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IN THE BISHOP'S CARRIAGE......................................................................................................................1

MIRIAM MICHELSON ..........................................................................................................................1

When the thing was at its hottest, I bolted. Tom, like the darling he is(Yes, you are, old fellow, you're as

precious to me asas you are to the policeif they could only get their hands on you)well, Tom drew off

the crowd, having passed the old gentleman's watch to me, and I made for the women's rooms.

The station was crowded, as it always is in the afternoon, and in a minute I was strolling into the big, square

"Nancy, you're a college girljust in from Bryn Mawr to meet your papa. Just see if your hat's on straight."

I did, going up to the big glass and looking beyond my excited face to the room behind me. There sat the

woman who can never nurse her baby except where everybody can see her, in a railroad station. There was

the woman who's always hungry, nibbling chocolates out of a box; and the woman fallen asleep, with her hat

on the side, and hairpins dropping out of her hair; and the woman who's beside herself with fear that she'll

miss her train; and the woman who is taking notes about the other women's rigs. And

And I didn't like the look of that man with the cap who opened the swinging door a bit and peeped in. The

women's waitingroom is no place for a mannor for a girl who's got somebody else's watch inside her

waist. Luckily, my back was toward him, but just as the door swung back he might have caught the reflection

I retreated, going to an inner room where the ladies were having the maid brush their gowns, soiled from

The deuce is in it the way women stare. I took off my hat and jacket for a reason to stay there, and hung them

"Nance," I said under my breath, to the alerteyed, pugnosed girl in the mirror, who gave a quick glance

about the room as I bent to wash my hands, "women stare 'cause they're women. There's no meaning in their

Oh, it was long; long enough to cover you from your chin to your heels! It was a dark, warm red, and it had a

high collar of chinchilla that was fairly scrumptious. And just above it the hat hung, a redcloth toque caught

The black maid misunderstood my involuntary gesture. I had all my best duds on, and when a lot of women

stare it makes the woman they stare at peacock naturally, andandwell, ask Tom what he thinks of my

style when I'm on parade. At any rate, it was the maid's fault. She took down the coat and hat and held them

for me as though they were mine. What could I do, 'cept just slip into the silklined beauty and set the toque

on my head? The fool girl that owned them was having another maid mend a tear in her skirt, over in the

corner; the little place was crowded. Anyway, I had both the coat and hat on and was out into the big

What nearly wrecked me was the cut of that coat. It positively made me shiver with pleasure when I passed

and saw myself in that long mirror. My, but I was great! The hang of that coat, the long, incurving sweep in

the back, and the high fur collar up to one's noseeven if it is a turnedup noseoh!

I stayed and looked a second too long, for just as I was pulling the flaring hat a bit over my face, the doors

swung, as an old lady came in, and there behind her was that same curious man's face with the cap above it.

Trapped? Me? Not much! I didn't wait a minute, but threw the doors open with a gesture that might have

belonged to the Queen of Spain. I almost ran into his arms. He gave an exclamation. I looked him straight in

He weakened. That coat was too jolly much for him. It was for me, too. As I ran down the stairs, its influence

I got out on the sidewalk all right, and was just about to take a car when the turnstile swung round, and there

was that same man with the cap. His face was a funny mixture of doubt and determination. But it meant the

But it wasn't. For it was then that I caught sight of the carriage. It was a fat, low, comfortable, elegant, sober

carriage, wide and wellkept, with rubbertired wheels. And the two heavy horses were fat and elegant and

sober, too, and wide and wellkept. I didn't know it was the Bishop's thenI didn't care whose it was. It was

empty, and it was mine. I'd rather go to the Correctionbeing too young to get to the place you're bound for,

Tom Dorganin it than in the patrol wagon. At any rate, it was all the chance I had.

I slipped in, closing the door sharply behind me. The man on the boxhe was wide and wellkept,

toowas tired waiting, I suppose, for he continued to doze gently, his high coachman's collar up over his

ears. I cursed that collar, which had prevented his hearing the door close, for then he might have driven off.

But it was great inside: soft and warm, the cushions of dark plum, the seat wide and roomy, a church paper,

some notes for the Bishop's next sermon and a copy of Quo Vadis. I just snuggled down, trust me. I leaned

far back and lay low. When I did peek out the window, I saw the man with the brass buttons and the cap

Victory! He had lost the scent. Who would look for Nancy Olden in the Bishop's carriage?

Now, you know how early I got up yesterday to catch the train so's Tom and I could come in with the people

and be naturally mingling with them? And you remember the dance the night before? I hadn't had more than

three hours' sleep, and the snug warmth of that coach was just nuts to me, after the freezing ride into town. I

didn't dare get out for fear of some other man in a cap and buttons somewhere on the lookout. I knew they

couldn't be on to my hidingplace or they'd have nabbed me before this. After a bit I didn't want to get out, I

was so warm and comfortableand elegant. O Tom, you should have seen your Nance in that coat and in the

First thing I knew, I was dreaming you and I were being married, and you had brass buttons all over you, and

I had the cloak all right, but it was a weddingdress, and the chinchilla was a wormy sort of orange blossoms,

That's easyfell asleep again. There wasn't anything else to do. Not really asleep this time, you know; just,

The horses had started, and the carriage was halfway across the street before the Bishop noticed me.

He was a little Bishop, not big and fat and wellkept like the rig, but short and lean, with a little white beard

"Lord bless me!" he exclaimed, hurriedly putting on his spectacles, and looking about bewildered.

I was slumbering sweetly in the corner, but I could see between my lashes that he thought he'd jumped into

The sight of his book and his papers comforted him, though, and before he could make a resolution, I let the

jolting of the carriage, as it crossed the cartrack, throw me gently against him.

"Daddy," I murmured sleepily, letting my head rest on his little, prim shoulder.

That comforted him, too. Hush your laughing, Tom Dorgan; I mean calling him "daddy" seemed to kind of

"Oh, daddy," I exclaimed, snuggling down close to him, "you kept me waiting so long I went to sleep. I

He put his arm about my shoulders in a fatherly way. You know, I found out later the Bishop never had had a

daughter. I guess he thought he had one now. Such a simple, dear old soul! Just the same, Tom Dorgan, if he

had been my father, I'd never be doing stunts with tipsy men's watches for you; nor if I'd had any father.

Now, don't get mad. Think of the Bishop with his gentle, thin old arm about my shoulders, holding me for

just a second as though I was his daughter! My, think of it! And me, Nance Olden, with that fat man's watch

in my waist and some girl's beautiful long coat and hat on, all covered with chinchilla!

"There's some mistake, my little girl," he said, shaking me gently to wake me up, for I was going to sleep

"Oh, I knew you were kept at the office," I interrupted quickly. I preferred to be farther from the station with

that girl's red coat before I got out. "We've missed our train, anyway, haven't we? After this, daddy dear, let's

not take this route. If we'd go straight through on the one road, we wouldn't have this drive across town every

time. I was wondering, before I fell asleep, what in the world I'd do in this big city if you didn't come."

Wasn't it clumsy of him? He wanted to break it to me gently, and this was the best he could do.

"What would I do?" I gasped indignantly. "Why, daddy, imagine me alone, andand without money!

That baby of a Bishop! The very thought of Nancy Olden out alone in the streets was too much for him.

He had put his free hand into his pocket and had just taken out a bill and was trying to plan a way to offer it

to me and reveal the fact to poor, modest little Nance Olden that he was not her own daddy, when an awful

We had got up street as far as the operahouse, when we were caught in the jam of carriages in front; the last

afternoon opera of the season was just over. I was so busy thinking what would be my next move that I didn't

notice much outsideand I didn't want to move, Tom, not a bit. Playing the Bishop's daughter in a trailing

coat of red, trimmed with chinchilla, is just your Nancy's graft. But the dear little Bishop gave a jump that

almost knocked the roof off the carriage, pulled his arm from behind me and dropped the tendollar bill he

held as though it burned him. It fell in my lap. I jammed it into my coat pocket. Where is it now? Just you

I followed the Bishop's eyes. His face was scarlet now. Right next to our carriagemine and the

Bishop'sthere was another; not quite so fat and heavy and big, but smart, I tell you, with the silver harness

jangling and the horses arching their backs under their bluecloth jackets monogrammed in leather. All the

same, I couldn't see anything to cause a loving father to let go his onliest daughter in such a hurry, till the old

Her face told it then. It was a big, smooth face, with accordionplaited chins. Her hair was white and her nose

was curved, and the pearls in her big ears brought out every ugly spot on her face. Her lips were thin, and her

neck, hung with diamonds, looked like a bed with bolsters and pillows piled high, and her eyesoh, Tom,

her eyes! They were little and very gray, and they bored their way straight through the windowshers and

My, if I could only have laughed! The Bishop, the dear, prim little Bishop in his own carriage, with his arm

about a young woman in red and chinchilla, offering her a banknote, and Mrs. Dowager Diamonds, her eyes

popping out of her head at the sight, and she one of the lady pillars of his churchoh, Tom! it took all of this

But you see it was over in a minute. The carriage wheels were unlocked, and the blue coupe went whirling

I decided that I'd had enough. Now and here in the middle of all these carriages was a bully good time and

place for me to get away. I turned to the Bishop. He was blushing like a boy. I blushed, too. Yes, I did, Tom

"Nono, my dear, II'm not," he stammered, his face purple now with embarrassment. "I was just trying to

tell you, you poor little girl, of your mistake and planning a way to help you, when"

"Why, certainly, child. But I'm old enough, surely, to be, and I wishI wish I were."

The dignity and tenderness and courtesy in his voice sort of sobered me. But all at once I remembered the

"Oh, because of her," I said, smiling and pointing to the side where the coupe had been.

My, but it was a rotten bad move! I ought to have been strapped for it. Oh, Tom, Tom, it takes more'n a red

coat with chinchilla to make a blackhearted thing like me into the girl he thought I was.

He stiffened and sat up like a prim little schoolboy, his soft eyes hurt like a dog's that's been wounded.

I won't tell you what I did then. No, I won't. And you won't understand, but just that minute I cared more for

It made us friends in a minute, and when he stopped the carriage to let me out, my hand was still in his. But I

wouldn't go. I'd made up my mind to see him out of his part of the scrape, and first thing you know we were

He thought it was his scheme, the poor lamb, to put me in her charge till my lost daddy could send for me.

He'd no more idea that I was steering him toward her, that he was doing the only thing possible, the only

square thing by his reputation, than he had that Nance Olden had been raised by the Cruelty, and then flung

Girls, if you could have seen Mrs. Dowager Diamonds' face when she came down the stairs, the Bishop's card

in her hand, and into the gorgeous parlor, it'd have been as good as a front seat at the show.

She was mad, and she was curious, and she was amazed, and she was disarmed; for the very nerve of his

bringing me to her staggered her so that she could hardly believe she'd seen what she had.

"My dear Mrs. Ramsay," he began, confused a bit by his remembrance of how her face had looked fifteen

minutes before, "I bring to you an unfortunate child, who mistook my carriage for her father's this afternoon

at the station. She is a college girl, a stranger in town, and till her father claims her"

Oh, the baby! the baby! She was stiffening like a rod before his very eyes. How did his words explain his

having his arm round the unfortunate child? His conscience was so clean that the dear little man actually

overlooked the fact that it wasn't my presence in the carriage, but his conduct there that had excited Mrs.

And didn't the story sound thin? I tell you, Tom, when it comes to lying to a woman you've got to think up

something stronger than it takes to make a man believe in youif you happen to be female yourself.

I didn't wait for him to finish, but waltzed right in. I danced straight up to that side of beef with the diamonds

"You said your wife was out of town, daddy," I cried gaily. "Have you got another wife besides mummy?"

The poor Bishop! Do you think he tumbled? Not a bitnot a bit. He sat there gasping like a fish, and Mrs.

Dowager Diamonds, surprised by my sudden attack, stood bolt upright, about as pleasant to hug asas you

The trouble with the Bishop's set is that it's deadly slow. Now, if I had really been the Bishop's daughterall

"Oh, mummy," I went on quickly. You know how I said it, Tomthe way I told you after that last row that

Dan Christensen wasn't near so goodlooking as youremember? "Oh, mummy, you don't know how good

it feels to get home. Out there at that awful college, studying and studying and studying, sometimes I thought

I'd lose my senses. There's a girl out there now suffering from nervous prostration. She worked so hard

preparing for the midyears. What's her name? I can't thinkI can't think, my head's so tired. But it sounds

like mine, a lot like mine. OnceI think it was yesterdayI thought it was mine, and I made up my mind

suddenly to come right home and bring it with me. But it can't be mine, can it? It can't be my name she's got.

Tom, I ought to have gone on the stage. I'll go yet, when you're sent up some day. Yes, I will. You'll be where

I couldn't see the Bishop, but the Dowageroh, I'd got her. Not so bad an old body, either, if you only take

her the right way. First, she was suspicious, and then she was scared. And then, bit by bit, the stiffness melted

out of her, her arms came up about me, and there I was, lying all comfy, with the diamonds on her neck

boring rosettes in my cheeks, and she asniffling over me and patting me and telling me not to get excited,

that it was all right, and now I was home mummy would take care of me, she would, that she would.

She did. She got me on to a lounge, soft asas marshmallows, and she piled one silk pillow after another

To let that coat off me was to give the whole thing away. My rig underneath, though good enough for your

girl, Tom, on a holiday, wasn't just what they wear in the Square. And, d'ye know, you'll say it's silly, but I

had a conviction that with that coat I should say goodby to the nerve I'd had since I got into the Bishop's

carriage,and from there into society. I let her take the hat, though, and I could see by the way she handled

it that it was all rightthe thing; her kind, you know. Oh, the girl I got it from had good taste, all right.

I closed my eyes for a moment as I lay there and she stood stroking my hair. She must have thought I'd fallen

asleep, for she turned to the Bishop, and holding out her hand, she said softly:

"My dear, dear Bishop, you are the besthearted, the saintliest man on earth. Because you are so beautifully

cleansouled yourself, you must pardon me. I am ashamed to say it, but I shall have no rest till I do. When I

saw you in the carriage downtown, with that poor, demented child, I thought, for just a momentoh, can you

forgive me? It shows what an evil mind I have. But you, who know so well what Edward is, what my life has

I shook, I laughed so hard. What a corker her Edward must be! See, Tom, poor old Mrs. Dowager up in the

Square having the same devil's luck with her man as Molly Elliott down in the Alley has with hers. I wonder

if you're all alike. No, for there's the Bishop. He had taken her hand sympathizingly, forgivingly, but his

silence made me curious. I knew he wouldn't let the old lady believe for a moment I was luny, if once he

could be sure himself that I wasn't. You lie, Tom Dorgan, he wouldn't! WellBut the poor baby, how could

he expect to see through a game that had caught the Dowager herself? Still, I could hear him walking softly

toward me, and I felt him looking keenly down at me long before I opened my eyes.

When I did, you should have seen him jump. Guilty he felt. I could see the blood rush up under his clear, thin

I just looked, bigeyed, up at him. You know; the way Molly's kid does, when he wakes. I looked a long,

"Yesyes, of course." It was the Dowager who got between him and me, hinting heavily at him with nods

and frowns. But the dear old fellow only got pinker in the effort to look a lie and not say it. Still, he looked

relieved. Evidently he thought I was luny all right, but that I had lucid intervals. I heard him whisper

something like this to the Dowager just before the maid came in with tea for me.

Yes, Tom Dorgan, tea for Nancy Olden off a silver salver, out of a cup like a painted eggshell. My, but that

almost floored me! I was afraid I'd give myself dead away with all those little jars and jugs. So I said I wasn't

hungry, though, Lord knows, I hadn't had anything to eat since early morning. But the Dowager sent the maid

away and took the tray herself, operating all the jugs and pots for me, and then tried to feed me the tea. She

was about as handy as Molly's little sister is with the babybut I allowed myself to be coaxed, and drank it

Tea, Tom Dorgan. Ever taste tea? If you knew how to behave yourself in polite society, I'd give you a card to

How to get away! That was the thing that worried me. I'd just made up my mind to have a lucid interval,

Tom, you're mighty cuteso cute you'll land us both behind bars some daybut you can't guess who came

Well, the old duffer whose watch was ticking inside my waist that very minute! Yes, sir, the same redfaced,

bignecked fellow we'd spied getting full at the little station in the country. Only, he was a bit mellower than

She got lost. It couldn't be my daddythe Bishop was that. But it was her husband, so who could it be?

"Evening, Bishop. Hello, Henrietta, back so soon from the opera?" roared Edward, in a big, husky voice. He'd

had more since we saw him, but he walked straight as the Bishop himself, and he's a dear little ramrod.

"Ah!"his eyes lit up at sight of me"ah, MissMissof course, I've met the young lady, Henrietta, but

"Therethere. It's only a joke. Isn't it a joke, Edward?" she demanded, laughing uneasily.

"Joke?" he repeated with a hearty bellow of laughter. "Best kind of a joke, I call it, to find so pretty a girl

I couldn't help it. The fun of hearing the Dowager lie and knowing the Bishop beside himself with the pain of

deception was too much for me. I could see she didn't dare trust her Edward with my sad story.

"Ho! ho! The Bishopthat's good. No, my dear Miss Murieson, if this lady's your mother, why, I must

beat least, I ought to be, your father. As such, I'm going to have all the privileges of a parentbless me, if

I don't suppose he'd have done it if he'd been sober, but there's no telling, when you remember the reputation

the Dowager had given him. But he'd got no further than to put his arm around me when both the Bishop and

the Dowager flew to the rescue. My, but they were shocked! I couldn't help wondering what they'd have done

if Edward had happened to see the Bishop in the same sort of tableau earlier in the afternoon.

But I got a lucid interval just then, and distracted their attention. I stood for a moment, my head bent as

"I think I'll go now," I said at length. "II don't understand exactly how I got here," I went on, looking from

the Bishop to the Dowager and back again, "or how I happened to miss my father. I'm everso much

obliged to you, and if you will give me my hat, I'll take the next train back to college."

"You'll do nothing of the sort," said the Dowager, promptly. "My dear, you're a sweet girl that's been

"And stay for dinner. Don't you care. Sometimes I don't know how I get here myself." Edward winked

Well, I did. While the Dowager's back was turned, I gave him the littlest one, in return for his. It made him

"I think," said the Bishop, grimly, with a significant glance at the Dowager, as he turned just then and saw the

old cock ogling me, "the young lady is wiser than we. I'll take her to the station"

"Impossible, my dear Bishop," interrupted the Dowager. "She can't be permitted to go back on the train

"Why, MissMiss Murieson, I'll see you back all the way to the college door. Not at all, not at all. Charmed.

First, we'll have dinneror, first I'll telephone out there and tell 'em you're with us, so that if there's any rule

The telephone! This wretched Edward with half his wits gave me more trouble than the Bishop and the

Dowager put together. She jumped at the idea, and left the room, only to come back again to whisper to me:

"What name? what name?" I repeated blankly. What name, indeed. I wonder how "Nance Olden" would have

"Don't hurry, dear, don't perplex yourself," she whispered anxiously, noting my bewilderment. "There's

"I can't thinkI can't think. There's one girl has nervous prostration, and her name's got mixed with mine,

"Hush, hush! Never mind. You shall come and lie down in my room. You'll stay with us tonight, anyway,

"Nonsense'phone." It was Edward who went himself to telephone for the doctor, and I saw my time getting

But the Bishop had to go, anyway. He looked out at his horses shivering in front of the house, and the sight

"My child," he said, taking my hand, "just let Mrs. Ramsay take care of you tonight. Don't bother about

anything, but just rest. I'll see you in the morning," he went on, noticing that I kind of clung to him. Well, I

did. "Can't you remember what I said to you in the carriagethat I wished you were my daughter. I wish you

Tom Dorgan, you think no prayers but a priest's are any good, you bigoted, snickering Catholic! I tell you if

some day I cut loose from you and start in over again, it'll be the Bishop's prayers that'll do it.

The Dowager and I passed Edward in the ball. He gave me a look behind her back, and I gave him one to

match it. Just practice, you know, Tom. A girl can never know when she'll want to be expert in these things.

She made me lie down on a couch while she turned the lamp low, and then left me alone in a big palace of a

bedroom filled with things. And I wanted everything I saw. If I could, I'd have lifted everything in sight.

But every minute brought that doctor nearer. Soon as I could be really sure she was gone, I got up, and,

hurrying to the long French windows that opened on the great stone piazza, I unfastened them quietly, and

There within ten feet of me stood Edward. No escape that way. He saw me, and was tiptoeing heavily toward

me, when I heard the door click behind me, and in walked the Dowager back again.

"It frightened me so that I got up to look. Nobody could be out there, could they?"

"No, nobody could be out there," she said, breathing hard, "but you might get nervous just thinking there

And go we did, in spite of all I could plead about feeling well enough now to go alone and all the rest of it.

I began to think about the Correction again as I followed her upstairs, and after she'd left me I just sat waiting

for the doctor to come and send me there. I didn't much care, till I remembered the Bishop. I could almost see

his face as it would look when he'd be called to testify against me, and I'd be standing in that railedin

prisoner's pen, in the middle of the courtroom, where Dan Christensen stood when they tried him.

No, I couldn't bear that; not without a fight, anyway. It was for the Bishop I'd got into this part of the scrape.

While I lay thinking it over, the same maid that had brought me the tea came in. She was an ugly, thin little

thing. If she's a sample of the maids in that house, the lot of them would take the kink out of your pretty hair,

Thomas J. Dorgan, Esquire, late of the House of Refuge and soon of Moyamensing. Don't throw things.

She had been sent to help me undress, she said, and make me comfortable. The doctor lived just around the

"I really don't need any help, thank you, Nora,'; I said, chipper as a sparrow, and remembering the name the

Dowager had called her by. "Aunt Henrietta is too fussy, don't you think? Oh, of course, you won't say a

word against her. She told me the other day that she'd never had a maid so sensible and quickwitted, too, as

her Nora. Do you know, I've a mind to play a joke on the doctor when he comes. You'll help me, won't you?

Oh, I know you will!" Suddenly I remembered the Bishop's bill. I took it out of my pocket. Yep, Tom, that's

where it went. I had to choose between giving that skinny maid the biggest tip she ever got in her lifeor

You needn't swear, Tom Dorgan. I fancy if I'd got there, you'd got worse. No, you bully, you know I wouldn't

In her cap and apron, I let the doctor in and myself out. And I don't regret a thing up there in the Square

except that lovely red coat with the high collar and the hat with the fur on it. I'd giveTom, get me a coat

No, there's one thing I could do better if it was to be done over again. I could make that dear little old Bishop

Yes, emptyhanded, Tom Dorgan. And I can't honestly say I didn't have the chance, butif my hands are

There's a girl I know with short brown hair, a turnedup nose and gray eyes, rather far apart. You know her,

But this girloh, she makes such a pretty boy! And the ladies at the hotel over in Brooklyn, they just dote on

her when she's not only a boy but a bellboy. Her name may be Nancy when she's in petticoats, but in

Now, Nat, in blue and buttons, with his nails kept better than most boys', with his curly hair parted in the

middle, and with a gentle tang to his voice that makes him almost girlishwho would suspect Nat of having

a stolen passkey in his pocket and a pretty fair knowledge of the contents of almost every top

Not Mrs. Sarah Kingdon, a widow just arrived from Philadelphia, and desperately gone on young Mr. George

Moriway, also fresh from Philadelphia, and desperately gone on Mrs. Kingdon's money.

