Front matter (continued 5)

"Would you care to step inside and wait, madam?"

Mrs. Waddington was reluctantly obliged to realise that she was quelled. She had shot her bolt. A cyclone might shake this man, but not the human eye.

"I will not step inside."

"Very good, madam. For what reason do you desire me to accompany you to the roof?"

"I want you to—to look at something."

"If it is the view, madam, I should mention that I have already visited the top of the Woolworth Building."

"It is not the view. I wish you to look at a man who is living in open sin."

"Very good, madam." There was no surprise in Ferris's manner, only a courteous suggestion that he was always glad to look at men living in open sin. "I will be at your disposal in a few minutes."

He closed the door gently, and Mrs. Waddington, full of the coward rage which dares to burn but does not dare to blaze, abandoned her intention of kicking in a panel and stood on the landing, heaving gently. And presently there was borne up to her from the lower levels a cheerful sound of whistling.

Lord Hunstanton came into view.

"Hullo-ullo-ullo!" said Lord Hunstanton exuberantly. "Here I am, here I am, here I am!"—meaning, of course, that there he was.

A striking change had taken place in the man's appearance since Mrs. Waddington had last seen him. He now wore the care-free and debonair expression of one who has dined and dined well. The sparkle in his eye spoke of clear soup, the smile on his lips was eloquent of roast duck and green peas. To Mrs. Waddington, who had not broken bread since lunch-time, he seemed the most repellant object on which she had ever gazed.

"I trust you have had a good dinner," she said icily.

His lordship's sunny smile broadened, and a dreamy look came into his eyes.

"Absolutely!" he replied. "I started with a spruce spoonful of Julienne and passed on by way of a breezy half-lobster on the shell to about as upstanding a young Long Island duckling as I have ever bitten."

"Be quiet!" said Mrs. Waddington, shaken to the core. The man's conversation seemed to her utterly revolting.

"Finishing up with...."

"Will you be quiet! I have no desire to hear the details of your repast."

"Oh, sorry! I thought you had."

"You have been away long enough to have eaten half-a-dozen dinners. However, as it happens, you are not too late. I have something to show you."

"That's good. Moral turpitude pretty strong on the wing, eh?"

"A few moments ago," said Mrs. Waddington, leading the way to the roof, "I observed a young woman enter what appears to be some kind of outdoor sleeping-porch attached to George Finch's apartment, and immediately afterwards I heard her voice in conversation with George Finch within."

"Turpy," said his lordship, shaking his head reprovingly. "Very turpy."

"I came down to fetch Ferris, my butler, as a witness, but fortunately you have returned in time. Though why you were not back half an hour ago I cannot understand."

"But I was telling you. I dallied with a mouthful of Julienne...."

"Be quiet!"

Lord Hunstanton followed her, puzzled. He could not understand what seemed to him a morbid distaste on his companion's part to touch on the topic of food. They came out on the roof, and Mrs. Waddington, raising a silent and beckoning finger, moved on tip-toe towards the sleeping-porch.

"Now what?" inquired his lordship, as they paused before the door.

Mrs. Waddington rapped upon the panel.

"George Finch!"

Complete silence followed the words.

"George Finch!"

"George Finch!" echoed his lordship, conscious of his responsibilities as a chorus.

"Finch!" said Mrs. Waddington.

"George!" cried Lord Hunstanton.

Mrs. Waddington flung open the door. All was darkness within. She switched on the light. The room was empty.

"Well!" said Mrs. Waddington.

"Perhaps they're under the bed."

"Go and look."

"But suppose he bites at me."

Nothing is truer than that the secret of all successful operations consists in the overlooking of no eventuality, but it was plain that Mrs. Waddington considered that in this instance her ally was carrying caution too far. She turned on him with a snort of annoyance: and, having turned, remained staring frozenly at something that had suddenly manifested itself in his lordship's rear.

This something was a long, stringy policeman: and, though Mrs. Waddington had met this policeman only once in her life, the circumstances of that meeting had been such that the memory of him had lingered. She recognised him immediately: and, strong woman though she was, wilted like a snail that has just received a handful of salt between the eyes.

"What's up?" inquired Lord Hunstanton. He, too, turned. "Oh, what ho! the constabulary!"

Officer Garroway was gazing at Mrs. Waddington with an eye from which one of New York's Bohemian evenings had wiped every trace of its customary mildness. So intense, indeed, was the malevolence of its gleam that, if there had been two such eyes boring into hers, it is probable that Mrs. Waddington would have swooned. Fortunately, the other was covered with a piece of raw steak and a bandage, and so was out of action.

"Ah!" said Officer Garroway.

