who chatter saucily with the guards, and these are the best treated of all. They are asked no gruff, surly questions, but with a wink and a jest in they go.

On the outer edge of the crowd, among those who waited till the first rush was over, stood a dark, wiry little woman with a face remarkable alike for its resolution and its innocence. She could not have been more than twenty-five years old. She looked as if she had seen much of the world, but had illy learned the lessons of her experience. This combination of strength and simplicity had wrought a curious effect upon her manner. There was no timidity about her, but much gentleness. She was modest and clothed with repose, and yet the outlines of her face plainly informed you that in the presence of a sufficient emergency she was quite prepared to go anywhere or do anything.

"I want to see Monsieur Tulitz," she said to the entry clerk, when her opportunity came.

He gave her a ticket without asking any questions, except the formal ones, and then turned her over to the matron.

The matron of the Tombs has been there many years, and she knows how to read faces.

"Your ticket says you are Madame Tulitz?" said the matron.

"Yes."

"I must search you."

"Very well."

"It must be thorough."

"Very well."

"Please take off your hat and let down your hair."

She did as she was bidden, and a great mass of dark hair tumbled nearly to her feet. The matron immediately and with practiced dexterity twisted it up again. Then her shoes, dress, and corsets were removed, until the matron was enabled to tell that nothing could by any possibility be concealed about her.

"It's all right," said the matron. "I'm sorry to trouble you so much, but I have to be very careful."

"You needn't apologize. Now can I go?"

"Yes."

She adjusted her hat and proceeded through the long corridors out into the prison yard, and thence into the old prison where Tulitz was confined. The guard who had sent her Tulitz's letter led her to his cell, and brought a stool for her to sit upon outside his grated iron door.

"My ravissante Corinne!" cried Tulitz.

She put her fingers through the bars, and he bent to kiss them, coming, as he did so, in contact with two little files of the hardest steel.

"Diable!" he said.

"I had them in my hat. I made them serve as the stems of these lilies."

"Ze woman she make ze wily t'ing. How young and charmante she seem for one so like ze fox! Ah, Corinne, my sweetest lofe—"

"You don't mean that."

"Not mean him! Mon Dieu! How can you haf ze heart to say ze cruel word. Corinne, you are ze only frient I haf in ze whole bad worlt."

"Yes, I know that. But not the only wife."

"Why you torture me so, Corinne?"

"I wont. We'll let it go. You need me, I suppose?"

"You use all ze cold word, Corinne. I neet you! Oui, oui, I efer neet you. I neet you ven I stay from you ze longest. I neet you ven ze bad come into my heart and drive out ze good and tender, and leave only ze hard, and make me crazy and full of dream of fortune. Zen I am out of myself and den I neet you ze most, Corinne. Zat I haf been cruel and vicked, I know, but I am punish now. Now, I neet you in my despair, but if you come to speak bitter, I am sorry to haf send for you."

"I'll not be bitter, Tulitz. I don't believe you love me, and I never will believe it again. So don't say tender things. They only make me sad. Tell me what—"

"You do pelief I lofe you."

"No."

"Chérie."

"Don't, Tulitz!"

"You know I haf a so hot blood. It tingle viz lofe for you and I am sane. Zen I dream. I see some strange sight—power, money, ze people at my feet—ze people I hate, bah! I see zem all bend. Zen I am insane and my very lofe make me vorse. Ah, Corinne, if you see my heart, you vould not speak so cold. If I could preak zis iron door zat bar me from you and draw you close to me, Corinne, vere you could feel ze quick beat zat say, 'lofe! lofe! lofe!'—if I could take your hand and kees—"

"Tulitz!"

"My sveetheart!"

"Hush, please, Tulitz. Don't say those things now. I can't stand them. I shall scream. Tulitz, I love you so!"

"Ah, I know zat. You haf no dream zat rob you of your mind. And I shall haf no more soon. Ven ze trial come, and ze shury make me guilty, and ze shudge—"

"No! no! You must escape."