The tips that lady gave the bad boy Nat! I knew I couldn't make you believe it any other way; that's why I

The hotel woman, you know, girls, is a hotel woman because she isn't fit to be anything else. She's lazy and

selfish and little, and she's shifted all her legitimate cares on to the proprietor's shoulders. She actuallyyou

can understand and share my indignation, can't you, Tom, as you've shared other things?she even gives

over her black tin box full of valuables to the hotel clerk to put in the safe; the coward! But her vanityah,

there's where we get her, such speculators as you and myself. She's got to outshine the woman who sits at the

next table, and so she borrows her diamonds from the clerk, wears 'em like the peacock she is, and trembles

In the meantime she locks them up in the tin box which she puts in her top bureaudrawer, hides the key,

forgets where she hid it, andO Tom! after searching for it for hours and making herself sick with anxiety,

she ties up her head in a wet handkerchief with vinegar on it andrings the bell for the bellboy!

As I said, he's a prompt, gentle little bellboy, slight, looks rather young for his job, but that very youth and

"Nat," says Mrs. Kingdon, tearfully pressing half a dollar into the nice lad's hand, "II've lost something and

"It must be hereit must be in this room," says the lady, getting wild with the terror of losing. "I'm

surepositivethat I went straight to the shoebag and slipped it in there. And now I can't find it, and I

must have it before I go out this afternoon forfor a very special reason. My daughter Evelyn will be home

"I told you once. My keya little flat key that locksa box I've got," she finishes distrustfully.

"Why, of course I have, you little stupid. I want you to hunt other places where I can't easily get. There are

Well, I looked for that key. Where? Where not? I looked under the rubbish in the wastepaper basket; Mrs.

Kingdon often fooled thieves by dropping it there. I pulled up the corner of the carpet and looked thereit

was loose; it had often been used for a hidingplace. I looked in Miss Evelyn's boot and in her ribbon box. I

emptied Mrs. Kingdon's full powder box. I climbed ladders and felt along cornices. I looked through the

pockets of Mrs. Kingdon's gownsa clever bellboy it takes to find a woman's pocket, but even the real

masculine ones among 'em are half feminine; they've had so much to do with women.

I rummaged through her writingdesk, and, in searching a goldcornered pad, found a note from Moriway

hidden under the corner. I hid it again carefullyin my coat pocket. A loveletter from Moriway, to a

woman twenty years older than himself'tain't a bad lay, Tom Dorgan, but you needn't try it.

At first she watched every move I made, but later, as her headache grew worse, she got desperate. So then I

put my hand down into the shoebag and found the key, where it had slipped under a fold of cloth.

"I knew it was there. I told you it was there. If you'd had any sense you'd have looked there first. The boys in

She nodded. She was fitting the key into the black box she'd taken from the top drawer. Nat had got to the

"NatNatcome back! My diamondsthey're not here. I know I put them back last nightI'm positive. I

could swear to it. I can see myself putting them in the chamois bag, andO my God, where can they be!

Nat could have told herbut what's the use? He felt she'd only lose 'em again if she had 'em. So he let them

lie snug in his trousers pocketwhere he had put the chamois bag, when his eyes lit on it, under the corner

of the carpet. He might have passed it over to her then, but you see, Tom, she hadn't told him to look for a

This time she followed his every step. He could not put his hand on the smallest thing without rousing her

suspicion. If he hesitated, she scolded. If he hurried, she fumed. Most unjust, I call it, because he had no

So down we went. And we met Mr. Moriway there. She'd telephoned him. The chambermaid was called, the

housekeeper, the electrical engineer who'd been fixing bells that morning, and, as I said, a bellboy named

Nat, who told how he'd just come on duty when Mrs. Kingdon's bell rang, found her key and returned it to

"Yees, I guess he is; but where are the diamonds? We must have themyou knowtoday, George," she

whispered. And then she turned and went upstairs, leaving Moriway to do the rest.

"There's only one thing to do, Major," he said to the proprietor. "Search 'em all and then"

"Search me if ye loike," growled McCarthy, resentfully. "Oi wasn't there but a minute; the lady herself can

Katie, the chambermaid, flushed painfully, and there were indignant tears in her eyes, which, I'll tell you in

But the boy Nat; knowing that bellboys have no rights, said nothing. But he thought. He thought, Tom

Out of the corner of his eye, Nat looked at the bellboy's bench. It was empty. There was to be a ball that

But Number Twentyone didn't budge. His heart was beating like a hammer, and the tingngng of that

Oh, he's got a devil of a temper, has that clerk. Some day, Tom, when you love me very much, go up to the

That time he caught the Major's earthe one that wasn't deaf. He looked from Powers' black face to the

Number Twentyone gotbut leisurely. It wouldn't do for a bellboy to hurry, particularly when he had

Oh, girls, those stone stairs, the servants' stairs at the St. James! They're fierce. I tell you, Mag, scrubbing the

floors at the Cruelty ain't so bad. But this time I was jolly glad bellboys weren't allowed in the elevator. For

there were those diamonds in my pants pocket, and I must get rid of 'em before I got down to the office again.

So I climbed those stairs, and every step I took my eye was searching for a hidingplace. I could have pitched

the little bag out of a window, but Nancy Olden wasn't throwing diamonds to the birds, any more than Mag

here is likely to cut off the braids of red hair we used to play horse with when we drove her about the Cruelty

The third flightmy knees began to tremble, and not with climbing. The call came from this floor. But I ran

up a fourth just on the chance, and there in a corner was a fire hatchet strapped to the wall. Behind that

hatchet Mrs. Kingdon's diamonds might lie snug till evening. I put the ends of my fingers first in the little

crack to make sure the little bag wouldn't drop to the floor, and then dived into my pocket and

And there behind me, stealthily coming up the last turn of the stairs was Mr. George Moriway!

Don't you hate a softwalking man, Mag? That cute fellow was cuter than the old Major himself, and had

"There's something loose with this hatchet, sir," I said, innocently looking down at him.

"Oh, there is? What an observing little fellow you are! Never mind the hatchet; just tell me what number you

He looked at me for full a minute. I stared him straight in the eye. A nasty eye he's gotblack and bloodshot

"I may be," he said slowly, "but not about the number. Just you turn around and get down to 331."

"All right, sir. Thank you very much. It might have got me in trouble. The ladies are so particular about

`I guess you'll get in trouble all right," he said and stood watchingfrom where he stood he could watch me

every inch of the waytill I got to 331, at the end of the hall, Mrs. Kingdon's door.

"Why did they send you?" she cried. "Why did you keep me waiting so long? I want a chambermaid. I've

rung a dozen times. The whole place is crazy about that old ball tonight, and no one can get decent

She was just closing the door in my faceand Moriway waiting for me to watch me down again.

She caught hold of my coat. But Lordy! I didn't want to get away a little bit. I let her pull me in, and then I

`Diamonds! Oh, no, ma'am. I hope I'm not a thief. Butbut it was something you droppedthis."

The poor old lady! Being a bellboy you know just how old ladies really are. This one at evening, after her

face had been massaged for an hour, and the manicure girl and the hairdresser had gone, wasn't so bad. But

today, with the marks of the morning's tears on her agitated face, with the blood pounding up to her temples

where the hair was thin and grayTom Dorgan, if I'm a vain old fool like that when I'm three times as old as

I am, just tie a stone around my neck and take me down and drop me into the nearest water, won't you?

"You abominable little wretch!" she sobbed. "I suppose you've told everybody in the office."

"There! there!" she patted my shoulder and gave me a dollar bill. "I was a bit hasty, Nat. It's only aa little

business matter that Mr. Moriway's attending to for me. Wewe'll finish it up this afternoon. I shouldn't like

Miss Kingdon to know of it, becausebecause Inever like to worry her about business, you know. So

"No'm. Shall I fasten your dress?" I simply had to stay in that room till I could get rid of those diamonds.

With a faded old blushthe nicest thing about her I'd ever seenshe turned her back.

No, she wouldn't mind. She backed up to the corner like a gentle little lamb. While I hooked with one hand, I

dropped the little bag where the carpet was still turned up, and with the toe of my shoe spread it flat again.

Moriway was still watching me, of course, when I came out, but I ran downstairs, he following close, and

when the Major got hold of me, I pulled my pockets inside out like a little man.

Moriway was there at the time. I knew he wasn't convinced. But he couldn't watch a bellboy all day long,

and the moment I was sure his eyes were off me I was ready to get those diamonds back again.

But not a call came all that afternoon from the west side of the house, except the call of those pretty, precious

things snug under the carpet calling, calling to me to come and get them and drop bellboying for good.

At last I couldn't stand it any longer. There's only one thing to do when your chance won't come to you; that

is, to go to it. At about four o'clock I lit out, climbed to the second story and thereMag, I always was the

luckiest girl at the Cruelty, wasn't I? Well, there was suite 231 all torn up, plumbers and painters in there, and

nothing in the world to prevent a boy's skinning through when no one was watching, out of the window and

Just outside of Mrs. Kingdon's window I lay still a minute. I had seen her and Moriway go out togethershe

all gay with finery, he carrying her bag. The lace curtains in 331 were blowing in the breeze. Cautiously I

parted them and looked in. Everything was lovely. From where I lay I reached down and turned back the flap

of the carpet. It was too easy. Those darling diamonds seemed just to leap up into my hand. In a moment I

had them tucked away in my pants pocket. Then down the fireescape and out through 231, where I told the

But he paid no attention to me. No one did, though I felt those diamonds shining like an Xray through my

very body. I got downstairs and was actually outside the door, almost in the street and off to you, when a girl

Do you know who it was? Oh, yes, you do, a dear old friend of mine from Philadelphia, a young lady whose

tastewell, all right, I'll tell you: it was the girl with the red coat, and the hat with the chinchilla fur.

How did they look? Oh, fairly well on a blonde! But to my taste the last girl I'd seen in the coat and hat was

Well, I carried her suitcase and followed her back into the hotel. I didn't want to a bit, though that coat

She sailed up the hall and into the elevator, and I had to follow. We got of at the third story, and she brought

"Did she tell you that? Too bad she isn't at home! She said she'd be kept busy all day today with a business

She took out her key and opened the door, and I followed her in with the suitcase. But before I could get it

set down on the floor, she had swooped on a letter that was lying in the middle of the table, had torn it open,

"Where is this church? Come, help me to get to it before five and I'lloh, you shall have anything in the

She flew out into the hall, I after her. And first thing you know we were down in the street, around the corner,

and there in front of the church was a carriage with Moriway just helping Mrs. Kingdon out.

At that cry the old lady's knees seemed to crumble under her. Her poor old painted face looked out ghastly

and ashamed from her wedding finery. But Evelyn in her red coat flew to her and took her in her arms as

though she was a child. And like a child, Mrs. Kingdon sobbed and made excuses and begged to be forgiven.

I looked at Moriway. It was all the pay I wantedparticularly as I had those little diamonds.

"You're just in time, Miss Kingdon," he said uneasily, "to make your mother happy by your presence at her

"I'm just in time, Mr. Moriway, to see that my mother's not made unhappy by your presence."

"I've come to take care of you, you silly little mother, dear . . . . It won't be tomorrow, Mr. Moriway."

"In fact, mother's changed her mind, Mr. Moriway. She thinks it ungenerous to accept such a sacrifice from a

"Well, perhaps, George" She looked up from her daughter's shouldershe was crying all over that

precious red coat of mineand her eyes lit on me. "Ohyou wicked boy, you told a lie!" she gasped. "You

But that was an unlucky laugh of mine; it turned his wrath on me. He made a dive toward me. I ducked and

ran. Oh, how I ran! But if he hadn't slipped on the curb he'd have had me. As he fell, though, he let out a yell.

May you never hear it, Mag, behind you when you've somebody else's diamonds in your pocket. It

soundsit sounds the way the bay of the hounds must sound to the hare. It seems to fly along with the air; at

I heard it bellowed in a dozen different voices, and every now and then I could hear Moriway as I pelted

That whistle was like a signalI saw the gates of the Correction open before me. I saw your Nance, Tom, in

a neat striped dress, and she was behind barsbarsbars! There were bars everywhere before me. In fact, I

felt them against my very hands, for in my mad race I had shot up a blind alleya street that ended in a

I grabbed the diamonds to throw them from me, but I couldn'tI just couldn't! I jumped the fence where the

gate was low, and with that whistle flying shrill and shriller after me I ran to the house.

I might have jumped from the fryingpan? Of course, I might. But it was all fire to me. To be caught at the

end is at least no worse than to be caught at the beginning. Anyhow, it was my one chance, and I took it as

unhesitatingly as a rat takes a leap into a trap to escape a terrier. Onlyonly, it was my luck that the trap

wasn't set! The room was empty. I pushed open a glass door, and fell over an open trunk that stood beside it.

It bruised my knee and tore my hand, but oh!it was nuts to me. For it was a woman's trunk filled with

A skirt! A blessed skirt! And not a striped one. I threw off the bellboy's jacket and I got into that dear dress

The jacket was a bit tight but I didn't button it, and I'd just got a stiff little hat perched on my head when I

heard the tramp of men on the sidewalk, and in the dusk saw the cop's buttons at the gate.

Caught? Not much. Not yet. I threw open the glass doors and walked out into the garden.

You bet I didn't take time to see who it was talking before I answered. Of course I was Miss Omar. I was

It was a lazy, low voice with a laugh in it, and it came from a wheeled chair, where a young man lay. Sallow

he was and slim and long, and helplessyou could see that by his white hanging hands. But his voiceit

was what a woman's voice would be if she were a man. It made you perk up and pretend to be somewhere

near its level. It fitted his soft, black clothes and his fine, clean face. It meant silks and velvets and

"Excuse me, Mr. Latimer." The cop came in as he spoke, Moriway following; the rest of the hounds hung

about. "There's a thieving bellboy from the hotel that's somewhere in your grounds. Can I come in and get

"Strange, and I here all the time! I may have dozed of, though. Certainlycertainly. Look for the little rascal.

What's he stolen? Diamonds! Tut! tut! Enterprising, isn't he? . . . Miss Omar, won't you kindly reach the bell

yonderno, on the table; that's itand ring for some one to take the officer about?"

Do you know what happened? An electric light strung on the tree above the table shone out, and there I stood

My fingers trembled so, the bell clattered out of them and fell jangling to the ground. But it rang. And the

"I beg your pardon, Mr.was Moriway the name?I must have interrupted you, but my eyes are troubling

me this evening, and I can't bear the light. Miss Omar, I thought the housekeeper had instructed you: one ring

means lights, two mean I want Burnett. Here he comes. . . Burnett, take Sergeant Mulhill through the place.

"Miss Omar reads to me, Mr. Moriway. I'm an invalid, as you see, dependent on the good offices of my man.

"It must be. Particularly if the voice is pleasing. Miss OmarI didn't quite catch the name"

"Yes, that's the name. You've got it all right," said Latimer. "An uncommon name, isn't it?"

"I don't think I ever heard it before. Do you know, Miss Omar, as I heard your voice just before we got to the

"Mr. Latimer does not find it sodo you?" I said as sweetas sweet as I could coax. How sweet's that, Tom

"Not at all." A little laugh came from Latimer as though he was enjoying a joke all by himself. But Moriway

"A pitiful position," sneered Moriway. "You look so much like a boy I know that"

"Do you really think so?" So awfully polite was Latimer to such a rat as Moriway. Why? Well, wait. "I can't

agree with you. Do you know, I find Miss Omar very feminine. Of course, short hair"

"Yes," I snapped. "I thought it was at the time. My hair was very heavy and long, and I had a chance to sit in

Rotten? Of course it was. I'd no business to gabble, and just because you and your new job, Mag, came to my

"Yes." Latimer smoothed the soft silk rug that lay over him. "Poverty and that sort of versatility are often

"Oh! the old lady who was married this afternoon to a young fortunehunter!" I couldn't resist it.

"Changed her mind? How sensible of her! Did she find out what a crook the fellow was? What was his

"May I ask, Miss Omar"I didn't have to see his face; his voice told how mad with rage he was"how you

come to be acquainted with a matter that only the contracting parties could possibly know of?"

"Why, they can't have kept it very secret, the old lady and the young rascal who was after her money, for you

see we both knew of it; and I wasn't the bride and you certainly weren't the groom, were you?"

"Just keep your seat, Miss Omar." Oh, that silken voice of Latimer's! "Mr. Moriway, I have absolutely no

acquaintance with you. I never saw you till tonight. I can't imagine what you may have to say to me, that my

"I want to say," burst from Moriway, "that she looks the image of the boy Nat, who stole Mrs. Kingdon's

"But you have said it, Mr. Moriwayquite successfully intimated it, I assure you."

"Ahh!" Latimer's shoulders shook with a gentle laugh. "Well, Mr. Moriway, gentlemen don't swear in my

garden. Particularly when ladies are present. Shall we say good evening? Here comes Mulhill now. . . .

Nothing, Sergeant? Too bad the rogue escaped, but you'll catch him. They may get away from you, but they

They tramped on and out, Moriway's very back showing his rage. He whispered something to the Sergeant,

"Warm, isn't it?" Latimer leaned forward. "Now, would you mind ringing again, Miss Omar?"

"How quick you are to learn!" he said. "But I really wanted the light this time. . . . Just light up, Burnett," he

The electric bulb flashed out again just over my head. Latimer turned and looked at me. When I couldn't bear

"Pardon," he said, smiling; nice teeth he has and clear eyes. "I was just looking for that boyish resemblance

Mr. Moriway spoke of. I hold to my first opinionyou're very feminine, Miss Omar. Will you read to me

now, if you please?" He pointed to a big open book on the table beside his couch.

"I thinkif you don't mind, Mr. Latimer, I'll begin the reading tomorrow." I got up to go. I was through

Silken voice? Not a bit of it! I turned on him so furious I thought I didn't care what came of itwhen over by

We didn't learn much poetry at the Cruelty, did we, Mag? But I know some now, just the same. When I began

to read I heard only one wordMoriwayMoriwayMoriway. But I must haveforgotten him after a

time, and the dark garden with the light on only one spot, and the roses smelling, and Latimer lying perfectly

still, his face turned toward me, for I was readinglisten, I bet I can remember that part of it if I say it

Oh, Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make, And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake:

For all the sin wherewith the Face of Man Is blacken'dMan's forgiveness giveand take!

when all at once Mr. Latimer put his hand on the book. I looked up with a start. The shadow by the gate

Yon rising Moon that looks for us again How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;

How oft hereafter rising look for us Through this same Gardenand for ONE in vain!

Latimer was saying it without the book and with a queer smile that made me feel I hadn't quite caught on.

"If ever you come to lie on your back day and night, year in and year out, and know that never in your life

will it be any different, you may take pleasure in a bit of excitement andand learn to pity the under dog,

who, in this case, happened to be a boy that leaped over the gate as though his heart was in his mouth. Just as

you would admire the nerve of the young lady that came out of the house a few minutes after in your

"Good night. . . . Oh, Miss" He didn't say "Omar""there is a favor you might do me."

"Those diamonds. I've got to have them, you know, to send them back to their owner. I don't mind helping

aa person who helps himself to other people's things, but I can't let him get away with his plunder without

Why didn't I lie? Because there are some people you don't lie to, Tom Dorgan. Don't talk to me, you bully,

I'm savage enough. To have rings and pins and earrings, a whole bagful of diamonds, and to haul 'em out of

"I wonder," he said slowly, as he put them away in his own pocket, "what a man like me could do for a girl

Oh, Mag, Mag, for heaven's sake, let me talk to you! No, don't say anything. You must let me tell you.

You know how I kicked when Tom hit on Latimer's as the place we were to scuttle. And the harder I kicked

the stubborner he got, till he swore he'd do the job without me if I wouldn't come along. Wellthis is the rest

The house, you know, stands at the end of the street. If you could walk through the garden with the iron fence

you'd come right down the bluff on to the docks and out into East River. Tom and I came up to it from the

docks last night. It was dark and wet, you remember. The mud was thick on my trousersNance Olden's a

"We'll blow it all in, Tom," I said, as we climbed. "We'll spend a week at the Waldorf, and then, Tom

Dorgan, we'll go to Paris. I want a red coat and hat with chinchilla, like that dear one I lost, and a lowneck

"Tom Dorgan," I said, "I'll bet your own teeth chattered the first time you went in for a thing like this. I'm all

With a good, strong swing he boosted me over, handed me the bag of tools and sprang over himself. . . . He

looked kind o' handsome and fine, my Tom, as he lit square and light on his feet beside me. And because he

Oh, Mag, it was so funny, going through Latimer's garden! There was the garden table where I had sat

reading and thinking he took me for Miss Omar. There was the bench where that beast Moriway sat sneering

at me. The wheeled chair was gone. And it was so late everything looked asleep. But something was left

behind that made me think I heard Latimer's slow, silken voice, and made me feel cheapturned inside out

"You'll stay here, Nancy, and watch," Tom whispered. "You'll whistle once if a cop comes inside the gate,

but not before he's inside the gate. Don't whistle too soonmind thatnor too loud. I'll hear ye all right.

And I'll whistle just once ifanything happens. Then you runhear me? Run like the devil"

Mag, were you ever where you oughtn't to be at midnightalone? No, I know you weren't. 'Twas your ugly

little face and your hair that saved youthe red hair we used to guy so at the Cruelty. I can see you nowa

frecklefaced, thin little devil, with the tangled hair to the very edge of your ragged skirt, yanked in that first

day to the Cruelty when the neighbors complained your crying wouldn't let 'em sleep nights. The old woman

had just locked you in there, hadn't she, to starve when she lit out. Mothers are queer, ain't they, when they

I stood it all right for a time, out there alone in the night. But I never was one to wait patiently. I can't

If I hadn't waited so hard at the very first I wouldn't 'a' given out so soon. But I stood so still and listened so

terribly hard that the trees began to whisper and the bushes to crack and creep. I heard things in my head and

ears that weren't sounding anywhere else. And all of a suddentramp, tramp, trampI heard the cop's

He stopped over there by the swinging electric light above the gate. I crouched down behind the iron bench.

I thought I'd die. I thought I'd scream. I thought I'd run. I thought I'd faint. But I didn'tfor there, asleep on a

rug that some one had forgotten to take in, was the house cat. I gave her a quick slap, and she flew out and

Mag Monahan, if Tom had come out that minute without a bean and gone home with me, I'd been so relieved

I'd never have tried again. But he didn't come. Nothing happened. Nights and nights and nights went by, and

the stillness began to sound again. My throat went choking mad. I began to shiver, and I reached for the rug

Funny, how some things strike you! This was Latimer's rug. I had noticed it that eveninga warm, soft,

mottled green that looked like silk and fur mixed. I could see the way his long, white hands looked on it, and

Oh, Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make, And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake: For all the Sin

Ever hear a man like that say a thing like that? No? Well, it'sit's different. It's as if the river had

That saved methat verse that I remembered. I said it over and over and over again to myself. I fitted it to

the ferry whistles on the bayto the cop's steps as they passed againto the roar of the Ltrain and the

And right in the middle of itevery drop of blood in my body seemed to leak out of me, and then come

Oh, it's easy to say "run," and I really meant it when I promised Tom. But you see I hadn't heard that whistle

then. When it came, it changed everything. It set the devil in me loose. I felt as if the world was tearing

I did runbut it was toward the house. That whistle may have meant "Go!" To me it yelled "Come!"