There is little in the word "Ah!" when you write it down and take a look at it to suggest that under certain conditions it can be one of the most sinister words in the language. But hear it spoken by a policeman in whose face you have recently thrown pepper, and you will be surprised. To Mrs. Waddington, as she shrank back into the sleeping-porch, it seemed a sort of combination of an Indian war-whoop, the Last Trump, and the howl of a pursuing wolf-pack. Her knees weakened beneath her, and she collapsed on the bed.

"Copped you, have I?" proceeded the policeman.

The question was plainly a rhetorical one, for he did not pause for a reply. He adjusted the bandage that held the steak, and continued his remarks.

"You're pinched!"

It seemed to Lord Hunstanton that all this was very odd and irregular.

"I say, look here, you know, what I mean to say is...."

"So are you," said Officer Garroway. "You seem to be in it, too. You're both pinched. And start any funny business," concluded the constable, swinging his night-stick in a ham-like fist, "and I'll bend this over your nut. Get me?"

There followed one of those pauses which so often punctuate the conversation of comparative strangers. Officer Garroway seemed to have said his say. Mrs. Waddington had no observations to make. And, though Lord Hunstanton would have liked to put a question or two, the spectacle of that oscillating night-stick had the effect of driving the words out of his head. It was the sort of night-stick that gave one a throbbing feeling about the temples merely to look at it. He swallowed feebly, but made no remark.

And then from somewhere below there sounded the voice of one who cried "Beamish! Hey, Beamish!" It was the voice of Sigsbee H. Waddington.

2

Nothing is more annoying to the reader of a chronicle like this than to have somebody suddenly popping up in some given spot and to find that the historian does not propose to offer any explanation as to how he got there. A conscientious recorder should explain the exits and the entrances of even so insignificant a specimen of the race as Sigsbee H. Waddington: and the present scribe must now take time off in order to do so.

Sigsbee H., it may be remembered, had started out to search through New York for a policeman named Gallagher: and New York had given him of its abundance. It had provided for Mr. Waddington's inspection a perfect wealth of Gallaghers: but, owing to the fact that what he really wished to meet was not a Gallagher but a Garroway, nothing in the nature of solid success had rewarded his efforts. He had seen tall Gallaghers and small Gallaghers, thin Gallaghers and stout Gallaghers, a cross-eyed Gallagher, a pimpled Gallagher, a Gallagher with red hair, a Gallagher with a broken nose, two Gallaghers who looked like bad dreams, and a final supreme Gallagher who looked like nothing on earth. But he had not found the man to whom he had sold the stock of the Finer and Better Motion Picture Company of Hollywood, Cal.

Many men in such a position would have given up the struggle. Sigsbee H. Waddington did. The last Gallagher had been on duty in the neighbourhood of Bleeker Street, and Mr. Waddington, turning into Washington Square, tottered to a bench and sagged down on it.

For some moments, the ecstatic relief of resting his feet occupied his mind to the exclusion of everything else. Then there occurred to him a thought which, had it arrived earlier in the day, would have saved him a considerable output of energy. He suddenly recollected that he had met the missing policeman at the apartment of Hamilton Beamish: and, pursuing this train of thought to its logical conclusion, decided that Hamilton Beamish was the one person who would be able to give him information as to the man's whereabouts.

No tonic, however popular and widely-advertised, could have had so instantly revivifying an effect. The difference between Mr. Waddington before taking and after taking this inspiration was almost magical. An instant before, he had been lying back on the bench in a used-up attitude which would have convinced any observer that the only thing to do with a man in such a stage of exhausted dejection was to notify the City authorities and have him swept up and deposited in the incinerator with the rest of the local garbage. But now, casting off despair like a cloak, he sprang from his seat and was across the Square and heading for the Sheridan before such an observer would have had time to say "What ho!"

Not even the fact that the elevator was not running could check his exhilarated progress. He skimmed up the stairs to Hamilton Beamish's door like a squirrel.

"Beamish!" he cried. "Hey, Beamish!"

Up on the roof, Officer Garroway started as a war-horse at the sound of the bugle. He knew that voice. And, if it should seem remarkable that he should have remembered it after so many days, having been in conversation with it but once, the explanation is that Mr. Waddington's voice had certain tonal qualities that rendered it individual and distinctive. You might mistake it for a squeaking file, but you could not mistake it for the voice of anybody but Sigsbee H. Waddington.

"Gosh!" said Officer Garroway, shaking like an aspen.

The voice had had its effect also on Mrs. Waddington. She started up as if the bed on which she sat had become suddenly incandescent.

"Siddown!" said Officer Garroway.

Mrs. Waddington sat down.

"My dear old constable," began Lord Hunstanton.

"Shut up!" said Officer Garroway.

Lord Hunstanton shut up.

"Gosh!" said Officer Garroway once more.