"Ze reech escape, little von. Ze poor nefer. Zat is law. Ha! ha! you know not law. Law is ze science by vich a man who has money do as he tam please and snap his finger—so! and shrug his shoulder—so! and say, 'You not like it? Vat I care, Monsieur?' and by vich ze poor man, vedder he guilty or not, haf no single chance, not von, to escape. I haf not efen ze two huntret tollaire zat gif me my liberty till ze trial come."

"Neither have I, Tulitz, and the only way I can get it is to part with something I love better than—never mind, you shall have the two hundred dollars."

"You mean our ring, Corinne?"

"Yes."

"You shall not sell ze ring. Nefer!"

"But I must. We will get it back."

"No, I forbid! I stay here first." Corinne's face fairly glowed with tenderness.

"Let me do as I think best, darling," she said. "The first thing is to get you out of this wretched place. Now tell me all about it."

He told her all, or, at least, all he needed to tell, and she left him with the understanding that she should meet the guard in the City Hall Park two hours later and arrange about the bail-bond with a man whom he should present to her. She hurried up-town and collected in her lodgings half a dozen valuable pieces of jewelry. These she took to a pawnshop and upon them she realized something more than the sum necessary to obtain Tulitz's bondsman. At the appointed hour she was walking leisurely through the Park, and soon found herself approaching two men. One she recognized as the guard. The other was an elderly man dressed in a black suit of broadcloth which, in its time, had been very fine indeed. But it was made for him when he was younger and less corpulent than now, and he bulged it out in a way that was trying to the stitches and the buttons. His silk hat was shiny, but exceedingly worn, and the boots upon his feet, despite his creditable efforts to make them appear at all possible advantage, were in a rebellious humor, like a glum soldier in need of sleep. His hair was bushy and gray, and his mustache meant to be gray, too, but his habit of chewing the ends of his cigars had resulted in its taking on a yellow border.

"Dis is the gen'l'man wot'll go on Mr. Tulitz's bond, mum," said the guard. "His name's Rivers."

"Madam Tulitz, I am your humble and obedient servant. Colonel Rivers, Colonel Edward Lawrence Rivers, and most happy in this unfortunate emergency to serve you. I have read in the papers of M. Tulitz's disagreeable—er—situation. It is a gross outrage. The bail is $5000, this gentleman tells me. Infamous, perfectly infamous! The idea of requiring such a bond for so trivial an affair. When I was in Congress I introduced an Amendment to the Constitution providing that no bail should be demanded in excess of $500. It didn't get through; the capitalistic influence was too much for me. However, I'd just as lief, to tell the truth, go on M. Tulitz's bond for five thousand as for one. I know he'll be where he's wanted when the time comes, and if he isn't, the bail-bond will. They'll have that to console themselves with, anyway."

"Where are we to go?" asked Corinne.

"To the police court. I'll show you; but when we get there you mustn't ask me any questions. Ask anybody else but me. I'm always very ignorant in the police court—never know anything, except my answers to the surety examination. Those I always learn by heart. Now—" he turned to the guard, and said parenthetically, "All right, my boy," whereupon the guard disappeared. "Now, just take my arm, if you please; you needn't be afraid, ha! ha! I'm old, and wont hurt you. You see, we must be friends, old friends. Bless you, my child, I've known you from a baby, knew your father before you, dear old boy, and promised him on his dying bed I'd be a father to his—er—by the way, my dear, what's your name?"

"Corinne. Do you want my maiden name?"

"No, never mind that. I always supply a maiden name myself when I deal with ladies, on the ground, you see, that it's much better to keep real names out of bail-bonds, even where they don't signify. In fact, the less real you put in, anyhow, the better. My signature must be on as many as a thousand bail-bonds first and last, in this city, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and other places, and I've never yet experienced the slightest trouble. I think my good fortune is almost wholly due to the circumstance that I never repeat myself. I always tell a new story every time."

"Do they know you at the place where we're going?"