I got in through the window Tom had left open. The place was still quiet. Nobody inside had heard that

I crept alongthe carpets were thick and soft and silky as the rug I'd had my hands buried in to keep 'em

Along a long hall and through a great room, whose walls were thick with books, I was making for a light I

could see at the back of the house. That's where Tom Dorgan must be and where I must be to find outto

With my hands out in front of me I hurried, but softly, and just as I had reached the portieres below which the

light streamed, my arms closed about a thingcold as marble, nakedI thought it was a dead body upright

there, and with a cry, I pitched forward through the curtains into the lighted room.

You recognize it? Yep, it was Tom. Big Tom Dorgan, at the foot of Latimer's bed, his hands above his head,

His eyes turned on me for just a second, and then fixed themselves again on Tom. But his voice went straight

I didn't say anything. You don't say things in answer to things like that. You feel 'em.

Ashamed? What do I care for a man with a voice like that! . . . But you should have heard how Tom's growl

"There seems invariably to be a misunderstanding of signals where Miss Omar is concerned. Also a

disposition to use strong language in the lady's presence. Don't you, young man!"

I could have killed him then, I hated him so. At least, I thought I could; but just then Tom sent a spark out of

You know, Mag, what it would have meant to Latimer if I had done what Tom's eye said.

I thought at first I had done itit passed through my mind so quick; the sweet words I'd saythe move I'd

It was thatthat sight of Tom, big Tom Dorgan, with rage in his heart and death in his hand, leaping on that

I stood there gaspingstood a moment too long. For the curtains were pushed aside, and Burnett, Latimer's

But Iwell, never mind about me. I caught a glimpse of a crazy white face on a boy's body in the great glass

"It's your own fault, you damned little chump!" he said to me, as they went out.

You lie, Mag Monahan, he's no such thing! He may be a hard man to live with, but he's minemy

Well, do you know, it's funny about him. He'd told the cop that I'd peachedpeached on Tom! So they went

"In order to insure for myself another of your most interesting visits, I suppose, Missnot Omar? All right. .

"To me? Things of that sort are nothing, of course, to meme, that `luckless Pot He marr'd in making.' But,

tell mecan a girl like you tell the truth? What made you hesitate when that fellow told you with his eyes to

"How? The glass. See over yonder. I could watch every expression on both your faces. What was itwhat

was it, child, that made youoh, if you owe me a single heartbeat of gratitude, tell me the truth!"

His face went gray and he fell back on his pillows. The strenuous life we'd been leading him, Tom and I, was

Do you know, I really felt sorry I'd said it. But he is a cripple. Did he expect me to say he was big and strong

I left him there and got out and away. But do you know what I saw, Mag, beside his bed, just as Burnett came

My old blue coat with the buttonsthe bellboy's coat I'd left in the housekeeper's room when I borrowed

her Sunday rig. The coat was hanging over a chair, and right by it, on a table, was that big book with a picture

Nonono! No more whining from Nance Olden. Listen to what I've got to tell you, Mag, listen!

You know where I was coming from yesterday when I passed Troyon's window and grinned up at you, sitting

there, framed in bottles of hair tonic, with all that red wig of yours streaming about you?

Yep, from that little, rateyed lawyer's office. I was glum as mud. I felt as though Tom and myself were both

flies caught by the leghe by the law and I by the lawyerin a sticky mess; and the more we flapped our

wings and struggled and pulled, the more we hurt and tore ourselves, and the sooner we'd have to give it up.

Oh, that wizenfaced little lawyer that lives on the Tom Dorgans and the Nance Oldens, who don't know

which way to turn to get the money! He looks at me out of his red little eyes and measures in dollars what I'd

When I passed the big department store, next to Troyon's, I was thinking of this, and I turned in there, just

aching for some of the boodle that flaunts itself in a poor girl's face when she's desperate, from every silk and

The funny part of it is that I didn't want it for myself, but for Tom. 'Pon my soul, Mag, though I would have

filled my arms with everything I saw, I wouldn't have put on one thing of all the duds; just hiked off to soak

'em and pay the lawyer. I might have been as old and ugly and rich as the yellowskinned woman opposite

me, who was turning over laces on the middle counter, for all these things meant to mewith Tom in jail.

You know it takes a pretty quick touch, sharp eyes and good nerve to get away with the goods in a big shop

like that. Or it takes something altogether different. It was the different way she did it. She took up the piece

of laceit was a big collar, fine like a cobweb picture in threads,you can guess what it must have been

worth if that old sinner, Mother Douty, gave me fifteen dollars for it. She took it up in a quick, eager way, as

though she'd found just what she wanted. Then she took out a lace sample from her goldlinked purse and

held them both up close to her blinky little eyes, looking at it through a gold lorgnette with emeralds in the

handle; pulling it and feeling it with the air of one who knows a fine thing when she sees it, and just what

makes it fine. Then she rustled off to the door to examine it closely in the light, andMag Monahan, she

She pulled herself up haughtily and blinked at me. She was a little, thin mummy of a woman, just wrapped

away in silks and velvets, but on the inside of that nervous, little old body of hers there must have been some

Her shortsighted eyes fell from my face to the collar she held in her hand. Her yellow face grew ghastly.

"Sh! We don't like any noise made about these things, and you yourself wouldn't enjoy"

"Do you know who I am, young woman?" She fumbled in her satchel and passed a card to me.

Glory be! Guess, Mag. Oh, you'd never guess, you dear old Mag! Besides, you haven't got the acquaintance

OhMag! Shame on you not to know the name even of the Bishop of the great state ofyes, the lean, short

little Bishop with a little white beard, and the softest eye and the softest heart and my very own Bishop,

Tuttut, Mag! Of course not. A bishop's wife may be a kleptomaniac; it's only Cruelty girls that really steal

"I've met the Bishop, Mrs. Van Wagenen." I didn't say how she wouldn't appreciate that story.

"And he was once very kind to me. But he would be the first to tell me to do my duty now. I'll do it as quietly

"Don'tdon't say it! It's all a mistake, which can be rectified in a moment. I've been trying to match this

piece of lace for years. I got it at Malta whenwhen Mills and Ion our honeymoon. When I saw it there

on the counter I was so delightedI never thoughtI intended taking it to the light to be sure the pattern

was the same, my eyesight is so wretchedand when you spoke to me it was the first inkling I had that I had

really taken it without paying! You certainly understand," she pleaded in agitation. "I have no need to

stealyou must know thatoh, that I wouldn'tthatI couldn'tIf you will just let me pay you"

Here now, Mag Monahan, don't you get to sneering. She was straightright on the level, all right. You

couldn't listen to that cracked little voice of hers a minute without being sure of it.

I was just about to permit her graciously to pay me the money,for my friend? the dear Bishop's sake, of

"If you'll come with me, Mrs. Van Wagenen, to a dressingroom, I'll arrange your collar for you," I said very

loud. And then, in a whisper: "Of course, I understand, but the thing may look different to other people. And

that big floorwalker there gets a commission from the newspapers every time he tells them"

She gave a squawk for all the world like a driedup little hen scuttling out of a yellow dog's way, and we

The minute I closed the door of the little fittingroom she held out the lace to me.

"I have changed my mind," she said, "and shall give you the lace back. I will not keep it. I can notI can not

bear the sight of it. It terrifies me and shocks me. I can take no pleasure in it. Besidesbesides, it will be

discipline for me to do without it now that I have found it after all these years. Every day I shall look at the

place in my collection which it would have occupied, and I shall say to myself: `Maria Van Wagenen, take

warning. See to what terrible straits a worldly passion may bring one; what unconscious greed may do!' I

shall give the money to Mills for charity and I will nevernever fill that place in my collection."

"What good will that do?" I asked, puzzled, while I folded the collar up into a very small package.

"You mean that I ought to submit to the exposurethat I deserve the lesson and the punishmentnot for

stealing, but for being absorbed in worldly things. Perhaps you are right. It certainly shows that you have at

some time been under Mills' spiritual care, my dear. I wonder if he would insistwhether I oughtyes, I

A saleswoman's head was thrust in the door. "Excuse me," she said, "I thought the room was empty."

"Don't go!" The Bishop's wife turned to her, her little fluttering hands held out appealingly. "And do not

misunderstand me. The thing may seem wrong in your eyes, as this young woman says, but if you will listen

patiently to my explanations I am sure you will see that it was a mere eager oversightthe fault of

absentmindedness, hardly the sin of covetousness, and surely not a crime. I am making this confession"

The tender conscience of the dear, blameless little soul! She was actually giving herself away. Worseshe

was giving me away, too. But I couldn't stand that. I saw the saleswoman's puzzled faceshe was a tall

woman with a big bust, big hips and the big head all right, and she wore her longtrain black rig for all the

world like a Cruelty girl who had stolen the matron's skirt to "play lady" in. I got behind little Mrs. Bishop,

The saleswoman tumbled. That was all right. But so did the Bishop's wife; for she turned and caught me at it.

"You shall not save me from myself and what I deserve," she cried. "I am perfectly sane and you know it, and

you are doing me no favor in trying to create the contrary impression. I demand an"

"An interview with the manager," I interrupted. "I'm sure Mrs. Van Wagenen can see the manager. Just go

She did it meek as a lamb, talking all the time, but never beginning at the beginningluckily for me. So that

I had time to slip from one dressingroom to the next, with the lace up my sleeve, out to the elevator, and

D'ye know what heaven must be, Mag? A place where you always get away with the swag, and where it's

Cocky? Well, I should say I was. I was drunk enough with success to take big chances. And just while I was

wishing for something really big to tackle, it came along in the shape of that big floorwalker!

He was without a hat, and his eyes looked fifty ways at once. But you've got to look fiftyone if you want to

catch Nance Olden. I ran up the stairs of the first flathouse and rang the bell. And as I sailed up in the

The boy let me off at the top floor, and after the elevator had gone down I walked up to the roof. It was fine

'way up there, so still and high, with the lights coming out down in the town. And I took out my pretty lace

collar and put it around my neck, wishing I could keep it and wishing that I had, at least, a glass to see myself

It would do for a mirror all right, for the dark green shade was down. But at sight of the shade blowing in the

It's this way, Mag, when they press you too far; and that little rat of a lawyer had got me most to the wall. I

looked at the window, measuring the little climb it would be for me to get to it,the house next door was

just one story higher than the one where I was, so its top story was on a level with the roof nearly where I

stood. And I made up mymind to get what would let Tom off easy, or break into jail myself.

And so I didn't care much what I might fall into through that window. And perhaps because I didn't care, I

slipped into a dark hall, and not a thing stirred; not a footstep creaked. I felt like the PrincessPrincess

Nancy Oldencome to wake the Sleeping Beauty; some dude it'd be that would have curly hair like Tom

Can you see me there, standing on one leg like a stork, ready to lie or to fly at the first sound?

Well, the first sound didn't come. Neither did the second. In fact, none of 'em came unless I made 'em myself.

Softly as Molly goes when the baby's just dropped off to sleep, I walked toward an open door. It was a parlor,

smelly with tobacco, and with lots of papers and books around. And nary a hebeautynor any other kind.

Silly! Don't you tumble yet? It was a bachelor's apartment, and the Bachelor Beauty was out, and Princess

I suppose I really ought to have left my cardor he wouldn't know who had waked himbut I hadn't

intended to go calling when I left home. So I thought I'd look for one of his as a souvenirand anything else

There were shirts I'd liked for Tom, dandy colored ones, and suits with checks in 'em and without. But I

wanted something easy and small and flat, made of crackly printed yellow or green paper, with numbers on it.

How did I know he had anything like that? Why, Mag, Mag Monahan, one would think you belonged to the

I had to turn on the electric light after a bitit got so dark. And I don't like light in other people's houses

when they're not at home, and neither am I. But there was nothing in the bedroom except some pearl studs. I

The desk caught my eye. Oh, Mag, it had the loveliest pictures on itpictures of swell actresses and dancers.

It was mahogany, with lots of little drawers and two curvy side boxes. I pulled open all the drawers. They

were full of papers all right, but they were printed, cut from newspapers, and all about theaters.

"You can't feed things like this, Nance, to that shark of a lawyer," I said to myself, pushing the box on the

Just 'causeI had pushed that side box till it swung aside on hinges I didn't know about, and there, in a little

secret nest, was a pile of those same crisp, crinkly paper things I'd been looking for.

Three hundred and ten dollars, Mag Monahan. Three hundred and ten, and Nance Olden!

The Bachelor Beauty had come home, Mag, and nabbed the poor Princess, instead of her catching him

He wasn't a beauty eithera big, stout fellow with a black mustache. His hand on my shoulder held me tight,

but the look in his eyes behind his glasses held me tighter. I threw out my arms over the desk and hid my

He picked up the bills I had dropped, counted them and put them in his pocket. Then he unhooked a

"Hello! Spring 3100please. Hello! Chief's office? This is Obermuller, Standard Theater. I want an officer

to take charge of a thief I've caught in my apartments here at the Bronsonia. Yes, right on the corner. Hold

"So thoughtful of you, seeing that you'd be searched! But I'll take 'em, anyway. You intended them

"Hum!" It was half a laugh, and half a sneer. I hated him for it, as he sat leaning back on the back legs of his

chair, his thumbs in his armholes. I felt his eyesthose smart, keen eyes, burning into my miserable head. I

You'd have sniffled yourself, Mag Monahan. There I wascaught. The cop'd be after me in five minutes.

The sting in his voice had cured me. I never was a weeper. I sat up, my face blazing, and stared at him. He'd

"Not much, whatever it may be. It's your graftit's everybody'sto take all he can get, and keep out of jail.

"Oh, I think you needn't worry about that. I'll keep out, thank you; imprisonment for debt don't go nowadays."

"I'm a theatrical manager, my girl, and I'm not on the inside: which is another way of saying that a man who

"A little less exultation, my dear, or I might suppose you'd be glad when I do."

"Well, when you know yourself going down for the last time, do you mean to tell me you won't grasp at a

straw likelike this?" I nodded toward the open window, and the desk with all its papers tumbling out.

"Not much." He shook his head, and bit the end of a cigar with sharp, white teeth. "It's a fool graft. I'm

selfrespecting. And I don't admire fools." He lit his cigar and puffed a minute, taking out his watch to look

at it, as coldbloodedly as though we were waiting, he and I, to go to supper together. Oh, how I hated him!

"Honesty isn't the best policy," he went on; "it's the only one. The vain fool that gets it into his heador shall

I say her head? No? Well, no offense, I assure youhis head then, that he's smarter than a world full of

experience, ought to be put in jailfor his own protection; he's too big a jay to be left out of doors. For five

thousand years, more or less, the world has been putting people like him behind bars, where they can't make

asses of themselves. Yet each year, and every day and every hour, a new ninny is born who fancies he's

cleverer than all his predecessors put together. Talk about suckers! Why, they're giants of intellect compared

to the mentally lopsided that five thousand years of experience can't teach. When the criminalclown's turn

comes, he hops, skips and jumps into the ring with the old, old gag. He thinks it's new, because he himself is

so fresh and green. `Here I am again,' he yells, `the fellow that'll do you up. Others have tried it. They're dead

in jail or under jailyards. But mejust watch me!' We do, and after a little we put him with his mates and a

keeper in a barred kindergarten where fools that can't learn, little moral cripples of both sexes, my dear,

belong. Bah!" He puffed out the smoke, throwing his head back, in a cloud toward the ceiling.

I sprang from my seat and faced him. I was tingling all through. I didn't care a rap what became of me for just

that minute. I forgot about Tom. I prayed that the cop wouldn't come for a minute yetbut only that I might

"You're mighty smart, ain't you? You can sit back here and sneer at me, can't you? And feel so big and smart

and triumphant! What've you done but catch a girl at her first bungling job! It makes you feel awfully cocky,

don't it? `What a big man am I!' Bah!" I blew the smoke up toward the ceiling from my mouth, with just that

satisfied gall that he had had; or rather, I pretended to. He let down the front legs of his chair and began to

"And you don't know it all, Mr. Manager, not you. Your clowncriminal don't jump into the ring because he's

so full of fun he can't stay out. He goes in for the same reason the real clown doesbecause he gets hungry

and thirsty and sleepy and tired like other men, and he's got to fill his stomach and cover his back and get a

place to sleep. And it's because your kind gets too much, that my kind gets so little it has to piece it out with

"There's a girl named Nancy Olden that could tell you a lot, smart as you are. She could show you the inside

of the Cruelty, where she was put so young she never knew that children had mothers and fathers, till a

redhaired girl named Mag Monahan told her; and then she was mighty glad she hadn't any. She thought that

all little girls were bloodless and dirty, and all little boys were filthy and had black purple marks where their

fathers had tried to gouge out their eyes. She thought all women were like the matron who came with a visitor

up to the bare room, where we played without toysthe new, dirty, newlybruised ones of us, and the old,

clean, healing ones of usand said, `Here, chicks, is a lady who's come to see you. Tell her how happy you

are here.' Then Mag's freckled little face, her finger in her mouth, looked up like this. She was always afraid it

might be her mother come for her. And the crippled boy jerked himself this wayI used to mimic him, and

he'd laugh with the rest of themover the bare floor. He always hoped for a penny. Sometimes he even got

"And the boy with the gouged eyehe would hold his pants up like this. He had just come in, and there was

nothing to fit him. And he'd put his other hand over his bad eye and blink up at her like this. And the littlest

boyoh, ha! ha! ha!you ought have seen that littlest boy. He was in skirts, an old dress they'd given me to

wear the first day I came; there were no pants small enough for him. He'd back up into the corner and hide his

facelike thisand peep over his shoulder; he had a squint that way, that made his face so funny. See, it

makes you laugh yourself. But his bodymy God!it was blue with welts! And meI'd put the baby

down that'd been left on the doorsteps of the Cruelty, and I'd waltz up to the lady, the nice, patronizing, rich

lady, with her handkerchief to her nose and her lorgnette to her eyessee, like this. I knew just what graft

would work her. I knew what she wanted there. I'd learned. So I'd make her a curtsy like this, and in the

There was a heavy step out in the hallit was the policeman! I'd forgot while I was talking. I was

backback in the empty garret, at the top of the Cruelty. I could smell the smell of the poor, the dirty, weak,

sick poor. I could taste the porridge in the thick little bowls, like those in the bear story Molly tells her kid. I

could hear the stifled sobs that wise, poor children givequiet ones, so they'll not be beaten again. I could

feel the night, when strange, deserted, tortured babies lie for the first time, each in his small white cot, the

new ones waking the old with their cries in a nightmare of what had happened before they got to the Cruelty.

I could see the world barred over, as I saw it first through the Cruelty's barred windows, and as I must see it

"You see, you don't know it quite allyet, Mr. Manager!" I spat it out at him, and then walked to the cop,

"But there's one thing I do know!" He's a big fellow but quick on his feet, and in a minute he was up and

between me and the cop. "And there isn't a theatrical man in all America that knows it quicker than Fred

Obermuller, that can detect it sooner and develop it better. And you've got it, girl, you've got it! . . . Officer,

take this for your trouble. I couldn't hold the fellow, after all. Never mind which way he went; I'll call up the

He shut the door after the cop, and came back to me. I had fallen into a chair. My knees were weak, and I was

"Well, it's a scene in a foundling asylum. Here's a pass. Go up now and see it. If you hurry you'll get there

just in time for that act. Then if you come to me at the office in the morning at ten, I'll give you a chance as

Do you remember Lady Patronesses' Day at the Cruelty, Mag? Remember how the place smelt of cleaning

ammonia on the bare floors? Remember the black dresses we all wore, and the white aprons with the little

bibs, and the oily sweetness of the matron, and how our faces shone and tingled from the soap and the

Well, who'd 'a' thought then that Nance Olden ever would make use of iton the level, too!

Drop the Cruelty, and tell you about the stage? Why, it's bare boards back there, bare as the Cruelty, but oh,

there's something that you don't see, but you feel itsomething magic that makes you want to pinch yourself

to be sure you're awake. I go round there just doped with it; my face, if you could see it, must look like

And what do I do? That's what I was trying to tell you about the Cruelty for. It's in a little act that was made

for Lady Gray, that there are four Charity girls on the stage, and I'm one of 'em.

Lady Gray? Why, Mag, how can you ever hope to get on if you don't know who's who? How can you expect

me to associate with you if you're so ignorant? Yesa real Lady, as real as the wife of a Lord can be. Lord

Harold Gray's a sure enough Lord, and she's his wife butbut a chippy, just the same; that's what she is, in

spite of the Gray emeralds and that great Gray rose diamond she wears on the tiniest chain around her

scraggy neck. Do you know, Mag Monahan, that this Lady Harold Gray was just a chorus girland a sweet

You'd better keep your eye on Nancy Olden, or first thing you know she'll marry the Czar of Russiaor Tom

Dorgan, poor fellow, when he gets out! . . . Well, just the same, Mag, if that whitefaced, scrawny little

creature can be a Lady, a girl with ten times her brains, and at least half a dozen times her good looksoh,

Can she act? Don't be silly, Mag! Can't you see that Obermuller's just hiring her title and playing it in big

letters on the bills for all it's worth? She acts the Lady Patroness, come to look at us Charity girls. She comes

on, though, looking like a fairy princess. Her dress is just blazing with diamonds. There's the Lady's coronet

in her hair. Her thin little arms are banded with gold and diamonds, and on her neckO Mag, Mag, that rose

diamond is the color of roseleaves in a fountain's jet through which the sun is shining. It's longlong as my

Well, it blazes dollars into Obermuller's box all right, for the Gray jewels are advertised in the bill with this

You see it's this way: Lord Harold Gray's bankrupt. He's poor asas Nance Olden. Isn't that funny? But he's

got the family jewels all right, to have as long as he lives. Nary a one can he sell, though, for after his death,

they go to the next Lord Gray. So he makes 'em make a living for him, and as they can't go on and exhibit

But do you know it isn't the two hundred dollars a week that makes me envy her till I'm sick; it's that rose

diamond. If you could only see it, Mag, you'd sympathize with me, and understand why my fingers just

'Pon my soul, Mag, the sight of it blazing on her neck dazzled me so that it shut out all the staring audience

"What's doped you, Olden?" Obermuller asked when the curtain went down, and we all hurried to the wings.

I was in the black dress with the whitebibbed apron, and I looked up at him still dazed by the shine of that

diamond and my longing for it. You'd almost kill with your own hands for a diamond like that, Mag!

"That's just it," he said, looking at me curiously; but I could feel his disappointment in me.

"You didn't do anythingnot a blasted thing more than you were told to do. The world's full of supers that

He threw back his head before he answered, puffing a mouthful of smoke up at the ceiling, as he did the night

he caught me. The gesture itself seemed to remind him of what had made him think in the first place he could

"Well," he said, "we'll wait and see. . . I was mistaken, though, sure enough, about one thing that night." I

"You're a darn sight prettier than I thought you were. The gold brick you sold me isn't all"

He put out his hand to touch my chin. I sidestepped, and he turned laughing to the stage.