He eyed his prisoners in an agony of indecision. He was in the unfortunate position of wanting to be in two places at once. To rush down the stairs and accost the man who had sold him that stock would mean that he would have to leave these two birds, with the result that they would undoubtedly escape. And that they should escape was the last thing in the world that Officer Garroway desired. These two represented the most important capture he had made since he had joined the Force. The female bird was a detected burglar and assaulter of the police, and he rather fancied that, when he took him to headquarters and looked him up in the Rogues Gallery, the male bird would prove to be Willie the Dude, wanted in Syracuse for slipping the snide. To land them in the coop meant promotion.

On the other hand, to go down and get his fingers nicely placed about the throat of the man downstairs meant that he would get his three hundred dollars back.

What to do? What to do?

"Oh, gosh! Oh, Gee!" sighed Officer Garroway.

A measured footstep made itself heard. There came into his range of vision an ambassadorial-looking man with a swelling waistcoat and a spot of ink on his nose. And, seeing him, the policeman uttered a cry of elation.

3

"Hey!" said Officer Garroway.

"Sir?" said the new-comer.

"You're a deputy."

"No, sir. I am a butler."

"Say, Be-eeeee-mish!" bleated the voice below.

It roused the policeman to a frenzy of direct action. In a calmer moment he might have been quelled by the protruding green-grey eyes that were looking at him with such quiet austerity: but now they had no terrors for him.

"You're a deputy," he repeated. "You know what that means, don't you, dumb-bell? I'm an officer of the Law and I appoint you my deputy."

"I have no desire to be a deputy," said the other with the cold sub-tinkle in his voice which had once made the younger son of a marquess resign from his clubs and go to Uganda.

It was wasted on Officer Garroway. The man was berserk.

"That's all right what you desire and don't desire. I've made you a deputy, and you'll be one or go up the river for resisting an officer of the Law, besides getting a dot over the bean with this stick that'll make you wish you hadn't. Now then?"

"The position being such as you have outlined," said the butler with dignity, "I have no alternative but to comply with your wishes."

"What's your name?"

"Rupert Anthony Ferris."

"Where do you live?"

"I am in the employment of Mrs. Sigsbee H. Waddington, at present residing at Hempstead, Long Island."

"Well, I've got two birds in here that are wanted at headquarters, see? I'm locking them in." Officer Garroway slammed the door and turned the key. "Now, all you have to do is to stand on guard till I come back. Not much to ask, is it?"

"The task appears to be well within the scope of my powers, and I shall endeavour to fulfil it faithfully."

"Then go to it," said Officer Garroway.

Ferris stood with his back to the sleeping-porch, looking at the moon with a touch of wistfulness. Moonlight nights always made him a little home-sick, for Brangmarley Hall had been at its best on such occasions. How often had he, then a careless, light-hearted footman, watched the moon-beams reflected on the waters of the moat and, with all the little sounds of the English country whispering in his ear, pondered idly on what would win the two o'clock race at Ally Pally next day. Happy days! Happy days!

The sound of some one murmuring his name brought his wandering thoughts back to the workaday world. He looked about him with interest, which deepened as he saw that he had apparently got the roof to himself.

"Ferris!"

The butler was a man who never permitted himself to be surprised, but he was conscious now of something not unlike that emotion. Disembodied voices which whispered his name were new in his experience. It could hardly be one of the two birds in the sleeping-porch that was speaking, for they were behind concrete walls and a solid door, and would have had to raise their voices far louder to make themselves heard.

"Ferris!"

Possibly an angel, thought the butler: and was turning his mind to other things when he perceived that in the wall by which he stood there was a small window high up in the concrete. So it was one of the birds, after all. Scarcely had he made the discovery of the window when the voice spoke again, and so distinctly this time that he was able to recognise it as that of his employer, Mrs. Sigsbee H. Waddington.

"Ferris!"

"Madam?" said Ferris.

"It is I, Ferris—Mrs. Waddington."

"Very good, madam."

"What did you say? Come closer. I can't hear you."

The butler, though not a man who did this sort of thing as a general rule, indulgently stretched a point and stood on tip-toe. He advanced his mouth towards the hole in the wall and repeated his remark.

"I said 'Very good, madam,'" explained this modern Pyramus.

"Oh? Well, be quick, Ferris."

"Quick, madam?"

"Be quick and let us out."

"You wish me to release you, madam?"

"Yes."

"H'm!"

"What did you say?"

The butler, who had found the strain of standing on tip-toe a little hard on his fallen arches, reared himself up once more.

"I said 'H'm!' madam."

"What did he say?" asked the voice of Lord Hunstanton.

"He said 'H'm!'" replied the voice of Mrs. Waddington.

"Why?"

"How should I know? I believe the man has been drinking."

"Let me talk to the fellow," said Lord Hunstanton.

There was a pause. Then a male understudy took up Thisbe's portion of the performance.

"Hi!"

"Sir?" said Ferris.

"You out there, what's your name...."

"My name is—and has always been—Ferris, sir."