"I fervently hope they don't, my dear. It wouldn't do M. Tulitz any good, or me either, if they did. No, no, you must introduce me. I am your friend, your lifelong friend, Colonel Edward Lawrence Rivers. I am a retired merchant. Formerly I dealt in hides—perhaps you had better say in skins, my dear; on second thought, it might be more appropriate to say in skins, and then again it would be more accurate. I like to tell the truth when I can conveniently and without prejudice to the rights of the defendant. If I haven't dealt in skins as much as any other man on the face of the earth, then I don't know what a skin is. Ha! ha! my dear, I think that's pretty good for an old man whose wits are nearly given out with the work that has been imposed upon them. Let me say right here that the clerk of the court is a knowing fellow, and you want to mind your p's and q's. You want to be very confiding and affectionate in your manner toward me, and I'll do all the rest."

"Is there any danger, sir? Will we be found out? Oh dear! I'm dreadfully nervous."

"Well, now, you needn't be, my child, you needn't be. I've had a great deal of experience in delicate matters of this kind, and I guess we'll fetch your husband out all right. As for the danger, it's all mine, and as for getting found out, that will come in due time, probably; but when it comes we'll all of us endeavor to view it from a remote standpoint, where we can do so, I dare say, with comparative equanimity. So keep up your spirits, my dear, and trust to your old friend, the friend of your childhood, Colonel the Hon. Edward Lawrence Rivers, formerly a dealer in skins. Ah, here we are! Just take a look at my necktie, child. Is it tied all right? And is my diamond pin there? No? Well, where the mischief can it be? Ah, yes, here it is in my pocket. My jewel cases are all portable. There! Now, we're ready. Look timid, my child, but confident in the final triumph of your just and righteous cause. Come on."

They entered the court-room. Seated in an inclosure in the custody of an officer was the Baron Tulitz. His sharp face lighted when he saw them approaching, and, as Corinne took her seat by his side, he pressed her hand. Presently his case was called, and his lawyer arose to offer bail. He presented Colonel Rivers. The old man was a spectacle of grave decorum. He answered the questions put to him about his residence, his family, his place of business and his property, which he conveniently located in Staten Island, Niagara County, Jersey City, and Morrisania. He was worth $300,000. He owed nothing. He displayed his deeds. He had never been a bondsman before. He didn't know Tulitz, but was willing to risk the bail to restore peace to the troubled mind of this poor little child, the orphan of his old friend and neighbor. Never was there a bondsman offered more unfamiliar with the forms and ceremonies necessary to the record of the recognizance. He had to be told where he should sign, and even then he started to put his name in the wrong place. But at last it was done, and Tulitz was free.

Corinne's eyes were full of tears when the old man gently drew her arm within his and led her from the court-room, with Tulitz and his lawyer following. He walked with them as far as Broadway, and then he turned to say good-by. He kissed her hand gallantly, and called Tulitz aside.

"Skip!" he said, "and be quick about it!"

IX.

"Dice!" said he to the bartender. He rattled the box and threw. "Three fives!" he cried.

The Croak handled the dice-box with great deliberation. Presently he rolled the ivories out. "Three sixes," he said slowly, "an' I'll take a pony er brandy."

"That settles it!" cried Dennie joyously. "It's you, Croaker, sure pop. My eyes did not deceive me. I thought they had, Croaker. I thought I must be laboring under a mental strain. When I saw you coming up the street I says to myself, 'That's The Croak.' Then I took another look, and says, 'No, it can't be. The Croak's in Joliet doing three years for working the sawdust.' Then I looked again and I says, 'It must be The Croak. There's his cock-eye looking straight at me through the wooden Indian in front of the cigar-store across the street.' Then I looked once more, and says, 'But it can't be. Three years can't have passed since The Croak and I were dealing faro in old McGlory's.' Once again I looked, and I says, 'If it's The Croak, he'll chuck a bigger dice than mine and stick me for drinks, and he'll take a pony of brandy.' There's the dice, there's the pony, and there's The Croak. Drink hearty!"

They lifted their glasses and poured down the liquor, and Dennie continued, "How'd you get out, Croaker?"

"Served me term," said The Croak shortly.