Oh, I was drunk, Mag, drunk with thinking about that diamond! I didn't care even to please Obermuller. I just

wanted the feel of that diamond in my hand. I wanted it lying on my own neckthe lovely, cool, shining,

rosy thing. It's like the sunrise, Mag, that beauty stone. It's just a tiny pool of water blushing. It's

How to get it! How to get away with it! On what we'd get for that diamond, Tom and Iwhen his time is

upcould live for all our lives and whoop it up besides. We could live in Paris, where great grafters live and

grafting payswhere, if you've got wit and fifty thousand dollars, and happen to be a "darn sight prettier,"

But, do you know, even then I couldn't bear to think of selling the pretty thing? It hurt me to think of anybody

Gray has a dressingroom to herself. And on her tablewhich is a big box, open end downjust where the

threesided big mirror can multiply the jewels and make you want 'em three times as bad, her big

russialeather, silvermounted box lies open, while she's dressing and undressing. Other times it's locked

tight, and his Lordship himself has it tight in his own right hand, or his Lordship's man, Topham, has it just as

How to get that diamond! There was a hard nut for Nance Olden's sharp teeth to crack. I only wanted

thatnever say I'm greedy, MagGray could keep all the rest of the thingsthe pigeon in rubies and

pearls, the tiara all in diamonds, the chain of pearls, and the blazing rings, and the waisttrimming all of

emeralds and diamond stars. But that diamond, that huge rose diamond, I couldn't, I just couldn't let her have

And yet I didn't know the first step to take toward getting it, till Beryl Blackburn helped me out. She's one of

the Charities, like mea tall bleached blonde with a pretty, pale face and goldgray eyes. And, if you'd

believe her, there's not a man in the audience, afternoon or evening, that isn't deadgone on her.

"Guess who's my latest," she said to me this afternoon, while we four Charities stood in the wings waiting.

"Tophamnothing!" I sneered. "Beryl Bighead, Topham thinks of only one thingMilady's jewelbox.

"Oh, does he, Miss! Well, just to prove it, he let me try on the rose diamond last night. There!"

"It's easy to say so but I don't see the proof. He'd lose his job so quick it'd make his head spin if he did it."

"Not me. Why would I? I don't believe it, and I wouldn't expect anybody else to. I don't believe you could get

"Done! I'll send for him tonight, just before Gray and her Lord come, and you see"

"Well, you be waiting in the little hall, right of Gray's dressingroom at seventhirty tonight andyou

Catch on, Mag? At seventhirty in the evening I was waiting; but not in the little hall of Gray's

dressingroom. I hadn't gone home at all after the afternoon performanceyou know we play at three, and

again at eightthirty. I had just hidden me away till the rest were gone, and as soon as the coast was clear I

got into Gray's dressingroom, pushed aside the chintz curtains of the big box that makes her

Lord, how the hours dragged! I hadn't had anything to eat since lunch, and it got darker and darker in there,

and hot and close and cramped. I put in the time, much as I could, thinking of Tom. The very first thing I'd do

after cashing in, would be to get up to Sing Sing to see him. I'm crazy to see him. I'd tell him the news and

Afraidme? What of? If they found me under that box I'd just give 'em the Beryl story about the bet. How

do you know they wouldn't believe it? . . . Oh, I don't care, you've got to take chances, Mag Monahan, if you

go in for big things. And this was bighuge. Do you know how much that diamond's worth? And do you

I spent it all therein the boxevery penny of it. When I got tired spending money I dozed a bit and, in my

dream, spent it over again. And then I waked and tried to fancy new ways of getting rid of it, but my head

ached, and my back ached, and my whole body was so strained and cramped that I was on the point of giving

He set the big box down with a bang that nearly cracked my head. He turned on the lights, and stood

whistling Tommy Atkins. And then suddenly there came a soft call, "Topham! Topham!"

I leaned back and bit my fingers till I knew I wouldn't shriek. The Englishman listened a minute. Then the

Mag! He hadn't opened the box at all! There it stood in the middle of the space framed by the three glasses. I

pulled at the lid. Locked! I could have screamed with rage. But the sound of his step outside the door sobered

me. He was coming back. In a frantic hurry I turned toward the window which I had unlocked when I came in

four hours ago. But I hadn't time to make it. I heard the old fellow's hand on the door, and I tumbled back into

Slowly he began to place the jewels, one by one, in the order her Ladyship puts them on. We Charity girls

had often watched him from the doorhe never let one of us put a foot inside. He was method and order

itself. He never changed the order in which he lifted the glittering things out, nor the places he put them back

in. I put my hand up against the top of the box, tracing the spot where each piece would be lying. Think, Mag,

Oh, I was sore as I lay there! And I wasn't so cocksure either that I'd get out of it straight. I tried the Beryl

story lots of ways on myself, but somehow, every time I fancied myself telling it to Obermuller, it got tangled

But at least it would be better to appear of my own will before the old Englishman than be discovered by

Lord Gray and his Lady. I had my fingers on the curtains, and in another second I'd been out when

"Miss Beryl Blackburn's compliments, Mr. Topham, and would you step to the door, as there's something

Oh, I loved every syllable that callboy spoke! There was a giggle behind his voice, too; old Topham was the

butt of every joke. The first call, which had fooled me, must have been from some giddy girl who wanted to

guy the old fellow. She had fooled me all right. But thisthis one was the real article.

There was a pauseTopham must be looking about to be sure things were safe. Then he creaked to the door

It only took a minute, but in that minutein that minute, Mag, I had the rose diamond clutched safe in my

Oh, the feel of that beautiful thing in my hand! I'd 'a' loved it if it hadn't been worth a penny, but as it was I

adored it. I slipped the chain under my collar, and the diamond slid down my neck, and I felt its kiss on my

skin. I flew down the black corridor, bumping into scenery and nearly tripping two stage carpenters. I heard

Ginger, the callboy, ahead of me and dodged behind some properties just in time. He went whistling past

Nono, Mag, it wasn't a man. It was a memory. It rose up there and hit me right over the heartthe

memory of Nancy Olden's happiness the first time she'd come in this very door, feeling that she actually had a

right to use a stage: entrance, feeling that she belonged, sheNancyto this wonderland of the stage!

You must never tell Tom, Mag, promise! He wouldn't see. He couldn't understand. I couldn't make him know

But not behind me. I shut it on the street andMag, I shut for ever another door, too; the old door that opens

out on Crooked Street. With my hand on my heart, that was beating as though it would burst, I flew back

again through the black corridor, through the wings and out to Obermuller's office. With both my hands I

ripped open the neck of my dress, and, pulling the chain with that great diamond hanging to it, I broke it with

I don't know what happened for a minute. I could see his face change half a dozen ways in as many seconds.

He took it up in his fingers at last. It swung there at the end of the slender little broken chain like a great drop

"I want to see Tom," I begged. "It's so long since heHe's up atatin the country."

That finished me. I'm not used to being pitied. I sobbed and sobbed as though some dam had broken inside of

me. You see, Mag, I knew in that minute that I'd been afraid, deathly afraid of Fred Obermuller's face, when

it's scornful and sarcastic, and of his voice, when it cuts the flesh of selfconceit off your very bones. And the

It was Gray. She stormed in, followed by Lord Harold and Topham, and half the company.

"The diamond, the rose diamond!" she shrieked. "It's gone! And the carpenters say that new girl Olden came

"Olden!" she squealed. "Grab her, Topham. I'll bet she stole that diamond, and she can't have got rid of it

"You'd win only half your bet, my Lady," Obermuller said softly. "She did get hold of the Gray rose, worth

The world seemed to fall away from me. I looked up at him. I couldn't believe he'd go back on me.

"And she brought it straight to me, as I had asked her to, and promised to raise her salary if she'd win out.

For I knew that unless I proved to you it could be stolen, you'd never agree to hire a detective to watch those

things, which will get us all into trouble some day. Here! Scoot out o' this. It's nearly time for your number."

So did I; but he held out his hand as I passed. "It goesthat about a raise for you, Olden. Now earn it."

I got into the train, Mag, the happiest girl in all the country. I'd a big basket of things for Tom. I was got up in

my Sunday best, for I wanted to make a hit with some fellow with a key up there, who'd make things soft and

I had so much to tell him. I knew just how I'd take off every member of the company to amuse him. I had

memorized every joke I'd heard since I'd got behind the curtainnot very hard for me; things always had a

way of sticking in my mind. I knew the newest songs in town, and the choruses of all the old ones. I could

show him the latest tricks with cardsI'd got those at first hand from Professor Haughwout. You know how

great Tom is on tricks. I could explain the disappearing woman mystery, and the mirror cabinet. I knew the

clog dance that Dewitt and Daniels do. I had pictures of the trained seals, the great elephant act,

Mademoiselle Picotte doing her great tightrope dance, and the Brothers Borodini in their pyramid tumbling.

Yes, it was a whole vaudeville show, with refreshments between the acts, that I was taking up to Tom

Dorgan. I don't care much for a lot of that truckfunny, isn't it, how you get to turn up your nose at the

things you'd have given a finger for once upon a time? But Tomoh, I'd got everything pat for himmy

I'd got just so far in my thoughts, sitting there in the train, when I gave a shiver. I thought for a minute it was

at the idea of my Tom with one of those bare, round convictheads on him, that look like fat skeleton faces.

Both of us thought the same thing of each other for the first second that our eyes met. I could see that. He

And, Mag, it would be hard to say which of us would have been happier if it had been the truth. Oh, to meet

He got up and came over to me, smiling wickedly. Se took the seat behind me, and leaning forward, said

"Is Miss Omar engaged to read to some invalid up at Sing Sing? And for how long a termI should say,

I'd got through shivering by then. I was ready for him. I turned and looked at him in that very polite, distant

sort o' way Gray uses in her act when the Charity superintendent speaks to her. It's the only decent thing she

"Sister be hanged!" he said at last. "I know you, Nat, and I'm glad to my fingertips that you've got it in the

"You're altogether wrong, sir," I said very stately, but hurt a bit, you know. "I've often been taken for my

sister, but gentlemen usually apologize when I explain to them. It's hard enough to have a sister who" I

"Liars should have good memories," he sneered. "Miss Omar said she was an orphan, you remember, and had

"Did she say that? Did Nora say that?" I exclaimed piteously. "Oh, what a little liar she is! I suppose she

thought it made her more interesting to be so alone, more appealing to kindhearted gentlemen like yourself.

I hope she wasn't ungrateful to you, too, as she was to that kind Mr. Latimer, before he found her out. And

I wanted to look at him, oh, I wanted to! But it was my role to sit there with downcast eyes, justthe picture

of holy grief. I was the good onethe good, shocked sister, and though I wasn't a bit afraid of anything he

could do to me, or any game he could put up, I yearned to make him believe mejust because he was so

But his very silence sort of told me he almost believed, or that he was laying a trap.

"Mr. Latimerlie! Oh, you don't know him. He expected a lady to read to him that very evening. He had

"Yesthe housekeeper's, it happened to be her evening outwhy, he just naturally supposed Nora was Miss

"Very interesting! But it doesn't happen to be Latimer's version. And you say Latimer wouldn't lie."

I got palebut the paleness was on the inside of me. Think I was going to flinch before a chump like

"No. Latimer's note to Mrs. Kingdon said the diamonds were found in the bellboy's jacket the thief had left

"Well! It only shows what a bad habit lying is. Nora must have fibbed to me, for the pure pleasure of fibbing.

I'll never dare to trust her again. Do you believe then that she didn't have anything to do with the hotel

robbery? I do hope so. It's one less sin on her wicked head. It's hard, having such a girl in the family!" Oh,

He looked me straight in the eye. I looked at him. I was unutterably sad about that tough sister of mine, and I

"Well, I only saw her in the twilight," he said slowly, watching my face all the time. "You two sisters are

The train was slowing down, and I got up with my basket. I stood right before him, my full face turned

"Are we?" I asked simply. "Don't you think it's more the expression than anything else, and the voice? Nora's

He watched me as I went out. I felt his eyes on the back of my jacket, and I was tempted to turn at the door

and make a face at him. But I knew something better and safer than that. I waited till the train was just pulling

"I thought you were going to get out here," I called. "Are you sure you don't belong in Sing Sing, Mr.

I can see his face yet, Mag, and every time I think of it, it makes me nearly die of laughing. He had actually

been fooled another time. It was worth the trip up there, to make a guy of him once more.

And whether it was or not, Mag, it was all I got, after all. Forwould you believe Tom Dorgan would turn

out such a sorehead? He's kicked up such a row ever since he got there, that it's the dark cell for him, and

I begged, I bluffed, I cried, I coaxed, but many's the Nance Olden that has played her game against the rules

of Sing Sing, and lost. They wouldn't even let me leave the things for him, or give him a message from me.

And back to the station I had to carry the basket, and all the schemes I had to make old Tom Dorgan grin.

All the way back I had him in my mind. He's a tigerTomwhen he's roused. I could see him, shut up

there by himself, with not a soul to talk to, with not a human eye to look into, with not a thing on earth to

doTom, who's action itself! He never was much of a thinker, and I never saw him read even a newspaper.

What would he do to kill the time? Can't you see him there, at bay, back on his haunches, cursing and cursed,

I saw nothing else. Wherever I turned my eyes, that terrible picture was before me. And always it was just on

the verge of becoming something elsesomething worse. He could throttle the world with his bare hands, if

It was when I couldn't bear it a moment longer that I set my mind to find something else to think of.

I found it, Mag. Do you know what it was? It was just three wordsof Obermuller's: "Earn it now."

After all, Miss Monahan, this graft of honesty they all preach so much about hasn't anything mysterious in it.

All it is, is putting your wits to work according to the rules of the game and not against them. I was driven to

itthe thought of big Tom crouching for a spring in the dark cell up yonder sent me whirling out into the

thinking place, like the picture of the soul in the big book at Latimer's I read out of. And first thing you know,

'pon honor, Mag, it was as much fun planning how to "earn it now" as any lifting I ever schemed. It's getting

the best of people that always charmed meand here was a way to fool 'em according to law.

So busy I was making it all up, that the train pulled into the station before I knew it. I gave a last thought to

that poor old hyena of a Tom, and then put him out of my mind. I had other fish to fry. Straight down to

"A fool girl, mother, on her way up to Sing Sing, lost her basket, and Nance Olden found it; it ought to be

She grinned. You couldn't make old Douty believe that the Lord himself wouldn't steal if He got a chance.

Why did I lie to her? Not for practice, I assure you. She'd have beaten me down to the last cent if she thought

it was mine, but she always thinks there'll be a find for her in something that's stolen. So I let her think I'd

With what she gave me I bought a wig. Mag, I want you some day, when you can get off, to come and see

that wig. I shouldn't wonder but you'd recognize it. It's red, of very coarse hair, but a wonderful color, and so

long ityes, it might be your own, Mag Monahan, it's so much like it. I went to the theater and got my

Charity rig, took it home, and sat for hours there just looking at 'em both. When evening came I was ready to

You see, Obermuller had given me the whole day to be away, and neither Gray nor the other three Charities

expected me back. I had to do it on the sly, you sassy Mag! Yes, it was partly because I love to cheat, but

more because I was bound to have my chance once whether anybody else enjoyed it or not.

I came to the theater in my Charity rig and the wig. It looked as if I'd slept in it, and it came down to the

draggled hem of the skirt. All the way there I walked like you, Mag. Once, when a newsboy grinned at me

and shouted "Carrots!" I grinned backyour own, old Cruelty grin, Mag. I vow I felt so much like youas

you used to bethat when I lurched out on the stage at last, stumbling over my shoe laces and trying to push

the hair out of my eyes, you'd have sworn it was little Mag Monahan I making her debut in the Cruelty room.

Oh, Mag, Mag, you darling Mag! Did you ever hear a whole house, a great big theater full of a peevish

vaudeville audience, just rise at you, give one roar of laughter they hadn't expected at all to give, and then

Girl alive, I just had 'em! They couldn't take their eyes off me. If I squirmed, they howled. If I stood on one

foot, scratching the torn leg of my stocking with the otheryou know, Mag!they yelled. If I grinned, they

Oh, Mag, can't you see? Don't you understand? I was It. The center of the stage I carried round with meit

was just Nancy Olden. And for ten minutes Nancy had nothing to do but to play with 'em. 'Pon my life, Mag,

it's just like stealing; the old graft exactly; it's so fascinating, so busy, and risky, except that they play the

When the curtain fell it was different. Grays followed by the Charities, all clean and spickandspan

andnot in it; not even on the edge of itstormed up to Obermuller standing at the wings.

"I'll quit the show here and now," she squawked. "It's a shame, a beastly shame. How dare you play me such

a trick, Fred Obermuller? I never was treated so in my lifeto have that dirty little wretch come tumbling on

like that, without even so much as your telling me you'd made up all this new business for her! It's indecent,

anyway. Why, I lost my cue. There was a gap for a full minute. The whole act was such a ghastly failure that

"That you'd better go out now and make your prettiest bow, Gray. Phew! Listen to the house roar. That's what

Me? I didn't say a word. I looked at Obermuller andand I just did like this. Yes, winked, Mag Monahan. I

Well, I suppose I am screaming and the Troyons will put me out, buthe justwinkedback!

And then Gray came trailing back into the wings, and the shrieking and thumping and whistling out in front

just went onand onand onand on. Um! I just listened and loved itevery thump of it. And I stood

there like a demure little kitten; or more like Mag Monahan after she'd had a good licking, and was good and

"Well, Nance, you have earned it. The gall of you! But it only proves that Fred Obermuller never yet bought

a gold brick. Only, let me in on your racket next time. There, go ontake it. It's yours."

He gave me a bit of a push. 'Twas just a lovepat. I stumbled out on to the stage.

And that's why, Marguerite de Monahan, I want you to buy in with the madam here. Let 'em keep on calling

it Troyon's as much as they want, but you're to be a partner on the money I'll give you. If this fairy story lasts,

it'll be your own, Maga sort of commission you get on my takeoff of you. But if anything happens to the

worldif it should go crazy, or get sane, and not love Nancy Olden any more, why, here'll be a place for me,

Does it look that way? Divil a bit, you croaker! It looksit lookslisten and I'll tell you how it looks.

It looks as though Gray and the great Gray rose diamond and the three Charities had all become a bit of

It looks as though the audience likes the sound of my voice as much almost as I do myself; anyway, as much

It looks as though the press, if you please, had discovered a new stage star, for down comes a little reporter to

interview meme, Nancy Olden! Think of that, Mag! I receive him all in my Charity rig, and in

Obermuller's office, and he asks me silly questions and I tell him a lot of nonsense, but some truths, too,

about the Cruelty. Fancy, he didn't know what the Cruelty was! S. P. C. C., he calls it. And all the time we

talked a longhaired German artist he had brought with him was sketching Nance Olden in different poses.

What d'ye think Tom Dorgan'd say to see half a page of Nancy Olden in the XRay? Wouldn't his eyes pop?

Poor old Tom! . . . No dangerthey won't let him have the papers. . . . My old Tommy!

Well, it looks as though the Trustyes, the big and mighty T. T.short for Theatrical Trust, you

innocenthad heard of that same Nance Olden you read about in the papers. For one night last week, when

I'd just come of and the house was yelling and shouting behind me, Obermuller meets me in the wings and

I pulled up my stocking and followed. You know I wear it in that act without a garter, and it's always coming

down the way yours used to, Mag. Even when it doesn't come down I pull it up, I'm so in the habit of doing

A little bit of a man, baldheaded, with a dyspeptic little black mustache turned down at the corners, watched

"Clever little girl," he says through his nose. "How much do you stick Obermuller for?"

"Clever little man," say I, bold as brass and through my own nose; "none of your business."

"Hiyou, Olden!" roared Obermuller, as though I'd run away and he was trying to get the bit from between

my teeth. "Answer the gentleman prettily. Don't you know a representative of the mighty T. T. when you see

him? Can't you see the Syndicate aureole about his noble brow? This gentleman, Nance, is the great and only

Max Tausig. He humbleth the exalted and uplifteth the lowlyor, if there's more money in it, he gives to

him that hath and steals from him that hasn't, but would mighty well like to have. He has no conscience, no

bowels, no heart. But he has got tin and nerve and power to beat the band. In short, and for all practical

purposes for one in your profession, Nancy Olden, he's just God. Down on your knees and lick his

bootsTrust gods wear boots, patent leathersand thank him for permitting it, you lucky baggage!"

I looked at the little man; the angry red was just fading from the top of his cocoanutshaped bald head.

"You always were a fool, Obermuller," he said cordially. "And you were always overfond of your

lowcomedian jokes. If you hadn't been so smart with your tongue, you'd had more friends and not so many

"But where do I expect to go when I die? Good theatrical managers, Nance, when they die as individuals go

to Heaventhey get into the Trust. After that they just touch buttons; the Trust does the rest. Bad onesthe

kickersthe Fred Obermullers go toa place where salaries cease from troubling and royalties are at rest.

It's a slow place wherewhere, in short, there's nothing doing. And only one thing's donethe kicker. It's

that place Mr. Tausig thinks I'm bound for. And it's that place he's come to rescue you from, from sheer

goodness of heart and a wary eye for all there's in it. Cinch him, Olden, for all the traffic will bear!"

I looked from one to the otherObermuller, big and savage underneath all his gay talk, I knew him well

enough to see that; the little man, his mouth turned down at the corners and a sneer in his eye for the fellow

"You must not give the young woman the big head, Obermuller. Her own is big enough, I'll bet, as it is. I ain't

prepared to make any startling offer to a little girl that's just barely got her nose above the wall. The slightest

shake might knock her off altogether, or she mightn't have strength enough in herself to hold on. But we'll

give her a chance. And because of what it may lead to, if she works hard, because of the opportunities we can

Obermuller didn't say anything. His own lips and his own eyes sneered now, and he winked openly at me,

"Blast it!" he twanged. "I mean it. If you've got any notion through my coming down to your dirty little joint

that we've set our hearts on having the girl, just get busy thinking something else. She may be worth

"Exactly. It ain't our policy to leave any doubtful cards in the enemy's hands. He can have the bad ones. He

"Well, that's just where you're mistaken!" Obermuller thrust his hands deep in his pockets and put out that

square chin of his like the fighter he is. " `This girl Olden' is anything but doubtful. She's a big card right now

if she could be well handled. And the time isn't so far off when, if you get her, you people will be"

Mag, you should have seen 'em jumpboth of 'em; the little man with vexation, the big one with surprise.

A contract! Me?Nance Olden! Why, Mag, you innocent, of course I hadn't. Managers don't give sixyear

"What's your game, Olden?" he cried. "You're too deep for me; I throw up my hands. Come; what've you got

in that smart little head of yours? Are you holding out for higher stakes? Do you expect him to buy that great

sixyear contract and divvy the proceeds with me? Because he willwhen once they get their eye on you,

they'll have you; and to turn up your nose at their offer if in just the way to make them itch for you. But how

the deuce did you find it out? And where do you get your nerve from, anyway? A little beggar like you to

refuse an offer from the T. T. and sit hatching your schemes on your little old 'steen dollars a week! . . . It'll

"All right, just as you say," I laughed. "But why aren't you in the Trust, Fred Obermuller?"