"Well, then, Ferris, listen to me and understand that I'm not the sort of man to stand any dashed nonsense or anything like that of any description whatsoever. Why, when this dear, good lady told you to let us out, did you reply 'H'm!'? Answer me that—yes or no."

The butler raised himself on tip-toe again.

"The ejaculation was intended to convey doubt, your lordship."

"Doubt? What about?"

"As to whether I could see my way to letting you out, your lordship."

"Don't be a silly idiot. It's not so dark as all that."

"I was alluding to the difficulties confronting me as the result of the peculiar position in which I find myself situated, your lordship."

"What did he say?" asked the voice of Mrs. Waddington.

"Something about his peculiar position."

"Why is he in a peculiar position?"

"Ah! There you have me."

"Let me talk to the man."

There was a scuffling noise, followed by a heavy fall and a plaintive cry from a female in distress.

"I knew that chair would break if you stood on it," said Lord Hunstanton. "I wish I could have had a small bet on that chair breaking if you stood on it."

"Wheel the bed under the window," replied the indomitable woman beside him. She had lost an inch of skin from her right ankle, but her hat was still in the ring.

A grating noise proclaimed the shifting of the bed. There was a creak of springs beneath a heavy weight. The window, in its capacity of loud speaker, announced Mrs. Waddington calling.

"Ferris!"

"Madam?"

"What do you mean? Why is your position peculiar?"

"Because I am a deputy, madam."

"What does that matter?"

"I represent the Law, madam."

"The what?" asked Lord Hunstanton.

"The Law," said Mrs. Waddington. "He says he represents the Law."

"Let me speak to the blighter!"

There was another interval, which the butler employed in massaging his aching insteps.

"Hi!"

"Your lordship?"

"What's all this rot about your representing the Law?"

"I was placed in a position of trust by the officer who has recently left us. He instructed me to guard your lordship and Mrs. Waddington and to see that you did not effect your escape."

"But, Ferris, try not to be more of an ass than you can help. Pull yourself together and use your intelligence. You surely don't suppose that Mrs. Waddington and I have done anything wrong?"

"It is not my place to speculate on the point which you have raised, your lordship."

"Listen, Ferris. Let's get down to the stern, practical side of this business. If the old feudal spirit hadn't died out completely, you'd do a little thing like letting us out of this place for the pure love of service, if you know what I mean. But, seeing that we live in a commercial age, what's the figure?"

"Are you suggesting that I should accept a bribe, your lordship? Am I to understand that you propose that, in return for money, I should betray my trust?"

"Yes. How much?"

"How much has your lordship got?"

"What did he say?" asked Mrs. Waddington.

"He asked how much we'd got."

"How much what?"

"Money."

"He wishes to extort money from us?"

"That's what it sounded like."

"Let me speak to the man."

Mrs. Waddington came to the window.

"Ferris."

"Madam?"

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"Yes, madam."

"Your behaviour surprises and revolts me."

"Very good, madam."

"You cease from this moment to be in my employment."

"Just as you desire, madam."

Mrs. Waddington retired for a brief consultation with her companion.

"Ferris," she said, returning to the window.

"Madam?"

"Here is all the money we have,—two hundred and fifteen dollars."

"It will be ample, madam."

"Then kindly make haste and unlock this door."

"Very good, madam."

Mrs. Waddington waited, chafing. The moments passed.

"Madam."

"Well, what is it now?"

"I regret to have to inform you, madam," said Ferris respectfully, "that, when the policeman went away, he took the key with him."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It had taken George some considerable time to establish connection with the Waddington home at Hempstead; but he had done it at last, only to be informed that Molly did not appear to be on the premises. She had driven up in her two-seater, a Swedish voice gave him to understand, but after remaining in the house a short while had driven off again.

"Fine!" said George, as his informant was beginning to relapse into her native tongue.

A yeasty feeling of pleasure and good-will towards his species filled him as he hung up the receiver. If Molly had started back to New York, he might expect to see her at any moment now. His heart swelled: and the fact that he was in the unfortunate position of being a fugitive from justice and the additional fact that the bloodhound of the Law most interested in his movements was probably somewhere very close at hand entirely escaped him. Abandoning the caution which should have been the first thought of one situated as he was, he burst into jovial song.

"Hey, Pinch!"

George, who had been climbing towards a high note, came back to earth again, chilled and apprehensive. His first impulse was to dash for his bedroom and hide under the bed—a thing which he knew himself to be good at. Then his intelligence asserted itself and panic waned. Only one man of his acquaintance could have addressed him as "Hey, Pinch!"

"Is that Mr. Waddington?" he murmured, opening the door of the sitting-room and peering in.

"Sure it's Mr. Waddington." The reek of a lively young cigar assailed George's nostrils. "Don't you have any lights in this joint?"

"Are there any policemen about?" asked George in a conspiratorial undertone.

"There's one policeman down in young Beamish's apartment," replied Mr. Waddington with a fruity chuckle. "He's just sold me all his holdings in the Finer and Better Motion Picture Company of Hollywood, Cal., for three hundred smackers: and I've come here to celebrate. Set up the drinks," said Mr. Waddington, who was plainly in as festive a mood as a man can be without actually breaking up the furniture.

George switched on the light. If the enemy was in as distant a spot as Hamilton Beamish's apartment, prudence might be relaxed.

"'At's right," said Mr. Waddington, welcoming the illumination. He was leaning against a book-shelf with his hat on the back of his head and a cigar between his lips. His eyes were sparkling with an almost human intelligence. "I've got a smart business head, Pinch," he said, shooting the cigar from due east to due west with a single movement of his upper lip. "I'm the guy with the big brain."

Although all the data which he had been able to accumulate in the course of their acquaintanceship went directly to prove the opposite, George was not inclined to combat the statement. He had weightier matters to occupy him than an academic discussion of the mentality of this poor fish.

"I found that girl," he said.

"What girl?"

"The girl who stole the necklace. And I've got the necklace."

He had selected a subject that gripped. Mr. Waddington ceased to contemplate the smartness of his business head and became interested. His eyes widened, and he blew out a puff of poison-gas.

"You don't say!"

"Here it is."

"Gimme!" said Mr. Waddington.

George dangled the necklace undecidedly.

"I think I ought to hand it over to Molly."

"You'll hand it over to me," said Mr. Waddington with decision. "I'm the head of the family, and from now on I act as such. Too long, Pinch, have I allowed myself to be trampled beneath the iron heel and generally kicked in the face with spiked shoes, if you get my meaning. I now assert myself. Starting from to-day and onward through the years till my friends and relatives gather about my bier and whisper, 'Doesn't he look peaceful,' what I say goes. Give me that necklace. I intend to have it reset or something. Either that, or I shall sell it and give Molly the proceeds. In any case, and be that as it may, gimme that necklace!"

George gave it to him. There was a strange new atmosphere of authority about Sigsbee H. to-night that made one give him things when he asked for them. He had the air of a man whom somebody has been feeding meat.

"Pinch," said Mr. Waddington.

"Finch," said George.

"George," said a voice at the window, speaking with a startling abruptness which caused Mr. Waddington to jerk his cigar into his eye.

A wave of emotion poured over George.

"Molly! Is that you?"

"Yes, darling. Here I am."

"How quick you've been."

"I hurried."

"Though it seems hours since you went away."

"Does it really, precious?"

Mr. Waddington was still shaken.

"If I had been told that any daughter of mine would come and bark at me from behind like that," he said querulously, "I would not have believed it."

"Oh, father! There you are. I didn't see you."

"There," said Mr. Waddington, "is right. You nearly scared the top of my head off."

"I'm sorry."

"Too late to be sorry now," said Mr. Waddington moodily. "You've gone and spoiled the best ten-cent cigar in Hempstead."

He eyed the remains sadly: and, throwing them away, selected another from his upper waistcoat-pocket and bit the end off.

"Molly, my angel," said George vibrantly, "fancy you really being with me once more!"

"Yes, Georgie, darling. And what I wanted to say was, I believe there's somebody in your sleeping-porch."

"What!"

"I'm sure I heard voices."

Come right down to it, and there is no instinct so deeply rooted in the nature of Man as the respect for property—his own property, that is to say. And just as the mildest dog will tackle bloodhounds in defence of its own backyard, so will the veriest of human worms turn if attacked in his capacity of householder. The news that there was somebody in his sleeping-porch caused George to seethe with pique and indignation. It seemed to him that the entire population of New York had come to look on his sleeping-porch as a public resort. No sooner had he ejected one batch of visitors than another took their place.

With a wordless exclamation he rushed out upon the roof, closely followed by Molly and her father. Molly was afraid he would get hurt. Sigsbee H. was afraid he would not. It had been a big night for Sigsbee H. Waddington, and he did not want it to end tamely.

"Have your gun ready," advised Sigsbee H., keeping well in the rear, "and don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes."

George reached the door of the sleeping-porch, and smote it a lusty blow.

"Hi!" he cried. He twisted the handle. "Good heavens, it's locked."

From the upper window, softened by distance, came a pleading voice.

"I say! I say! I say!" To Lord Hunstanton the beating on the door had sounded like the first guns of a relieving army. He felt like the girl who heard the pipers skirling as they marched on beleaguered Lucknow. "I say, whoever you are, dear old soul, let us out, would you mind."

George ground his teeth.

"What do you mean—whoever you are? I'm George Finch, and that sleeping-porch belongs to me."

"Good old George! Hunstanton speaking. Let us out, George, old top, like the sportsman you are!"

"What are you doing in there?"