"Um!well, because society's prejudiced against lifting, but the Trust isn't. Do you know that's a great graft,

"Because a Trust is a lot of sailors on a raft who keep their places by kicking off the drowning hands that

clutch at it. Can you fancy a fellow like Tausig stooping down to help me tenderly on board to divide the

"No, but I can fancy you grappling with him till he'd be glad to take you on rather than be pulled off himself."

"You'd be in with the push, would you, Olden, if you were managing?" he asked with a grin.

"Then why the deuce didn't you jump at Tausig's offer? Were you really crafty enough"

"I am artiste, Monsieur Obermuller," I gutturaled like Mademoiselle Picotte, who dances on the wire. "I

He laughed. Say, Mag, that big fellow is like a boy when he's pleased. I guess that's what makes it such fun to

"Well, why don't you make use of it? Take me round to the theaters and let me mimic all the swell actors and

actresses. I've got more chance with you than with that Trust gang. They wouldn't give me room to do my

He chuckled. I thought I had him going. I saw Nance Olden spending her evenings at the big Broadway

Say, Mag, I wouldn't like to get that man Obermuller hopping mad at me, and Nancy Olden's no coward,

either. But the way he gritted his teeth at that note and the devil in his eyes when he lifted them from it, made

"That was a great suggestion of yours, Olden, to put Lord Gray on to act himselfgreat!" His voice shook,

"Well!" I snapped. I wasn't going to let him see that a big man raging could bluff Nance Olden.

What did he mean? Whyjust this: there was Lord Harold Gray, the real Lord behind the scenes, bringing

the Lady who was really only a chorus girl to the show in his automobile; helping her dress like a maid;

holding her box of jewels as he tagged after her like a big Newfoundland; smoking his one cigarette solemnly

and admiringly while she was on the stage; poking after her like a tame bear. He's a funny fellow, that Lord

Harold. He's a Tom Dorgan, with the brains and the graft andand the brute, too, Mag, washed out of him; a

Tom Dorgan that's been kept dressed in swagger clothes all his life and living at topnotcha big, clean,

Yes, I'm coming to it. When I'd seen him go tagging after her chippy Ladyship behind the scenes long

enough, I told Obermuller one day that it was absurd to send the mock Lady out on the boards and keep the

live Lord hidden behind. He jumped at the idea, and they rigged up a little act for the twothe Lord and the

Lady. Gray was furious when she heard of ittheir making use of her Lord in such a waybut Lord Harold

"'Pon honor, it's a blawsted scheme, you know; but I'm jolly sure I'd make a bleddy ass of myself. I cawn't

But Obermuller explained to him that he needn't actjust be himself out behind the wings, and lo! Lord

Why, she gave in at last; pretended to, anywaysliding out of the Charity sketch, and rehearsing the thing

with him, and all that. Andand do you know what she did, Mag? (Nance Olden may be pretty mean, but

she wouldn't do a trick like that.) She waited till ten minutes before time for the thing to be put on and then

"She's so ill, her delicate Ladyship! So ill she just can't go on this evening! Wonder how long she thinks such

an excuse will keep Lord Harold off when I want him on!" growled Obermuller, throwing her note over to

me. He'd have liked to throw it at me if it'd been heavy enough to hurt; he was so thumping mad.

The Duke of Portmanteau . . . . Lord Harold Gray. The Duchess . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lady Gray.

The celebrated Gray jewels, including the great Rose Diamond, will be worn by Lady Gray in this number.

No wonder Obermuller was raging. I looked at him. You don't like to tackle a fellow like that when he's

"Thank you, so much." It was the way Gray says it when she tries to have an English accent. "Dress me up,

"You'd never know, if you were in the audience, that it wasn't Gray herself. I can take her off to the life, and

I did. I flew to Gray's dressingroom. She'd gone home deathly ill, of course. They gave me the best

seamstress in the place. She let out the waist a bit and pulled over the lace to cover it. I got into that mass of

silk and laceoh, silk on silk, and Nance Olden inside! Beryl Blackburn did my hair, and Grace Weston put

on my slippers. Topham, himself, hung me with those gorgeous shining diamonds and pearls and emeralds,

till I felt like an idol loaded with booty. There were so many standing round me, rigging me up, that I didn't

get a glimpse of the mirror till the second before Ginger called me. But in that secondin that second, Mag

Monahan, I saw a fairy with blazing cheeks and shining eyes, with a diamond coronet in her brown hair,

puffed high, and pearls on her bare neck and arms, and emeralds over the waist, and rubies and pearls on her

fingers, and sprays of diamonds like frost on the lace of her skirt, and diamond buckles on her very slippers,

and the rose diamond, like a sun, outshining all the rest; andand, Mag, it was me!

How did it go? Well, wouldn't it make you think you were a Lady, sure enough, if you couldn't move without

that lace train billowing after you; without being dazzled with diamondshine; without a truly Lord tagging

He kept his head, Lord Harold dideven if it is a muttonhead. That helped me at first. He was so cold, so

I tell you, Mag Monahan, there's one thing that's stronger than wine to a womanit's being beautiful. Oh!

And I was beautiful. I knew it before I got that quick hush, with the full applause after it. And because I was

beautiful, I got saucy, and then calm, and then I caught Fred Obermuller's voicehe had taken the book from

He was there yet when the act was over, and I trailed out, followed by my Lord. He let the promptbook fall

Cool? No, I wasn't. Not a bit of it. He was daffy with the sight of me in all that glory, and I knew it.

"Nance," he whispered, "you wonderful girl, if I didn't know about that little thief up at the Bronsonia

They didn't leave me till they'd stripped me clean. I felt like a Christmas tree the day after. But, somehow, I

Is that you, Mag? Well, it's about time you came home to look after me. Fine chaperon you make, Miss

Monahan! Why, didn't I tell you the very day we took this flat what a chaperon was, and that you'd have to be

No, 'tisn't late. Sit down, Maggie, there, and let me get the stool and talk to you. Think of us twoCruelty

girls, both of ustwo mangy kittens deserted by the old cats in a city's alleys, and left mewing with cold and

I say, it makes me proud of us! There are times when I look at every stick of furniture we own, and I try to

pretend to it all that I'm used to a decent roof over my head, and a diningroom, kitchen, parlor, bedroom and

bath. Oh, and I forgot the telephone the other tenant left here till its lease is up. But at other times I stand here

"Look at me, Nancy Olden, a householder, a rentpayer, the head of the family, even if it's only a family of

two and the other one Mag! Look at me, with my name in the directory, apaying milk bills and meat bills

and bread bills! Look at me with a place of my own, where nobody's right's greater than my own; where no

one has a right but me and Mag; a place wherewhere there's nothing to hide from the police!"

There's the rub, Mag, as Hamlet says(I went to see it the other night, so that I could take off the

Opheliashe used to be a good mimic herself, before she tried to be a leading lady.) It spoils you, this sense

of safeness that goes with the honesty graft. You lose the quickness of the hunter and the nerve of the hunted.

Andworseyou lose your taste for the old risky life. You grow proud and fat, and you love every stick in

the dear, quiet little place that's your homeyour own home. You love it so that you'd be ashamed to sneak

round where it could see youyou who'd always walked upright before it with the step of the mistress; with

nothing in the world to be ashamed of; nothing to prevent your staring each honest dishpan in the face! 1>

And, Mag, you tryif you're meto fit Tom Dorgan in hereTom Dorgan in stripes and savage sulks

stillall these monthskept away from the world, even the world behind bars! Maggie, don't you wish

Tom was a ventriloquist oror an acrobat orbut this isn't what I had to tell you.

Do you know what a society entertainer is, Miss Monahan? No? Well, look at me. Yes, I'm one. Miss Nance

Olden, whose services are worth fifty dollars a nightat least, they were one night.

Ginger brought me the note that made me a society entertainer. It was from a Mrs. Paul B. Gates, who had

been "charmed by your clever impersonations, Miss Olden, and write to know if you have the leisure to

Had I the leisurewell, rather! I showed the note to Gray, just to make her jealous. (Oh, yes, she goes on all

right in the act with Lord Harold every night. Catch her letting me wear those things of hers twice!) Well, she

"Oh! I only thought you'd feel as I should about appearing before a lot of snobs, who'll treat you like a

"Who'll do nothing of the sort and who'll pay you well for it," put in Obermuller. He had come up and was

reading the note I had handed to him. "You just say yes, Nance," he went on, after Gray had bounced of to

her dressingroom. "It isn't such a bad graft andand this is just between us two, mindthat little beggar,

Tausig, has begun his tricks since you turned his offer down. They can make things hot for me, and if they

do, it won't be so bad for you to go in for this sort of thingunless you go over to the Trust"

"Well, this thing will be an ad for you, besides,if the papers can be got to notice it. They're coy with their

notices, confound them, since Tausig let them know that big Trust ads don't appear in the same papers that

"Yes, there ought, but there isn't. They've got things down to a fine point, and the fellow they don't fear has

got to fear them. . . . I'll put your number early tonight, so that you can get off by nine. Good luck, Nance."

At nine, then, behold Nancy Olden in her white muslin dress, longsleeved and highnecked, and just to her

shoetops, with a big white muslin sash around her waist. Oh, she's no baby, is Nance, but she looks like one

in this rig with her short hairor rather, like a schoolgirl; which makes the stunts she does in mimicking

"We're just a little party," said Mrs. Paul Gates, coming into the bedroom where I was taking of my wraps.

"And I'm so glad you could come, for my principal guest, Mr. Latimer, is an invalid, who used to love the

theaters, but hasn't been to one since his attack many years ago. I count on your giving him, in a way, a

I told her I would. But I didn't just know what I was saying. Think of Latimer there, Maggie, and think of our

last meeting! It made me tremble. Not that I fancied for a moment he'd betray me. The man that helps you

twice don't hurt you the third time. No, it wasn't that; it was only that I longed to do wellwell before him,

And then I found myself in an alcove off the parlors, separated from them by heavy curtains. It was such a

pretty little red bower. Right behind me was the red of the Turkish drapery of a cozy corner, and just as I took

my place under the great chandelier, the servants pulled the curtains apart and the lights went out in the

In that minute I got it, Magyes, stage fright. Got it bad. I suppose it was coming to me, but Lordy! I hadn't

ever known before what it was. I could see the black of the men's clothes in the long parlors in front of me,

and the white of the women's necks and arms. There were soft ends of talk trailing after the first silence, and

everything was so strange that I seemed to hear two men's voices which sounded familiarLatimer's silken

I fancied that when that last voice should stop I could begin, but all at once my mind seemed to turn a

somersault, and, instead of looking out upon them, I seemed to be looking in on myselfto see a

whitefaced little girl in a white dress, standing alone under a blaze of light in a glare of red, gazing fearfully

"Nancy Olden, you little thief!" I cried to me inside of me. "How dare you! I'd rather you'd steal the silver on

this woman's dressingtable than cheat her out of what she expects and what's coming to her."

The first one was bad. I gave 'em Duse's Francesca. You've never heard the wailing music in that woman's

I gave them Duse just to show them how swell I was myself; which shows what a ninny I was. The thing the

world loves is the opposite of what it is. The patpatpat of their gloves came in to me when I got through.

They were too polite to hiss. But it wasn't necessary. I was hissing myself. Inside of me there was a long,

I couldn't bear it. I couldn't bear to be a failure with Latimer listening, though out there in that queer

halflight I couldn't see him at all, but could only make out the couch where I knew he must be lying.

I just jumped into something else to retrieve myself. I can do Carter's Du Barry to the Queen's taste, Maggie.

That rotten voice of hers, like Mother Douty's, but stronger and surer; that rocky old face pretending to look

young and beautiful inside that talented red hair of hers; that whining "Denny! Denny!" she squawks out

They thought I could, too, those black and white shadows out there on the other side of the velvet curtains.

But I cared less for what they thought than for the fact that I had drowned that sputtering hissssss inside of

I gave them Warfield, then; I was always good at taking off the sheenies in the alley behind the

Crueltyremember? I gave them that little pinchnosed Maude Adams, and dry, corking little Mrs. Fiske,

and Henry Miller when he smooths down his white breeches lovingly and sings Sally in our Alley, and

Say, isn't it funny, Mag, that I've seen 'em all and know all they can do? They've been my college education,

that crowd. Not a bad one, either, when you come to think of what I wanted from it.

They pulled the curtains down at the end and I went back to the bedroom. I had my hat and jacket on when

Mrs. Gates and some of the younger ladies came to see me there, but I caught no glimpse of Latimer. You'd

thinkwouldn't youthat he'd have made an opportunity to say just one nice word to me in that easy, soft

voice of his? I tried to believe that perhaps he hadn't really seen me, lying down, as he must have been, or

that he hadn't recognized me, but I knew that I couldn't make myself believe that; and the lack of just that

word from him spoiled all my satisfaction with myself, and I walked out with Mrs. Gates through the hall and

past the diningroom feeling as hurt as though I'd deserved that a man like Latimer should notice me.

The diningroom was all lighted, but emptythe colored, shaded candlesticks glowing down on the cut

glass and silver, on delicate china and flowers. The ladies and gentlemen hadn't come out to supper yet; at

least, only one was there. He was standing with his back to me, before the sideboard, pouring out a glass of

something from a decanter. He turned at the rustle of my starched skirt, and, as I passed the door, he saw me.

I got home here earlier than I'd expected, and I'd just got off my hat and jacket and put away that snug little

I thought it was you, Magthat you'd forgotten your key. I was so sure of it that I pulled the door open wide

Yes, Edward, husband of the Dowager. The same redfaced, bignecked old fellow, huskyvoiced with

whisky now, just as he was before. He must have been keeping it up steadily ever since the day out in the

country when Tom lifted his watch. It'll take more than one lost watch to cure Edward.

"Ifollowed you home, Miss Murieson," he said, grabbing me by the hand and pushing the door closed

behind him. "Or is it Miss Murieson? Which is your stage name, and which your real one? And have you

really learned to remember it? For my part, any old name will smell as sweet, now that I'm close to the rose."

"I didn't ask you to call," I said, haughty as the Dowager herself was when first I saw her in her gorgeous

"No, I noticed that," he roared jovially. "You skinned out the front door the moment you saw me. All that was

"Why!" He slapped his leg as though he'd heard the best joke in the world. "To renew our acquaintance, of

course. To ask you if you wouldn't like me to buy you a red coat and hat like the one you left behind you that

day over in Philadelphia, when you cut your visit so short. To insist upon my privilege of relationship. To call

that wink you gave me in the hall that day, you little devil. Now, don't look at me like that. I say, let's be

"Just because it isn't. I'm expecting a friend. Hadn't you better go home to Mrs. Dowager Diamonds?"

I retreated before him into the diningroom. What in the world to do to get rid of him!

"I think you'd better go home, Mr. Ramsay," I said again, decidedly. "If you don't, I'll have to call the janitor

"Call, sweetheart. He'll put you out with me; for I'll tell him a thing or two about you, and we'll go and find a

better place than this. Stock can't be quoted so high, after all, if this is the best prospectus your friend can put

Oh, Mag, Mag, did you ever see the manugly as a cannibal he may be and old as the cannibal's

His manner changed altogether. He plumped down on the lounge and patted the place beside him invitingly,

"Oh, that's all right, little one! She hasn't even missed me yet. When she's playing Bridge she forgets even to

"Playing Bridge," I murmured sweetly, "'way off in Philadelphia, while you, you naughty man"

"Not so naughty asas I'd like to be," he belllowed, heavily witty. "And she isn't 'way off in Philadelphia

"Oh, that's what scared you, is it? She didn't recognize you. Neither did I, till I got that second glimpse of you

with your hat and jacket on. But even if she hadho! ho! ho! I say; do you know, you couldn't convince the

Bishop and Henrietta, if you'd talk till doomsday, that that red coat and hat we advertised weren't taken by a

little girl that was daffy. Fact; I swear it! They admit you took the coat, you little witch, but it was when you

were out of your mindof courseof course! `The very fact that she left the coat behind her and took

nothing else from the house shows a mind diseased,' insisted Henrietta. Of courseof course! `And her

coming for no reason at all to your house,' adds the Bishop. . . . Say, what was the reason?"

Maggie, I'll tell you a hard thing: it isn't when people think worse of you than you are, but better, that you feel

most uncomfortable. I got pale and sick inside of me at the thought of my poor little Bishop. I loved him for

"I've been dying of curiosity to know what was in your wise little head that day," he went on. "Oh, it was

wise all right; that wink you gave me was perfectly sane; there was method in that madness of yours."

His bellowing laughter filled the place. Maggie, our little flat and our few things don't go well with sounds

"Oh, you're all alike, you women!" he roared. "All right, supper it is. Where shall we goRector's?"

"It's so much more cozy right here," I said. "I'll telephone. There's Brophy's, just round the corner, and they

I thought he'd follow me out in the hall to the 'phone, but he was having some trouble in pulling out his

purseto count out his money, I suppose. I got Central and asked for the number. Oh, yes, I knew it all right;

I had called up that same number once, already, today. Brophy's? Why, Maggie Monahan, you ought to

With my hand over the mouthpiece, so that nobody heard but Edward, I ordered a supper fit for a kingor a

chorus girl! What didn't I order! Champagne, broiled lobster, crab meat, stuffed pimentoes,

"Say, say," interrupted Edward, coming out after me. "That's enough of that stuff. Tell him to send in a

Mag, you should have seen the man's face! It was red, it was white; it was furious, it was frightened.

I put my hand a moment over the mouthpiece and turned on him then. "I've got her on the 'phone at Mrs.

Gates' house. Shall I tell your wife where you are, Edward? . . . Just a moment, Mrs. Ramsay, hold the wire;

"Yes, you called me that some time ago, but not in that tone. Quick, nowthe door or . . . Waiting, Mrs.

"Merely by my saying that I won't," I answered curtly. "You're in no position to dictate terms; I am."

But I could, without leaving the 'phone, latch the chain on the door behind him, leaving it half open. So he

"Yes, Mrs. Ramsay, waiting?" I croaked like the driest kind of hellogirl. "I was mistaken. It was a message

left to be delivered to younot some one wanting to speak with you. Who am I? Why, this is Central. Here

I hung up, gave the door a touch that shut it in his face and went back into the diningroom to throw open the

windows. The place smelled of alcohol; the moral atmosphere left behind by that bad old man sickened me.

I leaned out and looked at the stars and tried to think of something sweet and wholesome and strengthening.

"Ah, Nance," I cried to myself with a sobI had pretended to take it lightly enough when he was here, but

now"if you had heard of a girl who, like yourself this evening, unexpectedly met two men she had known,

and the good man ignored her and the bad one followed heroh, Nancywhat sort of girl would you think

she was at heart? What sort of hope could you imagine her treasuring for her own future? And what sort of

This time I was sure it was you. And, O Maggie, I ran to the door eager for the touch of your hand and the

look in your eyes. I was afraid to be alone with my own thoughts. I was afraid of the conclusion to which

they were leading me. Maggie, if ever a girl needed comfort and encouragement and heartening, I did then.

For there was a man at the door, with a great basket of azaleaspale, pink earthstars they are, the sweet,

Once on a time there was a Luckless Pot, marred in the making, that had the luck to be of service to a Pipkin.

It was a saucy Pipkin, though a very winning one, and it had all the health and strength the poor Pot

lackedphysically. Morallymorally, that young Pipkin was in a most unwholesome condition. Already its

fair, smooth surface was scratched and fouled. It was unmindful of the treasure of good it contained, and its

responsibility to keep that good intact. And it seemed destined to crash itself to pieces among pots of baser

What the Luckless Pot did was littlebeing ignorant of the art by which diamonds may be attained easily

What the Pipkin did with that chance the Pot learned tonight, with such pleasure and satisfaction as made it

impossible for him not to share it with her. So while he sent Burnett out to the conservatory to cut azaleas, he

wrote her a note to try to convey to her what he felt when, in that nicely polished, neatly decorated and

selfrespecting Vessel on exhibition in Mrs. Gates' red room, he recognized the poor little Pipkin of other

The Pot, as you know, was a sort of stranded bit of clay that had never filled the use for which pots are

created. He had little human to interest him. The fate of the Pipkin, therefore, he had often pondered on; and,

in spite of improbabilities, had had faith in a certain quality of brave sincerity the little thing showed; a

This justification of his faith in the Pipkin may seem a small matter to make so much of. And yet the

Potthat sleeps not well o' nights, as is the case with damaged potswill take to bed with him tonight a

But do not think the Pot an idealist. If he were, he might have been tempted to mistake the Pipkin for a

statelier, more pretentious Vessela Vase, say, all graceful curves and embossed sides, but shallow, perhaps,

possibly lacking breadth. No, the Pipkin is a pipkin, made of common clayeven though it has the

uncommon sweetness and strength to overcome the tendencies of clayand fashioned for those common

uses of life, deprivation of which to anything that comes from the Potter's hands is the most enduring, the

O pretty little Pipkin, thank the Potter, who made you as you are, as you will bea thing that can cheer and

stay men's souls by ministering to the human needs of them. For you, be sure, the Potter's `a good fellow and

For the Pothe sails shortly, or rather, he is to be carted abroad by some optimistic friends whose hopes he

does not shareto a celebrated repair shop for damaged pots. Whether he shall return, patched and mended

into temporary semblance of a useful Vessel; whether he shall continue to be merely the same old Luckless

But it has been well that, before we two behind the veil had passed, we met again, and you left me such a

O Maggie, Maggie, some day I hope to see that man and tell him how sorely the Pipkin needed the Pot's

It's all come so quick, Maggie, and it was over so soon that I hardly remember the beginning.

Nobody on earth could have expected it less than I, when I came off in the afternoon. I don't know what I was

thinking of as I came into my dressingroom, that used to be Gray'sthe sight of him seemed to cut me off

It may have been that I was chuckling to myself at the thought of Nancy Olden with a dressingroom all to

herself. I can't ever quite get used to that, you know, though I sail around there with all the airs of the leading

lady. Sometimes I see a twinkle in Fred Obermuller's eye when I catch him watching me, and goodness

Yes, I'm going to tell you, butit's rattled me a bit, Maggie. I'm soso sorry, and a littleoh, just a little,

I'd slammed the door behind methe old place is out of repair and the door won't shut except with a

bangand I had just squatted down on the floor to unbutton my high shoes, when I noticed the chintz

curtains in front of the high dressingbox waver. They must have moved just like that when I was behind

them monthsit seems yearsago. But, you see, Topham had never served an apprenticeship behind

"Lordy, Nancy," I laughed to myself, "some one thinks you've got a rose diamond and"

My heart came beating up to my throat and then, just as I thought I should choke, it slid down to my boots,

sickening me. I didn't say a word. I sat there, my foot in my lap, staring at him.