"A policeman locked us in. And a blighter of a butler, after promising to undo the door, told some thin story about not being able to find the key and legged it with all our available assets. So play the man, dear old George, and blessings will reward you. Also and moreover, by acting promptly you will save the life of my dear good friend and hostess here, who has been hiccoughing for some little time and is, I rather fancy, on the point of hysterics."

"What are you talking about?"

"Mrs. Waddington."

"Is Mrs. Waddington in there with you?"

"Is she not, laddie!"

George drew his breath sharply.

"Mother," he said reproachfully in through the keyhole, "I had not expected this."

Sigsbee H. Waddington uttered a fearful cry.

"My wife! In there! With a man with a tooth-brush moustache! Let me talk to them!"

"Who was that?" asked Lord Hunstanton.

"Mr. Waddington," replied George. "Who was that?" he said, as a scream rent the air.

"Mrs. Waddington. I say, George, old man," queried his lordship anxiously, "what do you do when a woman starts turning blue and making little bubbling noises?"

Sigsbee H., finding that a man of his stature could not hope to speak to any advantage through the window unless he stood on something, had darted across the roof and was now returning with one of the potted shrubs in his arms. The wildness of his eyes and the fact that even in this supreme moment he had gone on puffing at his cigar gave him a striking resemblance to a fire-eating dragon. He bumped the tub down and, like a man who rises on stepping-stones of his dead self to higher things, elevated himself upon it.

This brought him nicely within range of the window and enabled him to push Lord Hunstanton in the face—which was all to the good. His lordship staggered back, leaving the way clear for the injured man to gaze upon his erring wife.

"Ha!" said Sigsbee H. Waddington.

"I can explain everything, Sigsbee!"

Mr. Waddington snorted.

"Nerve," he said, "in its proper place and when there's not too much of it, I admire. But when a woman has the crust to disparage the morals of one of the finest young fellows who ever came out of the golden West and then I happen to pop into New York on important business and find her closeted with a man with a tooth-brush moustache and she has the audacity to say she can explain everything...."

Here Mr. Waddington paused to take in breath.

"Sigsbee!"

"It's living in this soul-destroying East that does it," proceeded Mr. Waddington, having re-filled his thoracic cavities. "If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times, that...."

"But, Sigsbee, I couldn't help it. It's quite true what Lord Hunstanton was saying. A policeman locked us in."

"What were you doing up here, anyway?"

There was a brief silence within.

"I came to see what that Finch was doing. And I heard him in here, talking to an abandoned creature."

Mr. Waddington directed a questioning gaze at George.

"Have you been talking to any abandoned creatures to-night?"

"Of course he hasn't," cried Molly indignantly.

"I have spoken with no one of the opposite sex," said George with dignity, "except the girl who stole the necklace. And that was a purely business discussion which would not have brought a blush to the cheek of the sternest critic. I said 'Hand over that necklace!' and she handed it over, and then her husband came and took her away."

"You hear?" said Mr. Waddington.

"No, I don't," said Mrs. Waddington.

"Well, take it from me that this splendid young man from the West is as pure as driven snow. So now let's hear from you once more. Why did the policeman lock you in?"

"We had a misunderstanding."

"How?"

"Well, I—er—happened to throw a little pepper in his face."

"Sweet artichokes of Jerusalem! Why?"

"He found me in Mr. Finch's apartment and wanted to arrest me."

Mr. Waddington's voice grew cold and grim.

"Indeed?" he said. "Well, this finishes it! If you can't live in the East without spending your time throwing pepper at policemen, you'll come straight out with me to the West before you start attacking them with hatchets. That is my final and unalterable decision. Come West, woman, where hearts are pure, and there try to start a new life."

"I will, Sigsbee, I will."

"You bet your permanent henna hair-wash you will!"

"I'll buy the transportation to-morrow."

"No, sir!" Mr. Waddington with a grand gesture nearly overbalanced the tub on which he stood. "I will buy the transportation to-morrow. You will be interested to learn that, owing to commercial transactions resulting from the possession of a smart business head, I am now once more an exceedingly wealthy man and able to buy all the transportation this family requires and to run this family as it should be run. I'm the big noise now. Yes, me—Sigsbee Horatio...." The tub tilted sideways, and the speaker staggered into the arms of Officer Garroway, who had come up to the roof to see how his prisoners were getting on and was surprised to find himself plunged into the middle of what appeared to be a debating society.

"... Waddington," concluded Sigsbee H.

The policeman eyed him coldly. The fever of dislike which he had felt towards this man had passed, but he could never look on him as a friend. Moreover, Mr. Waddington, descending from the tub, had stamped heavily on his right foot, almost the only portion of his anatomy which had up till then come unscathed through the adventures of the night.

"What's all this?" inquired Officer Garroway.

His eye fell upon George: and he uttered that low, sinister growl which is heard only from the throats of leopards seeking their prey, tigers about to give battle, and New York policemen who come unexpectedly upon men who have thrown table-cloths over them and hit them in the eye.

"So there you are!" said Officer Garroway.

He poised his night-stick in his hand, and moved softly forward. Molly flung herself in his path with a cry.

"Stop!"

"Miss," said the policeman, courteously as was his wont in the presence of the sex. "Oblige me by getting to hell out of here."

"Garroway!"

The policeman wheeled sharply. Only one man in the world would have been able to check his dreadful designs at that moment, and that man had now joined the group. Clad in a sweater and a pair of running-shorts, Hamilton Beamish made a strangely dignified and picturesque figure as he stood there with the moonlight glinting on his horn-rimmed spectacles. He wore soft shoes with rubber soles, and he was carrying a pair of dumb-bells. Hamilton Beamish was a man who lived by schedule: and not all that he had passed through that day could blur his mind to the fact that this was the hour at which he did his before-retiring dumb-bell exercises.

"What is the trouble, Garroway?"

"Well, Mr. Beamish...."

Confused voices interrupted him.

"He was trying to murder George."

"He's got my wife locked up in this room."

"The brute!"

"Darned fresh guy."

"George didn't do a thing to him."

"My wife only threw a little pepper in his face."

Hamilton Beamish raised a compelling dumb-bell.

"Please, please! Garroway, state your case."

He listened attentively.

"Unlock that door," he said, when all was told.

The policeman unlocked the door. Mrs. Waddington, followed by Lord Hunstanton, emerged. Lord Hunstanton eyed Mr. Waddington warily, and sidled with an air of carelessness towards the stairway. Accelerating his progress as he neared the door, he vanished abruptly. Lord Hunstanton was a well-bred man who hated a fuss: and every instinct told him that this was one. He was better elsewhere, he decided.

"Stop that man!" ejaculated Officer Garroway. He turned back, baffled, with a darkening brow. "Now he's gone!" he said soberly. "And he was wanted up in Syracuse."

Sigsbee H. Waddington shook his head. He was not fond of that town, but he had a fair mind.

"Even in Syracuse," he said, "they wouldn't want a man like that."

"It was Willie the Dude, and I was going to take him to the station-house."

"You are mistaken, Garroway," said Hamilton Beamish. "That was Lord Hunstanton, a personal acquaintance of mine."

"You know him, Mr. Beamish?"

"Quite."

"Do you know her?" asked the policeman, pointing to Mrs. Waddington.

"Intimately."

"And him?" said Officer Garroway, indicating George.

"He is one of my best friends."

The policeman heaved a dreary sigh. He relapsed into silence, baffled.

"The whole affair," said Hamilton Beamish, "appears to have been due to a foolish misunderstanding. This lady, Garroway, is the stepmother of this young lady here, to whom Mr. Finch should have been married to-day. There was some little trouble, I understand from Mr. Waddington, and she was left with the impression that Mr. Finch's morals were not all they should have been. Later, facts which came to light convinced her of her error, and she hastened to New York to seek Mr. Finch out and tell him that all was well and that the marriage would proceed with her full approval. That is correct, Mrs. Waddington?"

Mrs. Waddington gulped. For a moment her eye seemed about to resume its well-known expression of a belligerent fish. But her spirit was broken. She was not the woman she had been. She had lost the old form.

"Yes.... Yes.... That is to say ... I mean, yes," she replied huskily.

"You called at Mr. Finch's apartment with no other motive than to tell him this?"

"None.... Or, rather.... No, none."

"In fact, to put the thing in a nutshell, you wished to find your future son-in-law and fold him in a mother-in-law's embrace. Am I right?"

This time the pause before Mrs. Waddington found herself able to reply was so marked and the look she directed at George so full of meaning that the latter, always sensitive, could not but wonder whether in refraining from punching her on the nose he was not neglecting his duty as a man and a citizen. She gazed at him long and lingeringly. Then she spoke.

"Quite right," she said huskily.

"Excellent," said Hamilton Beamish. "So you see, Garroway, that Mrs. Waddington's reason for being in the apartment where you found her was wholly admirable. That clears up that point."

"It doesn't clear up why she threw pepper in my face."

Hamilton Beamish nodded.

"There, Garroway," he said, "you have put your finger on the one aspect of Mrs. Waddington's behaviour which was not completely unexceptionable. As regards the pepper, you have, it seems to me, legitimate cause for pique and, indeed, solid grounds for an action for assault and battery. But Mrs. Waddington is a reasonable woman, and will, no doubt, be willing to settle this little matter in a way acceptable to all parties."

"I will pay him whatever he wants," cried the reasonable woman. "Anything, anything!"

"Hey!"

It was the voice of Sigsbee H. He stood there, forceful and dominant. His cigar had gone out, and he was chewing the dry remains aggressively.