Oh, Maggiegirl, it isn't good to get your first glimpse after all these months of the man you love crouched

like a big bull in a small space, poking his closecropped black head out like a turtle that's not sure something

won't be thrown at it, and then dragging his big bulk out and standing over you. He used to be

trimTomand taut, but in those shapeless things, the old trousers, the dirty white shirt, and the vest too

Tom's voiceMag, do you remember, the merry Irish boy's voice, with its chuckles like a brook gurgling as

No'tisn't the same voice. It'sit's changed, Maggie. It's heavy andand coarseandbrutal. That's

He went to the door, opened it a bit and looked out cautiously. MagMagit hurt methat. Why, do you

"Why! You have got slow. Just because I didn't say goodby to them fellows up at the Pen, and"

"That's what. First jailbreak in fifteen years. What d'ye think of your Tommy, old girl, eh? Ain't he the

My God, Mag! Proud of him. He didn't knowhe couldn't seehimself. He, shut in like a wild beast,

couldn't see what this year has done for him. Oh, the changethe change in him! My boy Tommy, with the

gay, gallus manner, and the pretty, jolly brogue, and the laughing mouth under his brown mustache. And this

manhis face is old, Mag, oldoh!and hardandand tough, cheap and tough. There's something in

"Look here, Nance." He caught me by the shoulders, knocking up my chin so that he could look down

squarely at me. "What's your graft? What's it to be between us? What've ye been doing all this time? Out with

"I've beenTom Dorgan, I've been to hear the greatest actors and actresses in the world say and do the finest

things in the world. I've watched princesses and kingseven if they're only stage ones. I've read a new book

every nighta great picture book, in which the pictures move and speakthat's the stage, Tom Dorgan.

Much of it wasn't true, but a girl who's been brought up by the Cruelty doesn't have to be told what's true and

what's false. I've met these people and lived with themas one does who thinks the same thoughts and feels

what others feel. I know the world now, Tom Dorgan, the real world of men and womennot the little world

of crooks, nor yet the littler one of fairy stories. I've got a glimpse, too, of that other world where all the

scheming and lying and cheating is changed as if by magic into something that deceives all right, but doesn't

hurt. It's the world of art and artists, Tom Dorgan, where people paint their lies, or write them, or act them;

where they lift money all right from men's pockets, but lift their souls and their lives, too, away from the

"You needn't sneer; it's made a different Nance out of me, Tom Dorgan. And, oh, but I'm sorry for the pert

little beggar we both knew that lied and stole and hid and ran and skulked! She was like a poor little ignorant

traveler in a great country where she'd sized up the world from the few fool crooks she was thrown in with.

"Tomdoesdoesn't it mean anything to you? Can't it mean lots to both of us now that"

"Cut it, I tell you! Think I killed one guard and beat the other till I'd broke every bone in his body to come

here and listen to such guff? You've been having a high old time, eh, and you never give a thought to me up

"Don't! I did, Tom; I did." I was shivering at the name, but I couldn't bear his thinking that way of me. "I

went up once, but they wouldn't let me see you. I wrote you, but they sent back the letters. Mag went up, too,

My voice trailed off. In that minute I saw myself on the way up to Sing Sing with the basket and all my hopes

And this is what I'd have seen if they'd let me inthis big, gruff, murdering beast!

Oh, yesyesbeast is what he is, and it didn't make him look it less that he believed me andand began to

"I thought you wouldn't go back on a feller, Nance. That's why I come straight to you. It was my game to

have you hide me for a day or two, till you could make a strike somewhere and we'd light out together.

How're ye fixed? Pretty smart, eh? You look it, my girl, you lookMy eye, Nance, you look good enough to

Maggie, if I'd had to die for it I couldn't have moved then. You'd think a man would know when the woman

he's holding in his arms is faintingsick at the touch of him. A woman would. It wasn't my Tom that I'd

known, that I'd worked with and played with andIt was a great brute, whose mouthwho had no eyes, no

He laughed when I broke away from him at last. He laughed! And I knew then I'd have to tell him straight in

"Tom," I gasped, "you can have all I've got; and it's plenty to get you out of the way. Butbut you can't

Oh, the beast in his face! It must have looked like that when the guard got his last glimpse of it.

Then he ripped it out. Said the worst he could and ended with a curse! The blood boiled in me. The old Nance

"Get out of here!" I cried. "Gogo, Tom Dorgan. I'll send every cent I've got to you to Mother Douty's

"Don't YOU dare, you shedevil! Just make up your mind to drop these newfangled airs, and mighty quick. I

tell you you'll come with me 'cause I need you and I want you, and I want you now. And I'll keep you when

once I get you again. We'll hang together. No more o' this onesided layout for me, where you get all the

soft and it's me for the hard. You belong to me. Yes, you do. Just think back a bit, Nance Olden, and

remember the kind of customer I am. If you've forgot, just let me remind you that what I know would put you

behind bars, my lady, and it shall, I swear, if I've got to go to the Chair for it!"

Tom! It was Tom talking that way to me. I couldn't bear it. I made a rush for the door.

But it never fell, Mag. I think I could kill a man who struck me. But just as I shut my eyes and shivered away

from him, while I waited for the blow, a knock came at the door and Fred Obermuller walked in.

"Eh? Oh! Excuse me. I didn't know there was anybody else. Nance, your face is ghastly. What's up?" he said

He looked from me to TomTom, standing off there ready to spring on him, to dart past him, to fly out of

My senses came back to me then. The sight of Obermuller, with those keen, quick eyes behind his glasses, his

strong, square chin, and the whole poise of his head and body that makes men wait to hear what he has to say;

the knowledge that that man was my friend, mineNancy Olden'slifted me out of the mud I'd sunk back

"Tom," I said slowly, "Mr. Obermuller is a friend of mine. Nolisten! What we've been talking about is

settled. Don't bring it up again. It doesn't interest him and it can't change me; I swear to you, it can't; nothing

can. I'm going to ask Mr. Obermuller to help you without telling him just what the scrape is, andand I'm

"Because you've taken up with him, have you?" Tom shouted savagely. "Because she's your"

"Tomoh, yes, now I remember." Obermuller got between us as he spoke. "Your friend upin the country

that you went to see and couldn't. Not a very goodlooker, your friend, Nance. Butfarming, I suppose,

Mr.Tom?plays the deuce with one's looks. And another thing it does: it makes a man forget sometimes

just how to behave in town. I'll be charmed, Mr. Tom, to oblige a friend of Miss Olden's; but I must insist that

He was quite close to Tom when he finished, and Tom was glaring up at him. And, Mag, I didn't know which

one I was most afraid for. Don't you look at me that way, Mag Monahan, and don't you dare to guess

"If you think," growled Tom, "that I'm going to let you get off with the girl, you're mighty"

"Now, I've told you not to say that. The reason I'll do the thing she's going to ask of meif it's what I think it

isis because this girl's a plucky little creature with a soul big enough to lift her out of the muck you

probably helped her into. It's because she's got brains, talent, and a heart. It's becausewell, it's because I

"Oh, yes, I do; you cur! I know what she was, too. And I even know what she will be; but that doesn't

Obermuller turned his back on him. I was dumb and still. Tom Dorgan had struck me after all.

"Get him away on a steamerquick," I murmuredI couldn't look him in the face"without asking why,

"Because you're so fond of her, eh? So fond, your first thought on quitting thecountry was to come here to

"Well, I've had my share of it. And she ain't. StillI . . . Just what would it be worth to you to have me out of

"It would be worth exactly one dollar and seventyfive cents. I think it will amount to about that for

cabhire. I guess the cars aren't any too safe for you, or it might be less. It may amount to something more

before I get you shipped before the mast on the first foreignbound boat. But what's more important," he

added, bringing his fist down with a mighty thump on the table, "you have just ten seconds to make up your

I went down to the boat to see it sail, Mag, at seven this morning. No, not to say goodby to him. He didn't

know I was there. It was to say goodby to my old Tommy; the one I loved. Truly I did love him, Mag,

though he never cared for me. No, he didn't. Men don't pull down the women they love; I know that now. If

Tom Dorgan had ever cared for me he wouldn't have made a thief of me. If he'd cared, the last place on earth

he'd have come to, when he knew the detectives would be on his track, would have been just the first place he

But it's done, Mag. It's all over. Cheapthat's what he is, this Tom Dorgan. Cheaply bada cheap bully,

cheapbrained. Remember my wishing he'd have been a ventriloquist? Why, that man that tried to sell me to

The firm of Dorgan & Olden is dissolved, Mag. The retiring partner has gone into the theatrical business. As

for Dorganthe real one, poor fellow! jolly, handsome, big Tom Dorganhe died. Yes, he died, Maggie,

and was buried up there in the prison graveyard. A hard lot for a boy; but it's not the worst thing that can

happen to him. He might become a man; such a man as that fellow that sailed away before the mast this

There I was seated in a box all aloneMiss Nancy Olden, by courtesy of the management, come to listen to

the leading lady sing coonsongs, that I might add her to my collection of takeoffs.

She's a fat leading lady, very fair and nearly fifty, I guess. But she's got a rollicking, husky voice in her fat

throat that's sung the dollars down deep into her pockets. They say she's planted them deeper stillin the

foundations of apartment housesand that now she's the richest rolypoly on the Rialto.

Do you know, Maggie darlin', what I was saying to myself there in the box, while I watched the stage and

"Nance," I said, "I kind of fancy that apartment sort of idea myself. They tell you, Nancy, that when you've

got the artistic temperament, that that's all you'll ever have. But there's a chanceone in a hundredfor a

body to get that temperament mixed with a business instinct. It doesn't often happen. But when it does the

result isdollars. It may be, NanceI shrewdly suspect it is a fact that you've got that marvelous mixture.

Your early successes, Miss Olden, in another profession that I needn't name, would encourage the idea that

you're not all heart and no head. I think, Nance, I shall have you mimic the artists during working hours and

the business men when you're at play. I fancy apartment houses. They appeal to me. We'll call one `The

"What'll I call the third apartment house, Mr. O?" I asked aloud, as I heard the rings on the portiere behind

Without turning my head I repeated the question. And yetsuddenlybefore he could have answered, I

I turned. And in that moment a man took the seat beside me and another stood facing me, with his back

"Youyou were at Mrs. Paul Gates' just a week ago, and you gave your specialties there?"

He was a little man, but very muscular. I could note the play of his muscles even in the slight motion he made

as he turned his body so as to get between me and the audience, while he leaned toward me, watching me

"We don't want to make any scene here," he said very low. "We want to do it up as quietly as we can. There

might be some mistake, you know, and then you'd be sorry. So should we. I hope you'll be reasonable and it'll

He leaned a bit farther forward then, and pulling his coat partly open, he showed me a detective's badge. And

I sat back in my chair. The fat star on the stage, with her big mouth and big babyface, was doing a

I'll never mimic that song, Mag, although I can see her and hear it as plain as though I'd listened and watched

her all my life. But there's no fun in it for me. I hate the very bars the orchestra plays before she begins to

sing. I can't bear even to think of the words. The whole of it is full of horrible thingsit smells of the jailit

"Yes. I was sure I saw him sail, but, of course, I was mistaken. He has sent you after me, has he? I can hardly

"I don't know anything that connects you with Dorgan. If he was in with you on this, you'd better remember,

The curtain had gone down and gone up again. I was watching the star. She has such a boyish way of nodding

her head, instead of bowing, after she waddles out to the center; and every time she wipes her lips with her

lace handkerchief, as though she'd just taken one of the cocktails she makes in the play with all the skill of a

bartender. I found myself doing the same thingwiping my lips with that very same gesture, as though I had

a fat, bare forearm like a rollingpinwhen all at once the thought came to me: "You needn't bother, Nancy.

"Stealing a purse containing three hundred dollars from Mrs. Paul Gates' house on the night of April

It was Obermuller. He had pushed the curtains aside; the crashing of the orchestra had prevented our hearing

the clatter of the rings. He had pushed by the man standing there, had come in andhe had heard.

"Nance!" he cried. "I don't believe a word of it. He turned in his quick way to the men. "What are your

"It's a pity they don't know about the Gray rose diamond," he whispered, helping me on with my jacket.

"They'd see how silly this little threehundred dollar business is. . . . Brace up, Nance Olden!"

Oh, Mag, Mag, to hear a man like that talk to you as though you were his kind, when you have the feel of the

coarse prison stripes between your dry, shaking fingers, and the close prison smell is already poisoning your

"Don't you?" he laughed. "That's easy. You've got brains, Nance, and the most imbecile thing you could do

just now, when your foot is already on the ladder, would be just thisto get off in order to pick up a trinket

out of the mud, when there's a fortune up at the top waiting for you. Clever people don't do asinine things.

And other clever people know that they don't. You're clever, but so am Iin my weak, small way. Come

Oh, no! It was all very quiet and looked just like a little theater party that had an early supper engagement.

Obermuller nodded to the manager out in the deserted lobby, who stopped us and asked me what I thought of

You'll think me mad, Mag. Those fellows with the badges were sure I was, but Obermuller's eyes only

twinkled, and the manager's grin grew broad when, catching up the end of my skirt and cakewalking up and

down, I sang under my breath that coonsong that was trailing over and over through my head.

I gave one of those quick, funny, boyish nods the star inside affects and wiped my lips with my handkerchief.

That brought down my house. Even the biggest fellow with the badge giggled recognizingly, and then put his

There wasn't room in the coupe waiting out in front for more than two. So Obermuller couldn't come in it.

But he put me inMag, dear, dear Maghe put me in as if I was a ladynot like Gray; a real one. A thing

like that counts when two detectives are watching. It counted afterward in the way they treated me.

The big man climbed up on the seat with the driver. The blueeyed fellow got in and sat beside me, closing

"I'll be out there almost as soon as you are," Obermuller said, standing a moment beside the lowered window.

"You good fellow!" I said, and then, trying to laugh: "I'll do as much for you some day."

"You know, Miss, there may be some mistake about this," said the man next to me, "and"

"I'm sure I'll be very glad if it is a mistake. They do happenthough not often. You spoke of Dorgan"

"Surely you're mistaken," I said, smiling right into his blue eyes. "The Tom Dorgan I mentioned is a

"Clever fellow. You ought to. Perhaps you don't recognize him under that name. On the bills he's Professor

It flashed through me then what a thing like this might do to a name. You know, Mag, every bit of

recognition an actress steals from the world is so much capital. It isn't like the old graft when you had to

begin new every time you took up a piece of work. And your namethe name the world knowsand its

knowing it makes it worth having like everythingthat name is the sum of every scheme you've planned, of

every time you've got away with the goods, of every laugh you've lifted, of every bit of cleverness you've

"Tell me about this charge," I said. "Where was the purse? Whose was it? And why haven't they missed it till

"They missed it all right that night, but Mrs. Gates wanted it kept quiet till the servants had been shadowed

"Because you were the only person in that room except Mrs. Gates, the lady who lost the purse, Mrs.

"Well, it was, and it contained three hundred dollars, Mrs. Ramsay says. She had slipped it under the fold of

the spread at the top of the bed in the room where you took off your things in Mrs. Gates' presence, and put

"And you mean to tell me that this is all?" I raged at him; "that every bit of evidence you have to warrant

"You didn't behave like a very innocent girl, if you'll remember," he said dryly, "when I first came into the

box. In fact, if that fellow hadn't just come in then I believe you'd 'a' confessed the whole job. . . . 'Tain't too

I didn't answer. I put my head back against the cushions and closed my eyes. I could feel the scrutiny of his

blue eyes on my naked faceyour face is so unprotected with the eyes closed; like a fort whose battery is

withdrawn. But I was tiredit tires you when you care. A year ago, Mag, this sort of thingthe risk, the

nearness to danger, the chances one way or the otherwould have intoxicated me. I used to feel as though I

was dancing on a volcano and daring it to explode. The more twistings and turnings there were to the

labyrinth, the greater glory it was to get out. Maggie darlin', you have before you a mournful spectaclethe

degeneration of Nancy Olden. It isn't that she's lost courage. It's only that she used to be able to think of only

one thing, and nowWhat do you suppose it is, Mag? If you know, don't you dare to tell me.

When we got to the flat Obermuller was already there. At the door I pulled out my key and opened it with a

They followed me in. First to the parlor. The two fellows threw off their coats and searched that through and

throughnot a drawer did they miss, not a bit of furniture did they fail to move. Obermuller and I sat there

guying them as they pried about in their shirtsleeves. That Trust business has taken the life out of him of

late. All their tricks, all their squeezings, their cheatings, their bossing and bragging and bullying have got on

to his nerves till he looks like a chained bear getting a drubbing. And he swears that they're in a conspiracy to

freeze him and a few others like him out; he believes there's actually a paper in existence that would prove it.

But this affair of the purse seemed to excite him till he behaved like a bad schoolboy.

And I? Well, Nance Olden was never far behind at the Cruelty when there was anything going on. We trailed

after them, and when they'd finished with the bedroomsyours and mineI asked the big fellow to come

into the kitchen with Mr. O. and me, while the blueeyed detective tackled the diningroom, and I'd get up a

Mag, you should have seen Fred Obermuller with a big apron on him, dressing the salad while I was making

sandwiches. The Cruelty taught me how to cook, even if it did teach me other things. You wouldn't have

believed that the Trust had got him by the throat, and was choking the last breath out of him. You wouldn't

have believed that our salaries hadn't been paid for three weeks, that our houses were dwindling every night,

I was thinking about it all there in the back of my head, trying to see a way out of ityou know if there is

such an agreement as Obermuller swears there is, it's against the lawwhile we rattled on, the two of us, like

The salad bowl had slipped from Obermuller's fingers. He stood with his back turned to me, his eyes fixed

But he wasn't searching any more, Mag. He was standing still as a pointer that's scented game. He had moved

the lounge out from the wall, and there on the floor, spread open where it had fallen, lay a handsome

elephantskin purse, with gold corners. From where I stood, Mag, I could read the plain gold lettering on the

Obermuller got in front of me as I started to walk into the diningroom. I don't know what his idea was. I

don't suppose he does exactlyif it wasn't to spare me the sight of that damned thing.

Oh, how I hated it, that purse! I hated it as if it had been something alive that could be glad of what it had

done. I wished it was alive that I could tear and rend it and stamp on it and throw it in a fire, and drag it out

again, with burned and bleeding nails, to tear it again and again. I wanted to fall on it and hide it; to push it

far, far away out of sight; to stamp it downdown into the very bottom of the earth, where it could feel the

But I only stood there, stupidly looking at it, having pushed past Obermuller, as though I never wanted to see

"Well," he said, pulling on his coat as though he'd done a good day's work, "I guess you'd just better come

"Don't you think you'd better get out of this?" I asked Obermuller, as he came into the station a few minutes

"Because it won't do you any good to have your name mixed up with a thing like this."

I didn't answer for a minute after that. I sat in my chair, my eyes bent on the floor. I counted the cracks

between the chair and the floor of the office where the Chief was busy with another case. I counted them six

"You're awfully good," I said, looking up at him as he stood by me. "You're the best fellow I ever knew. I

didn't know men could be so good to women. . . But you'd better goplease. It'll be bad enough when the

papers get hold of this, without having them lump you in with a bad lot like me."

"Yes, I saw it. But it hasn't proved anything to me but this: you're innocent, Nance, or you're crazy. If it's the

first, I want to stand by you, little girl. If it's the secondgood God! I've got to stand by you harder than

Can you see me sitting there, Mag, in the bright, bare little room, with its electric lights, still in my white

dress and big white hat, my pretty jacket fallen on the floor beside me? I could feel the sharp blue eyes of that

detective Morris feeding on my miserable face. But I could feel, too, a warmth like wine poured into me from

"If I'm innocent and can prove it, Fred Obermuller, I'll get even with you forfor this."

"Well, if you want to help me, don't sit there looking like the criminal ghost of the girl I know."

The blood rushed to my face. Nance Olden, a sniveling coward! Me, showing the white featherme,

"I want to say just a word to you, Chief," he said. "You remember me. I'm Obermuller, of the Vaudeville. If

you'll send those fellows out and let me speak to you just a moment, I'll leave you alone with Miss Olden."

The Chief nodded to the blueeyed detective, and he and the other fellow went out and shut the door behind

"I want simply to call your attention to the absurdity and unreasonableness of this thing," Obermuller said,

leaning up against the Chief's desk, while he threw out his left hand with that big open gesture of his, "and to

ask you to bear in mind, no matter what appearances may be, that Miss Olden is the most talented girl on the

stage today; that in a very short time she will be at the top; that just now she is not suffering for lack of

money; that she's not a highroller, but a determined, hardworking little grind, and that if she did feel like

"Even if you can't pay salaries when they're due, Obermuller." The Chief grinned under his white mustache.

"Even though the Trust is pushing me to the wall; going to such lengths that they're liable criminally as well

as civilly, if I could only get my hands on proof of their rascality. It's true I can't pay salaries always when

they're due, but I can still raise a few hundred to help a friend. And Miss Olden is a friend of mine. If you can

prove that she took this money, you prove only that she's gone mad, but you don't"

"All right, Obermuller. You're not the lawyer for the defense. That'll come laterif it does come. I'll be glad

"I'm going to ask you a lot of questions, Miss Olden," the old Chief said, when we were alone. "Sit here,

please. Morris tells me you've got more nerve than any woman that's ever come before me, so I needn't bother

to reassure you. You don't look like a girl that's easily frightened. I have heard how you danced in the lobby

of the Manhattan, how you guyed him at your flat, and were getting lunch and having a regular picnic of a

"Not dreaming that there was such a purse in existence except from the detective's sayso, and never

"Hm!" He looked at me from under his heavy, wrinkled old lids. You don't get nice eyes from looking on the

"Why," I cried, "what kind of a girl could cut up like that when she was on the very edge of discovery?"

"A very smart girlan actress; a good one; a clever thief who's used to bluffing. Of course," he added softly,

"you won't misunderstand me. I'm simply suggesting the different kinds of girl that could have done what you

did. But, if you don't mind, I'll do the questioning. Nance Olden," he turned suddenly on me, his manner

I threw up my head and looked him full in the face. It was over nowall the shivering and trembling and

fearing. Nance Olden's not a coward when she's fighting for her freedom; and fighting alone without any

No, it wasn't put on. There never yet was a man who bullied me that didn't rouse the fighter in me. I swore to

"Doesn't it occur to you that under the circumstances a full confession might be the very best thing for you? I

shouldn't wonder if these people would be inclined to be lenient with you if you'd return the money. Doesn't

"Thank you; neither do I believe you, which is more to the point. Come, answer the question: how long is it

I looked at him. And then I looked at my glove, and slowly pulled the fingers inside out, and thenthen I

giggled. Suddenly it came to methat silly, little insane dodge of mine in the Bishop's carriage that day; the

"I'll tell you if you'll let me think a minute," I said sweetly. "Itit must be all of fifteen months."

"Ah! You see I did know that you've met the lady. If you're wise you'll draw deductions as to other things I

"No," I said very gently. "I went there, to the best of my recollection, with the Bishopyes, it was the

I could see that he didn't believe a word I was saying, which made me happily eager to tell him more.

"Yes, we drove up to the Square one afternoon in the Bishop's carriagethe fat, plumcolored one, you

I chuckled. Yes, Mag Monahan, I was enjoying myself. I was having a run for my money, even if it was the

"That night at Mrs. Gates' it was dark, you know, in the front room. I didn't see Mrs. Ramsay that night. I

"Look here, this is no lark, young woman, and you needn't trouble yourself to weave any more fairy tales.

Mr. Ramsay is in ahe's very ill. His own wife hasn't seen him since that night, so you see you're lying

"Really!" So Edward didn't go back to Mrs. Gates' that night. Tut! tut! After his telephone message, too!

"Now, assuming your innocence of the theft, Miss Olden, what is your theory; how do you account for the

"Now, you've hit the part of it that really puzzles me. How do you account for it; what is your theory?"

"My theory, if you want to know it, is that you stole the purse; that your friend Obermuller believes you did;

"And what a stupid thief I must be, then, to leave the empty purse under my lounge!"

"You said so. . . Well, you gave me to understand that it was, then. What difference does it make? It would be

a still stupider thief who'd leave a full purse instead of an empty one under his own lounge."

I couldn't help it. He was such a stupid. The idea of telling me that Fred Obermuller believed me guilty! The

idea of thinking me such a fool as to believe that! Such men as that make criminals. They're so fatwitted you

positively achethey so tempt you to pull the wool over their eyes. O Mag, if the Lord had only made men

The Chief blew a blast at his speakingtube that made his purple cheeks seem about to burst. My shoulders

And I was still laughing when I followed the detective out into the waitingroom, where Obermuller was

"Orders are, Morris," came in a bellow from the Chief at his door, "that no further communication be allowed

Phew! All the pertness leaked out of me. Oh, Mag, I don't like that word. It stingsit bindsit cuts.

I don't know what I looked like then; I wasn't thinking of me. I was watching Obermuller's face. It seemed to

grow old and thin and haggard before my eyes, as the blood drained out of it. He turned with an exclamation

Why did I stand there? O Mag, when you're on your way to the place I was bound for, when you know that

before you'll set foot in this same bright little room again, the hounds in half a dozen cities will have

scratched clean every hidingplace you've had, when your every act will be known andandoh, then, you

wait, Mag, you wait for anythinganything in the world; even a telephone call that may only be bringing in

"Yeswhat?" he growled. "Well, tell Long Distance to get busy. What's that? St. Francisthat's the jag

"I don't hear you," the Chief roared. "Ohyes? Yes, we've got the thief, but the moneyno, we haven't got

the money. The deuce you say! Took it yourself? Out of your wife's purseyes. . . . Yes. But we've got

I tried to stand steady, but everything swayed and I couldn't hear the rest of what the Chief was saying,

though all my life seemed condensed into a listening. But I did hear when he jammed the receiver on the

"Well, they've got the money. Ramsay took the purse himself, thinking it wasn't safe there under the spread

where any servant might be tempted who chanced to uncover it. You'll admit the thing looked shady. The

reason Mrs. Ramsay didn't know of it is because the old man's just come to his senses in a hospital and been

"No, for thinking me not stupid. I am stupidstupidstupid. The old fellow I told you about, Mr. O., and

Why didn't I tell it straight at the first, you dear old Mag? Because I didn't know the straight of it, then,

myself. I was so heavywitted I never once thought of Edward. He must have taken the bills out of the purse

and then crammed them in his pocket while he was waiting there on the lounge and I was pretending to

But it's best as it isoh, so best! Think, Mag! Two people who knew herwho knew her, mindbelieved

in Nancy Olden, in spite of appearances: Obermuller, while we were in the thick of it, and; you, you dear girl,

When Obermuller sent for me I thought he wanted to see me about that play he's writing in which I'm to

Funniest thing in the world about that man, Mag. He knows he can't get bookings for any play on earth; that

if he did they'd be canceled and any old excuse thrown at him, as soon as Tausig heard of it and could put on

the screws. He knows that there isn't an unwatched hole in theatrical America through which he can crawl

and pull me and the play in after him. And yet he just can't let go working on it. He loves it, Mag; he loves it

as Molly loved that child of hers that kept her nursing it all the years of its life, and left her feeling that the

Obermuller has told me all the plot. In fact, he's worked it out on me. I know it as it is, as he wanted it to be,

and as it's going to be. He tells me he's built it up about me; that it will fit me as never a comedy fitted a

And then he remembers that there's no chance; not the ghost of one; and he falls to swearing at the Trust.

"Don't you think, Mr. O.," I said, as he began again when I came into his office, "that it might be as well to

quit cursing the Syndicate till you've got something new to say or something different to rail about? It seems

"Oh, I've got it all right, Nance, be sure of that! I've got something different to say of them and something

new to swear about. They've done me up; that's all. Just as they've fixed Iringer and Gaffney and Howison."

"Oh, it's easy," he cried, "so easy that I never thought of it. They've just bought the Vaudeville out of hand

and served notice on me that when my lease expires next month they'll not be able to renew it,

`unfortunately'! That's all. No; not quite. In order to kill all hope of a new plan in me they've just let it get to

be understood that any man or woman that works for Obermuller needn't come round to them at any future

"Not anything so tangible. It's just a hint, you know, but it works all right. It works like"

"Yes, of course, it's nonsense, or rather it's only what I'd like to do. . . . But that's not the question. Never

"You don't realize, Nance, what those fellows are capable of. When Gaffney told me, before he gave up and

went West, that there was a genuine signed conspiracy among them to crush out us independents, I laughed at

him. `It's a dream, Gaffney,' I said. `Forget it.' `It's no dream, as you'll find out when your turn comes in time,'

he shouted. `It's a fact, and what's more, Iringer once taxed Tausig to his face with it; told him he knew there

was such a document in existence, signed by the great Tausig himself, by Heffelfinger of the Pacific circuit;

by Dixon of Chicago, and Weinstock of New Orleans, binding themselves to force us fellows to the wall, and

specifying the per cent. of profit each one of 'em should get on any increase of business; to blacklist every

man and woman that worked for us; to buy up our debts and even bring false attachments, when'"

"Now, weren't there enough real debts to satisfy 'em? They're hard to please, if you haven't creditors enough

"I don't believe it, anyway, Mr. O; and 'tisn't good for you to keep thinking about just one thing. You'll land

"There was a leak in Tausig's office. Iringer used to be in with them, and he had it from a clerk whobut

never mind that. It's the blacklisting I'm talking about now. Gray's just been in to see me, to let me know that

she quits at the end of the season. And his Lordship, too, of course. You're not burdened with a contract,

Nance. Perhaps you'd better think it over seriously for a day or two and decide if it wouldn't be best"

"Nance!" he cried, jumping up, as though he'd been relieved of half his troubles.

"I don't have to think it over," I went on slowly, not looking at the hand he held out to me. "It doesn't take

long to know that when you're between the devil and the deep sea, you'd better trythe devil rather than be

"My staying with you will do you no good" was hurrying now to get it over with"and it would do me a

lot of harm. I think you're right, Mr. Obermuller; I'd better just go over to where it's warm. They'll be glad to

get me andand, to tell the truth, I'll be glad to get in with the Syndicate, even if I can't make as good terms

as I might have by selling that contract, whichlike the famous conspiracy you're half mad aboutnever

He sat down on the edge of the desk. I caught one glimpse of his face. It was black; that was enough for me. I

"I won't believe it on the word of a man that's been in the lunatic asylum ever since he lost his theater."

"Didn't that little bully, when he lost his temper that day at the Van Twiller, when we had our last

"And the proof of it could be destroyed and thenbut I can't see how this interests you."

"Nono," I said thoughtfully. "I only happened to lump it in with the contract we haven'tyou and I. And

as there's no contract, why there's no need of my waiting till the end of the season."

He looked at me. Sitting there on his desk, his clenched fist on his knee, he looked for a moment as though he

was about to fly at me. Then all of a sudden he slipped into his chair, leaned back and laughed.

"You are so shrewd, Olden, so awfully shrewd! Your eye is so everlastingly out for the main chance, and

you're still so young that I predict aa great future for you. I might even suggest that by cultivating Tausig

"No, you're right; I needn't. You can discount any suggestion I might make. You just want to be the first to go

over, eh? To get there before Gray doesto get all there is in it for the first rebel that lays down his arms; not

to come in late when submission is staleand cheap. Don't worry about terms, you poor little babe in the

"Of course, you have," I said cordially. "It's silly to fight the push, isn't it? It's only the cranks that get cocky

and think they can upset the fellows on top. The thing to do is to find out which is the strongerif you're a

better man than the other fellow, down him. If he's the champion, enlist under him. But be in it. What's the

use of being a kicker all your life? You only let some one else come in for the soft things, while you stay

outside and gnaw your fingernails and plot and plan and starve. You spend your life hoping to live

tomorrow, while the Tausigs are living high today. The thing to do is to be humble if you can't be arrogant.

If they've got you in the door, don't curse, but placate them. Think of Gaffney herding sheep out in Nevada;

"Admirable! admirable!" he interrupted sarcastically. "The only fault I have to find with your harangue is that

you've misconceived my meaning entirely. But I needn't enlighten you. Good morning, Miss

He turned to his desk and pulled out some papers. I knew he wasn't so desperately absorbed in them as he

He put down his pen. His face was white and hard, but as he looked at me it gradually softened.

`I supposeI suppose, I am a bit unreasonable just this minute," he said slowly. "I'm hard hit andand I

don't just know the way out. Still, I haven't any right toto expect more of you than there is in you, you poor

little thing! It's not your fault, but mine, that I've expectedOh, for God's sakeNancego, and leave me

I had to take that with me to the Van Twiller, and it wasn't pleasant. But Tausig received me with open arms.

"I'm tired of vaudeville," I answered. "Can't you give me a chance in a comedy?"

"Obermuller has a play all ready for mewritten for me. He'd star me fast enough if he had the chance."

"But I do. He's on the toboggan; that's where they all get, my dear, when they get bigheaded enough to fight

"But Obermuller's not like the others. He's not so easy. And he is so clever; why, the plot of that comedy is

"Oh, I know it by heartmy part of it. You see, he wouldn't keep away from me while he was thinking of it.

He kept consulting me about everything in it. In a way, we worked over it together."

The little man looked at me, slowly closing one eye. It is a habit of his when he's going to do something

"Still youcollaborated; that's the word. I say, my dear, if I could read that comedy, and it washalf what

you say it is, I mightI don't promise, mindbut I might let you have the part that was written for you and

put the thing on. Has he drilled you any, eh? He was the best stagemanager we ever had before he got the

"Well, he's all that yet. Of course, he has told me, and we agreed how the thing should be done. As he'd write,

"Finefine! A reading from that fool Obermuller would be enough to open the eyes of a clever woman. I'd

"Dictate the plot to my secretary, Mason, in there," he nodded his head back toward the inner room. "She

could give him the plot and as much of her own part in full as she could remember. You know Mason. Used

to be a newspaper man. Smart fellow, that, when he's sober. He could piece out the holesyes?"

I looked at him. The little beast sat there, slowly closing one eye and opening it again. He looked like an

unhealthy little frog, with his bald head, his thinlipped mouth that laughed, while the wrinkles rayed away

"But you never can tell with a man like that. Suppose he got into that combine with Heffelfinger and Dixon

"But Heffelfinger and Dixon and Weinstock are all in with us; who told you that fairy story?"

The little fellow laughed. His is a creaky, almost silent little laugh; if a spider could laugh he'd laugh that

"They're fooling him a bunch or two. Never you mind Obermuller. He's a dead one."

"Oh, he said that you thought they were in with you, but that nothing but a written agreement would hold men

"Smart fellow, that Obermuller. He'd have been a good man to have in the business if it hadn't been for those

"What business is that of yours? Stick to the business on hand. Get to work on that play with Mason inside. If

it's good, and we decide to put it on, we'll pay you five hundred dollars down in addition to your salary. If it's

rot, you'll have your salary weekly all the time you're at it, just the same as if you were working, till I can

place you. In the meantime, keep your ears and eyes open and watch things, and your mouth shut. I'll speak to

Mason and he'll be ready for you tomorrow morning. Come round in the morning; there's nobody about

then, and we want to keep this thing dark till it's done. Obermuller mustn't get any idea what we're up to. . . .

"He's furious; wouldn't even say goodby. I'm done for with him, anyway, I guess. But what could I do?"

Just what I'd been hoping for I don't know, but I knew that my chance had come that morning.

For a week I had been talking Obermuller's comedy to Mason, the secretary. In the evenings I stood about in

the wings and watched the Van Twiller company in Brambles. There was one fat role in it that I just ached

for, but I lost all that ache and found another, when I overheard two of the women talking about Obermuller

"He found her and made her," one of 'em said; "just dug her out of the ground. See what he's done for her;

taught her every blessed thing she knows; wrote her mimicking monologues for her; gave her her chance,

andand nowWell, Tausig don't pay salaries for nothing, and she gets hers as regularly as I draw mine.

What more I don't know. But she hasn't set foot on the stage yet under Tausig, and they say Obermuller"

I didn't get the rest of it, so I don't know what they say about Obermuller. I only know what they've said to

him about me. 'Tisn't hard to make men believe those things. But I had to stand it. What could I do? I couldn't

tell Fred Obermuller that I was making over his play, soul and as much body as I could remember, to Tausig's

It hasn't been a very happy week for me, I can tell you, Maggie. But I forgot it all, every shiver and ache of it,

Not altogether alonehe had his bottle. And he had had it and others of the same family all the night before.

The poor drunken wretch hadn't been home at all. He was worse than he'd been that morning three days

before, when I had stood facing him and talking to him, while with my hands behind my back I was taking a

wax impression of the lock of the desk; and he as unconscious of it all as Tausig himself.

The last page I had dictated the day before, which he'd been transcribing from his notes, lay in front of him;

the gas was still burning directly above him, and a shade he wore over his weak eyes had been knocked awry

The thing that favored me was Tausig's distrust of everybody connected with him. He hates his partners only

a bit less than he hates the men outside the Trust. The bigger and richer the Syndicate grows, the more power

and prosperity it has, the more he begrudges them their share of it; the more he wants it all for himself. He is

madly suspicious of his clerks, and hires others to watch them, to spy upon them. He is continually moving

his valuables from place to place, partly because he trusts no man; partly because he's so deathly afraid his

right hand will find out what his left is doing. He is a full partner of Braun and Lowenthalwith mental

reservations. He has no confidence in either of them. Half his schemes he keeps from them; the other half he

tells thempart of. He's for ever afraid that the Syndicate of which he's the head will fall to pieces and

It all makes him an unhappy, restless little beast; but it helped me today. If it'd been any question of safe

combinations and tangled things like that, the game would have been all up for Nancy O. But in his official

safe Tausig keeps only such papers as he wants Braun and Lowenthal to see. And in his private desk in his

I stole past Mason, sleeping with his forehead on the typewriter keyshe'll be lettered like the obelisk

when he wakes upand crept into the next room to see just what Tausig keeps in that private desk of his.

Oh, yes, it was locked. But hadn't I been carrying the key to it every minute for the last fortyeight hours?

There must be a mine of stuff in that desk of Tausig's, Mag. The touch of every paper in it is slimy with some

dirty trick, some bad secret, some mean action. It's a pity that I hadn't time to go through 'em all; it would

have been interesting; but under a bundle of women's letters, which that old fox keeps for no good reason, I'll

Yes, there it was, just as Obermuller had vowed it was, with Tausig's cramped little signature followed by

Heffelfinger's, Dixon's and Weinstock's; a scheme to crush the business life out of men by the cleverest,

But she bungled a bit there, for Mason lifted his head and blinked dazedly at her for a moment, recognized

"NoI know. I'll just look over what we've done, Mr. Mason," she answered cheerfully.

His poor head went down again with a bob, and she caught up the typewritten sheets of Obermuller's play.

She waited a minute longer; half because she wanted to make sure Mason was asleep again before she tore

the sheets across and crammed them down into the wastebasket; half because she pitied the old fellow and

was sorry to take advantage of his condition. But she knew a cure for this last sorrya way she'd help him

later; and when she danced out into the hall she was the very happiest burglar in a world chock full of

Oh, she was in such a twitter as she did it! All that old delight in doing somebody else up, a vague somebody

whose meannesses she didn't know, was as nothing to the joy of doing Tausig up. She was dancing on a

volcano again, that incorrigible Nance! Oh, but such a volcano, Maggie! It atoned for a year of days when

there was nothing doing; no excitement, no risk, nothing to keep a girl interested and alive.

And, Maggie darlin', it was a wonderful volcano, that ones that last one, for it worked both ways. It paid up

for what I haven't done this past year and what I'll never do again in the years to come. It made up to me for

all I've missed and all I'm going to miss. It was a reward of demerit for not being respectable, and a

preventive of further sins. Oh, it was such a volcano as never was. It was a drink and a blue ribbon in one. It

It was Tausig coming in as I was going out. Suddenly I realized that, but I was in such a mad whirl of

"Oh, good morning, Mr. Tausig," I said sweetly. "I never dreamed you'd be down so early in the morning."

My eye followed his. I could have beaten Nancy Olden in that minute for not having sense enough to hide

"That settles his hash. Out he goes today . . . It seems to me you're in a deuce of a hurry," he added, as I

"Not this morning," I said saucily. I wanted to cry. "I've got an engagement to lunch, and I want to go over

My chin shot up in the air. He laughed, that cold, noiseless little laugh of his.

He was immensely satisfied with his little self. "I know himthat old rascal," he said slowly. "I say, Olden,

"But doeh? Finish your work here and we'll go off together, us two, at twelvethirty, and leave him

"But not for me. Listen: let me hurry home now and I'll throw Braun over and be back here to meet you at

He pursed up his thin little lips and shook his head. But I slipped past him in that minute and got out into the

I got around the corner in a jiffy. Oh, I could hardly walk, Mag! I wanted to fly and dance and skip. I wanted

to kick up my heels as the children were doing in the Square, while the organ ground out, Ain't It a Shame? I

actually did a step or two with them, to their delight, and the first thing I knew I felt a bit of a hand in mine

Oh, a baby, Mag! A girlbaby more than a year old and less than two years young; too little to talk; too big

not to walk; facing the world with a winning smile and jabbering things in her soft little lingo, knowing that

I did, all right. She was saying to me as she kicked out her soft, heelless little boot:

"Nancy Olden, I choose you. Nancy Olden, I love you. Nancy Olden, I dare you not to love me. Nancy

Where in the world she dropped from, heaven knows. The organgrinder picked up the shafts of his wagon

and trundled it away. The piccaninnies melted like magic. But that gay little flirt, about a year and a half old,

I didn't realize just then that she was a lost, strayed or stolen. I expected every moment some nurse or

conceited mamma to appear and drag her away from me. And I looked down at heroh, she was just a little

bunch of soft stuff; her face was a giggling dimple, framed in a big round hathalo, that had fallen from her

chickenblond head; and her white dress, with the blue ribbons at the shoulders, was just a little bit dirty. I

like 'em a little bit dirty. Why? Perhaps because I can imagine having a little coquette of my own a bit dirty

like that, and can't just see Nance Olden with a spickandspan clean baby, all feathers and lace, like a bored

It was a false alarm; just a longlegged girl of twelve rushing round the corner, followed by a lot of others. It

hadn't been meant for me, of course, but in the second when I had remembered that precious paper and

Tausig's rage when he should miss it, I had pulled my hand away from that bit baby's and started to run.

The poor little tot! There isn't any reason in the world for the fancies they take any more than for our own; eh,

Mag? Why should she have been attracted to me just because I was so undignified as to dance with the

But do you know what that little thing did? She thought I was playing with her. She gave a crow of delight

That finished me. I stooped and picked her up in my arms, throwing her up in the air to hear her crow and feel

"Mouse," I said, "we'll just have a little trip together. The nurse that'd lose you deserves to worry till you're

found. The mother that's lucky enough to own you will be benefited hereafter by a sharp scare on your

Oh, the feel of a baby in your arms, Mag! It makes the Cruelty seem a perfectly unreal thing, a thing one

should be unutterably ashamed of imagining, of accusing human nature of; a thing only an irredeemably vile

thing could imagine. Just the weight of that little body riding like a bonny boat at anchor on your arm, just the

cocky little way it sits up, chirping and confident; just the light touch of a bit of a hand on your collar; just

that is enough to push down brick walls; to destroy pictures of bruised and maimed children that endure after

the injuries are healed; to scatter records that even II, Nancy Oldencan't believe and believe, too, that

other women have carried their babies, as I did some other woman's baby, across the Square.

On the other side I set her down. I didn't want to. I was greedy of every moment that I had her. But I wanted

She clutched my dress as we stood there a minute in a perfectly irresistible way. I know now why men marry

babywomen: it's to feel that delicious, helpless clutch of weak fingers; the clutch of dependence, of trust, of

I looked down at her with that same silly adoration I've seen on Molly's face for her poor, lacking, twisted

boy. At least, I did in the beginning. But gradually the expression of my face must have changed; for all at

Yes, Maggie Monahan, clean gone! My pocket had been as neatly picked as I myselfwell, never mind, as

what. I threw back my head and laughed aloud. Nance Olden, the great doerup, had been done up so

I wished I could get a glimpse of the clever girl that did it. A girlof course, it was! Do you think any boy's

But I didn't stop to wish very long. Here was I with the thing I valued most in the world still clutched in my

hand, and not a nickel to my name to get me, the paper, and the baby on our way.

It was the baby, of course, that decided me. You can't be very enterprising when you're carrying a pink lump

"It's you for the nearest police station, you young tough!" I said, squeezing her. "I can't take you home now

But she giggled and gurgled back at me, the abandoned thing, as though the police station was just the

It was not so very near, either, that station. My arm ached when I got there from carrying her, but my heart

ached, too, to leave her. I told the matron how and where the little thing had picked me up. At first she

wouldn't leave me, butthe fickle little thinga glass of milk transferred all her smiles and wiles to the

matron. Then we both went over her clothes to find a name or an initial or a laundry mark. But we found

nothing. The matron offered me a glass of milk, too, but I was in a hurry to be gone. She was a nice matron;

When I heard a voice, Maggie, in the office adjoining. I knew that voice all right, and I knew that I had to

I did. I threw the whole thing into the lap of Fate. And when I opened the door and faced him I was smiling.

He started as though he couldn't believe his eyes when he saw me. "The Lord hath delivered mine enemy into

"Why, Mr. Tausig," I cried, before he could get his breath. "How odd to meet you here! Did you find a baby,

"But the luncheon was to be at twelvethirty," I laughed. "And I haven't changed my dress yet."

"You'll change it all right for something not so becoming if you don't shell out that paper."

"Yes, paper. Look here, if you give it back to me this minutenowI'll not prosecute you forfor"

"Yes." He looked doubtfully at me, mistrusting the amiable deference of my manner.

He did not answer, but watched me as though he wasn't sure which way I'd jump the next moment.

"I wonder what could induce you to be so forgiving," I went on musingly. "What sort of paper is this you

"Yes, it's valuable all right. Come on, now! Quit your fooling and get down to business. I'm going to have

"Do you know, Mr. Tausig," I said impulsively, "if I were you, and anybody had stolen a valuable paper from

me, I'd have him arrested. I would. I should not care a rap what the public exposure did to his reputation, so

longso long," I grinned right up at him, "so long as it didn't hurt me, myself, in the eyes of the law."