"Say, listen!" said Sigsbee H. Waddington. "If there's any bribing of the police to be done, it's my place to do it, as the head of the family. Look me up at my little place at Hempstead to-morrow, Gallagher, and we'll have a talk. You will find me a generous man. Open-handed. Western."

"Capital," said Hamilton Beamish. "So everything is happily settled."

There was not much of Officer Garroway's face that was not concealed by the bandage and the steak, but on the small residuum there appeared a look of doubt and dissatisfaction.

"And what about this bird here?" he asked, indicating George.

"This individual before me," corrected Hamilton Beamish. "What about him, Garroway?"

"He soaked me in the eye."

"No doubt in a spirit of wholesome fun. Where did this happen?"

"Down there in the Purple Chicken."

"Ah! Well, if you knew that restaurant better, you would understand that that sort of thing is the merest commonplace of everyday life at the Purple Chicken. You must overlook it, Garroway."

"Can't I push his head down his throat?"

"Certainly not. I cannot have you annoying Mr. Finch. He is to be married to-morrow, and he is a friend of mine."

"But...."

"Garroway," said Hamilton Beamish, in a quiet, compelling voice, "Mr. Finch is a friend of mine."

"Very well, Mr. Beamish," said the policeman resignedly.

Mrs. Waddington was plucking at her husband's sleeve.

"Sigsbee."

"Hello?"

"Sigsbee, dear, I'm starving. I have had nothing to eat since lunch. There is some wonderful soup in there."

"Let's go," said Sigsbee H. "You coming?" he said to George.

"I thought of taking Molly off somewhere."

"Oh no, do come with us, George," said Mrs. Waddington winningly. She drew closer to him. "George, is it really true that you hit that policeman in the eye?"

"Yes."

"Tell me about it."

"Well, he was trying to arrest me, so I threw a table-cloth over his head and then plugged him a couple of rather juicy ones which made him leave go."

Mrs. Waddington's eyes glistened. She put her arm through his.

"George," she said, "I have misjudged you. I could wish Molly no better husband."

Hamilton Beamish stood in the moonlight, swinging his dumb-bells. Having done this for awhile, he embarked on a few simple setting-up exercises. He stood with his feet some six inches apart, his toes turned slightly out: then, placing his hands on his hips, thumbs back, bent slightly forward from the shoulders—not from the hips. He retracted the lower abdomen, and, holding it retracted, leaned well over to the left side, contracting the muscles of the left side forcibly. He kept his legs straight all the time, his knees stiff. He reversed to right side, and repeated twenty times—ten right, ten left. This exercise was done slowly and steadily, without jerking.

"Ah!" said Hamilton Beamish, relaxing. "Splendid for the transversalis muscle, that, converting it into a living belt which girds the loins. Have you ever given considered thought to the loins, Garroway?"

The policeman shook his head.

"Not that I know of," he said indifferently. "I've seen 'em in the Bronx Zoo."

Hamilton Beamish eyed him with concern.

"Garroway," he said, "you seem distrait."

"If that's how a feller is when he's been hit and punched, and stepped on and had pepper thrown at him and table-cloths put over his head I've got a swell license to seem distrait," replied the policeman bitterly. "And on top of all that, when I thought I had made a cop...."

"Brought about an arrest."

"... brought about an arrest which would have got me promotion, I find they're all friends of yours and have to be allowed to make a clean getaway. That's what jars me, Mr. Beamish."

Hamilton Beamish patted him on the shoulder.

"Every poet, Garroway, has to learn in suffering before he can teach in song. Look at Keats! Look at Chatterton! One of these days you will be thankful that all this has happened. It will be the making of you. Besides, think of the money you are going to get from Mr. Waddington to-morrow."

"I'd give it all for one long, cool drink now."

"Mr. Garroway."

The policeman looked up. Molly was standing in the window.

"Mr. Garroway," said Molly, "a most mysterious thing has happened. Mr. Finch has found two large bottles of champagne in his cupboard. He can't think how they got there, but he says would you care to come in and examine them and see whether they are good or not."

The cloud which had hung about the policeman's face passed from it as if beneath some magic spell. His tongue came slowly out of his mouth and moved lovingly over his arid lips. His one visible eye gleamed with the light which never was on land or sea.

"Are you with me, Mr. Beamish?" he asked.

"I precede you, Mr. Garroway," said Hamilton Beamish.

By P. G. WODEHOUSE

THE SMALL BACHELOR DIVOTS HE RATHER ENJOYED IT BILL THE CONQUEROR GOLF WITHOUT TEARS JEEVES LEAVE IT TO PSMITH MOSTLY SALLY THREE MEN AND A MAID INDISCRETIONS OF ARCHIE THE LITTLE WARRIOR A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS SAM IN THE SUBURBS