Mad? Oh, he was hopping! A German swearword burst from him. I don't know what it meant, but I can

I was sure I had him. I was sure, from the very whisper in which he had spoken, that the last thing in the

world he wanted was to have that agreement made public by my arrest. But I tripped up on one thing. I didn't

"Nance Olden," he said aloud now, "I charge you with stealing a valuable private paper of mine from my

I hadn't particularly noticed the Sergeant standing at the other door with his back to us. But from the way he

came at Tausig's call I knew he'd had a private talk with him, and I knew he'd found the middle way.

"Do you mean," I said, "that you'll sign your name to such a charge against me?"

He didn't answer. He had pulled the Sergeant down and was whispering in his ear. I knew what that meant. It

"You'll do well, my girl, to give up Mr. Tausig's property to him," the Sergeant said stiffly.

"But what does he say I've taken? What charge is there against me? Have you the right to search any woman

A woman came in. I had a bad minute there, but it didn't last; it wasn't the matron I'd brought the baby to.

"You'll take this girl into the other room and search her thoroughly. The thing we're looking for" The

"A small paper," he said eagerly. "Aa contractjust a single sheet of legal cap paper it was typewritten

The woman looked at me. She was a bit hardmouthed, with irongray hair, but her eyes looked as though

they'd seen a lot and learned not to flinch, though they still felt like it. I knew that kind of lookI'd seen it at

"What an unpleasant job this of yours is," I said to her, smiling up at her for all the world as that tike of a

baby had smiled at me, and watching her melt just as I had. "I'll not make it a bit harder. This thing's all a

mistake. Which way? . . . I'll come back, Mr. Tausig, to receive your apology, but you can hardly expect me

He growled a wrathful, resenting mouthful. But he looked a bit puzzled just the same.

He looked more puzzled yet, even bewildered, when we came back into the main office a quarter of an hour

later, the woman and I, and she reported that no paper of any kind had she found.

Me? Oh, I was sweet amiability personified with the woman and with the Sergeant, who began to backwater

What? You don't mean to say you're not on, Mag? Oh, dear, dear, it's well you had that beautiful wig of red

hair that puts even Carter's in the shade; for you'd never have been a success inin other businesses I might

Bamboozled the woman? Not a bit of it; you can't deceive women with mouths and eyes like that. It was just

that I'd had a flash of genius in the minute I heard Tausig's voice, and in spite of my being so sure he wouldn't

The baby, of course! In the moment I hadit wasn't longI'd stooped down, pretending to kiss that cherub

goodby, and in a jiffy I'd pinned that precious paper with a safetypin to the baby's underpetticoat,

While Tausig insisted and explained and expostulated and at last walked out with the Sergeantgiving me a

queer last look that was halfcursing, halfplacatingI stood chatting sweetly with the woman who had

I didn't know just how far I might go with her. She knew the paper wasn't on me, and I could see she was

disposed to believe I was as nice as she'd have liked me to be. But she'd had a lot of experience and she knew,

as most women do even without experience, that if there's not always fire where there is smoke, it's because

"Well, goodby," I said, putting out my hand. "It's been disagreeable but I'm obliged to you forwhy,

where's my purse! We must have left it" And I turned to go back into the room where I'd undressed.

The words came clear and cold and positive. Her tone was like an icicle down my back.

"You certainly had no purse, for I should have seen it and searched it if you had."

"Nancy Olden," I said to myself, more in sorrow than in anger, "you've met your match right here. When a

woman knows a fact and states it with such quiet conviction, without the least unnecessary emphasis and not

a superfluous word, 'ware that woman. There's only one game to play to let you hang round here a bit longer

"Of course, you must be right," I said humbly. "I know you wouldn't be likely to make a mistake, but, just to

"Not at all," she said placidly. "If I go with you there's no reason why you should not look."

Oh, Mag, it was hard lines looking. Why?Why, because the place was so bare and so small. There were so

few things to move and it took such a short time, in spite of all I could do and pretend to do, that I was in

"I'll lend you a nickel to get home, if you'll leave me your address," she said after a moment.

Oh, that admirable woman! She ought to be ruling empires instead of searching thieves. Look at the balance

of her, Mag. My best acting hadn't shaken her. She hadn't that fatal curiosity to understand motives that

wrecks so many who deal withwe'll call them the temporarily unstraight. She was satisfied just not to let

me get ahead of her in the least particular. But she wasn't mean, and she would lend me a nickelnot an

emotionally extravagant tencent piece, but just a nickelon the chance that I was what I seemed to be.

Oh, I did admire her; but I'd have been more enthusiastic about it if I could have seen my way clear to the

I took the nickel and thanked her, but effusiveness left her unmoved. A wholesome, bluegowned rock with a

And still I lingered. Fancy Nance Olden just heartbroken at being compelled to leave a police station!

But there was nothing for it. Go, I had to. My head was awhirl with schemes coming forward with

suggestions and being dismissed as unsuitable; my thoughts were flying about at such a dizzy rate while I

stood there in the doorway, the woman's patient hand on the knob and her watchful eyes on me, that I

The second time, though, I turnedso happy I could not keep the tremor out of my voice.

Oh, we were friends, we two! We'd chummed over a baby, which for women is like what taking a drink

together is for men. The admirable dragon in the blue dress didn't waver a bit because her superior spoke

Which puts you in a difficult position when your name's Nance Oldenyou have to tell the truth.

"I've been detained," I said with dignity, "against my wish. But that's all over. I'm going now. Goodby." I

nodded and caught up my skirt. "Oh!" I paused just as the admirable dragon was closing the door on me. "Is

My heart was beating like an engine gone mad, in spite of my careless tone, and there was a buzzing in my

ears that deafened me. But I managed to stand still and listen, and then to walk off, as though it didn't matter

"We've sent her with an officer back to the neighborhood where you found her. He'll find out where she

Ah me, Maggie, the miserable Nance that went away from that station! To have had your future in your

grasp, like that one of the Fates with the string, and then to have it snatched from you by an impish breeze

I don't know just which way I turned after I left that station. I didn't care where I went. Nothing I could think

of gave me any comfort. I tried to fancy myself coming home to you. I tried to see myself going down to tell

the whole thing to Obermuller. But I couldn't do that. There was only one thing I wanted to say to Fred

But Nance Olden's not the girl to go round long like a molting hen. There was only one chance in a hundred,

"Back to the Square where you found the baby, Nance!" I cried to myself. "There's the chance that that

admirable dragon has had her suspicions aroused by your connection with the baby, which she hadn't known

before, and has already dutifully notified the Sergeant. There's the chance that the baby is home by now, and

the paper found by her mother will be turned over to her papa; and then it's goodby to your scheme. There's

But in the heart of me I didn't believe in any chance but onethe chance that I'd find that blessed baby and

I blew in the A.D's nickel on a crosstown car and got back to the little Square. There was another

organgrinder there grinding out coonsongs, to which other piccaninnies danced. But nary a little white

bundle of fluff caught hold of my hand. I walked that Square till my feet were sore. It was hot. My throat was

parched. I was hungry. My head ached. I was hopeless. And yet I just couldn't give it up. I had asked so many

children and nursemaids whether they'd heard of the baby lost that morning and brought back by an officer,

that they began to look at me as though I was not quite right in my mind. The maids grabbed the children if

they started to come near me, and the children stared at me with big round eyes, as though they'd been told I

I was hungry enough to. The little fruitstand at the entrance had a fascination for me. I found myself there

time and again, till I got afraid I might actually try to get of with a peach or a bunch of grapes. That thought

haunted me. Fancy Nance Olden starved and blundering into the cheapest and most easily detected species of

I suppose great generals in their hour of defeat imagine themselves doing the feeblest, foolishest things. As I

sat there on the bench, gazing before me, I saw the whole thingNancy Olden, after all her bragging, her

skirmishing, her hairbreadth scapes and successes, arrested in broad daylight and before witnesses for having

stolen a cool, wet bunch of grapes, worth a nickel, for her hot, dry, hungering throat! I saw the policeman

that'd do it; he looked like that Sergeant Mulhill I met 'way, 'way back in Latimer's garden. I saw the officer

that'd receive me; he had blue eyes like the detective that came for me to the Manhattan. I saw the woman

jaileroh, she was the A.D, all right, who'd receive me without the slightest emotion, show me to a cell and

lock the door, as calm, as little triumphant or affected, as though I hadn't once outwitted that cleverest of

Mag, guess what I saw! No, truly; what I really saw? It made me jump to my feet and grab it with a squeal.

I saw my own purse lying on the gravel almost at my feet, near the little fruitstand that had tempted me.

Blank empty it was, stripped clean, not a penny left in it, not a paper, not a stamp, not even my key. Just the

same I was glad to have it. It linked me in a way to the place. The clever little girl that had stolen it had been

here in this park, on this very spot. The thought of that cute young Nance Olden distracted my mind a minute

I walked up to the fruitstand with the purse in my hand. The old fellow who kept it looked up with an

inviting smile. Lord knows, he needn't have encouraged me to buy if I'd had a penny.

"I want to ask you," I said, "if you remember selling a lot of good things to a little girl who had a purse

"You wouldn't want to get her into troublethat little girl?" he asked cautiously.

I was going to saywell, you can imagine what I was going to say, and that I didn't say it or anything like it.

I gasped, it was so unexpected. And I turned to look. There on one of the benches sat Kitty Wilson. If I hadn't

been blind as a bat and full of troubleoh, it thickens your wits, does trouble, and blinds your eyes and

muffles your ears!I'd have suspected something at the mere sight of her. For there sat Kitty Wilson

enthroned, a hatless, lank little creature about twelve, and near her, clustered thick as ants around a lump of

sugar, was a crowd of children, black and white, boys and girls. For Kittythat deplorable Kittyhad

money to burn; or what was even more effective at her age, she had goodies to give away. Her lap was full of

spoils. She had a sample of every good thing the fruitstand offered. Her cheeks and lips were smeary with

candy. Her dress was stained with fruit. The crumbs of cake lingered still on her chin and apron. And

It helped itself from her abundant lap; it munched and gobbled and asked for more. It was a riot of a high old

time. Even the birds were hopping about as near as they dared, picking up the crumbs, and the squirrels had

I laughed till I shook. It was good to laugh. Nancy Olden isn't accustomed to a long dose of the doleful, and it

You see, Mag, that's where I shouldn't rank with the A.D. I'm too inquisitive. I want to know how the other

"Kitty," I saidsomehow a twelveyearold makes you feel more of a grownup than a twelvemonthsold

does"I hope you're having a goodtime, Kitty Wilson, buthaven't you lost something?"

She was chewing at the end of a long string of black candyshoestrings, all right, the stuff looks likeand

she was eating just because she didn't want to stop. Goodness knows, she was full enough. Her jaws stopped,

though, suddenly, as she looked from the empty purse in my outstretched hand to me, and took me in.

Oh, I know that pause intimately. It says: "Wait a minute, till I get my breath, and I'll know how much you

But she changed her mind when she saw my face. You know, Mag, if there's a thing that's fixed in your

memory it's the face of the body you've done up. The respectables have their rogues' gallery, but we, that is,

In which of 'em is my picture? Now, Margaret, that's mean. You know my portrait hangs in both.

I looked down on the little beggar that had painted me for the second salon, and lo, in a flash she was on her

I was bitterly disappointed in that girl, Mag! I was altogether mistaken in my diagnosis of her. Hers is only a

physical cleverness, a talented dexterity. She had no resource in time of danger but her legs. And legs will not

She halted at a safe distance and glared back at me. Her hostility excited the crowd of childrenher

pushagainst me, and the braver ones jeered the things Kitty only looked, while the thrifty ones stooped and

"She dassent," yelled back Kitty, the valiant. "She knows I'd peach on her about the kid."

"The kid ye swiped this mornin'. Yah! I told the cop what brought her back how ye took her jest as I"

Silly? Of course it was. I might have known what the short skirts above those thin legs meant. I couldn't come

within fifty feet of her. I halted, panting, and she paused, too, dancing tantalizingly half a block away.

What to do? I wished I had another purse to bestow on that sad Kitty, but I had nothing, absolutely nothing,

exceptall at once I remembered itthat little pin you gave me for Christmas, Mag. I took it off and turned

"You run on to her and tell her that if she'll show me the house where that baby lives I'll give her this pin."

He sped on ahead and parleyed with Kit; and while they talked I held aloft the little pin so that Kit might see

She hesitated so long that I feared she'd slip through my hands, but a sudden rival voice piping out, "I'll show

So, with Kit at a safe distance in advance to guard against treachery, and a large and enthusiastic following, I

crossed the street, turned a corner, walked down one block and half up another, and halted before a

I flew up the stairs, leaving my escort behind, and rang the bell. It wasn't so terribly swagger a place, which

"I want to see the lady whose baby was lost this morning," I said to the maid that opened the door.

Who? That stumped me. Not Nance Olden, late of the Vaudeville, later of the Van Twiller, and latest of the

"Tell her, please," I said firmly, "that I'm Miss Murieson, of the XRay, and that the city editor has sent me

That did it. Hooray for the power of the press! She showed me into a long parlor, and I sat down and waited.

It was cool and quiet and softly pretty in that long parlor. The shades were down, the piano was open, the

chairs were low and softly cushioned. I leaned back and closed my eyes, exhausted.

And suddenlyMag!I felt something that was a cross between a roseleaf and a snowflake touch my

I caught her and lifted her to my lap and hugged the chuckling thing as though that was what I came for.

It was gone, Mag. The underpetticoat hadn't a sign of the paper I'd pinned to it.

My head whirled in that minute. I suppose I was faint with the heat, with hunger and fatigue and worry, but I

felt myself slipping out of things when I heard the rustling of skirts, and there before me stood the mother of

The little wretch! She deserted me and flew to that pretty mother of hers in her long, cool white trailing

It was easy enough to begin talking. I told her a tale about being a newspaper woman out on a story; how I'd

"I must ask your pardon," I finished up, "for disturbing you, but two things sent me hereone to know if the

baby got home safe, and the other," I gulped, "to ask about a paper with some notes that I'd pinned to her

It was in that very minute that I noticed the baby's ribbons were pink; they had been blue in the morning.

"Why, yes, of course," said baby's mother. "The first thing I did when I got hold of her was to strip her and

put her in a tub; the second, was to discharge that gossiping nurse for letting her out of her sight."

"Notvery," I stammered. My tongue was thick with hope and dread. "Justmy notes, you know, but I do

need them. I couldn't carry the baby easily, so I pinned them on her skirt, thinkingthinking"

The maid came in and dumped a little heap of white before me. I fell on my knees.

What I said to that woman I don't know even now. I flew out through the hall and down the steps and

"Here!here, you darling!" I said, pressing it into her hand. "And, Kitty, whenever you feel like swiping

another pursejust don't do it. It doesn't pay. Just you come down to the Vaudeville and ask for Nance

I burst in past the stage doorkeeper, amazed to see me, and rushed into Fred Obermuller's office.

"There!" I cried, throwing that awful paper on the desk before him. "Now cinch 'em, Fred Obermuller, as they

cinched you. It'll be the holiest blackmail that everoh, and will you pay for the hansom?"

I don't remember much about the first part of the lunch. I was so hungry I wanted to eat everything in sight,

But Mr. O. kept piling the things on my plate, and each time I began to talk he'd say: "Not nowwait till

"It's been hard for me, too; harder, I think, than for you. It wasn't fair to me to let methink what I did and

say what I did. I'm so sorry, Nance,and ashamed. So ashamed! You might have told me."

He laughed. He's got such a boyish laugh in spite of his chin and his eyeglasses and the bigness of him. He

Oh, Mag, it's such fun to be a woman and have a man wait on you like that! It's such fun to be hungry and to

sit down to a jolly little table just big enough for two, with carnations nodding in the tall slim vase, with a fat,

softfooted, quickhanded waiter dancing behind you, and something tempting in every dish your eye falls

It's a gay, happy, easy world, Maggie darlin'. I vow I can't find a dark corner in itnot today.

None but the swellest place in town was good enough, Obermuller had said, for us to celebrate in. The

waiters looked queerly at us when we came inme in my dusty shoes and mussed hair and old rig, and Mr.

He was smoking and I was pretending to eat fruit when at last I got fairly launched on my story.

He listened to it all with never a word of interruption. Sometimes I thought he was so interested that he

couldn't bear to miss a word I said. And then again I fancied he wasn't listening at all to me; only watching

Can you see him, Mag, sitting opposite me there at the pretty little table, off in a private room by ourselves?

He looked so big and strong and masterful, with his eyes half closed, watching me, that I hugged myself with

delight to think that II, Nancy Olden, had done something for him he couldn't do for himself.

It made me so proud, so tipsily vain, that as I leaned forward eagerly talking, I felt that same intoxicating

happiness I get on the stage when the audience is all with me, and the two of usmyself and the

manyhanded, goodnatured other fellow over on the other side of the footlightsgo careering off on a

He was silent a minute when I got through. Then he laid his cigar aside and stretched out his hand to me.

"And that was all? Nonsense, Nance Olden, there was another reason. There are other tiger trusts. Are you

going to set up as a ladyerrant and right all syndicate wrongs? No, there was another, a bigger reason,

I pulled my hand from his; but not before that fat waiter who'd come in without our noticing had got

"Beg pardon, sir," he said. "This message must be for you, sir. It's marked immediate, and no one else"

Obermuller took it and tore it open. He smiled the oddest smile as he read it, and he threw back his head and

"Read it, Nance," he said, passing it over to me. "They sent it on from the office."

I read it. "Mr. Fred W. Obermuller, Manager Vaudeville Theater, New York City, N.Y.:

Dear Obermuller:I have just learned from your little protegee, Nance Olden, of a comedy you've written.

From what Miss Olden tells me of the plot and situations of And the Greatest of Theseyour title's greatI

judge the thing to be something altogether out of the common; and my secretary and reader, Mr. Mason,

agrees with me that properly interpreted and perhaps touched up here and there, the comedy ought to make a

Can't you drop in this evening and talk the matter over? There's an opening for a fellow like you with us that's

just developed within the past few days, andthis is strictly confidentialI have succeeded in convincing

Braun and Lowenthal that their enmity is a foolish personal matter which business men shouldn't let stand in

the way of business. After all, just what is there between you and them? A mere trifle; a misunderstanding

that half an hour's talk over a bottle of wine with a good cigar would drive away.

If you're the man I take you for you'll drop in this evening at the Van Twiller and bury the hatchet. They're

"Miss Olden," he said severely, coming over to my side of the table, "have you the heart to harm a generous

"You notice the letter was marked personal?" Obermuller said. He was still standing beside me.

"Nowas it?" I got up, too, and began to pull on my gloves; but my fingers shook so I couldn't do a thing

"Oh, yes, it was. That's why I showed it to you. NanceNance, don't you see that there's only one way out of

this? There's only one woman in the world that would do this for me and that I could take it from."

I clasped my hands helplessly. Oh, what could I do, Maggie, with him there and his arms ready for me!

"Afraid you wouldn't care for an old fellow like me?" he laughed. "Yes, that's the only fear I had. But I lost it,

Nancy, Nancy Obermuller, when you flung that paper down before me. That's quite two hours agohaven't I

Oh, MagMag, how can I tell him? Do you think he knows that I am going to be goodgood! that I can be

I'm writing to you just before dinner while I wait for Fred. He's down at the boxoffice looking up advance

sales. I tell you, Maggie Monahan, we're strictly in itwe Obermullers. That Broadway hit of mine has

But I'm not writing to tell you this. I've got something more interesting to tell you, my dear old Cruelty chum.

I want you to pretend to yourself that you see me, Mag, as I came out of the big Chestnut Street store this

afternoon, my arms full of bundles. I must have on that long coat to my heels, of dark, warm red, silklined,

with the long, incurving back sweep and high chinchilla collar, that Fred ordered made for me the very day

we were married. I must be wearing that jolly little, redcloth toque caught up on the side with some of the

Oh, yes, I knew I was more than a year behind the times when I got them, but a successful actress wears what

she pleases, and the rest of the world wears what pleases her, too. Besides, fashions don't mean so much to

you when your husband tells you how becomingbut this has nothing to do with the Bishop.

I had just said, "Nance Olden" To myself I still speak to me as Nancy Olden; it's good for me, Mag; keeps

me humble and for ever grateful that I'm so happy. "Nance, you'll never be able to carry all these things and

lift your buful train, too. And there's never a hansom round when it's snowing and"

And then I caught sight of the carriage. Yes, Maggie, the same fat, low, comfortable, elegant, sober carriage,

wide and wellkept, with rubbertired wheels. And the two heavy horses, fat and elegant and sober, too, and

wide and wellkept. I knew whose it was the minute my eyes lighted on it, and I couldn'tI just couldn't

The man on the boxstill wide and wellkeptwas wideawake this time. I nodded to him as I slipped in

"I'll wait for the Bishop," I said, with a redcoated assurance that left him no alternative but to accept the

Oh, dear, dear! It was soft and warm inside as it had been that long, longago day. The seat was wide and

roomy. The cushions had been done overI resented thatbut though a different material, they were a still

darker plum. And instead of Quo Vadis, the Bishop had been reading Resurrection.

I took it up and glanced over it as I sat there; but, you know, Mag, the heavyweight plays never appealed to

me. I don't go in for the tragicperhaps I saw too much of the real thing when I was little.

At any rate, it seemed dull to me, and I put it aside and sat there absentmindedly dreaming of a little

girlthief that I knew once whenwhen the handle of the door turned and the Bishop got in, and we were

Oh, the little Bishopthe contrast between him and the fat, pompous rig caught me! He seemed littler and

leaner than ever, his little white beard scantier, his soft eye kindlier and his soft heart {?}

"God bless my soul!" he exclaimed, jumping almost out of his neat little boots, while he looked sharply over

What did he see? Just a redcoated ghost dreaming in the corner of his carriage. It made him doubt his

eyeshis sanity. I don't know what he'd have done if that warm red ghost hadn't got tired of dreaming and

Oh, that little ramrod of a bishop! The blood rushed up under his clear, thin, babylike skin and he sat up

"Why don't you ask me where I got the coat, Bishop Van Wagenen?" I said, leaning over to him.

He started. I suppose he'd just that moment remembered my leaving it behind that day at Mrs. Ramsay's.

"No, I haven't." Ah, Maggie, dear, it was worth a lot to me to be able to say that "no" to him. "It was given to

Maggie Monahan, he didn't even blink. Perhaps in the Bishop's set husbands are not uncommon, or very

"Why, I'd never seen Fred Obermuller then," I cried. "Can't you tell a difference, Bishop?" I pleaded. "Don't I

look like aan imposing married woman now? Don't I seem a bitoh, just a bit nicer?"

"You lookyou look, my little girl, exactly like the pretty, bigeyed, wheedlingvoiced child I wished to

"Now, that's like my own, own Bishop!" I cried. MagMag, he was blushing like a boy, a prim, rather

scared little schoolboy that somehow, yetoh, I knew he must feel kindly to me! I felt so fond of him.

The baby! I had forgotten what that old Edward told methat this trusting soul actually still believed all I'd

told him. What was I to do? I tell you, Mag, it's no light thing to get accustomed to telling the truth. You

never know where it'll lead you. Here was Ijust a clever little lie or two and the dear old Bishop would be

happy and contented again. But no; that fatal habit that I've acquired of telling the truth to Fred and you

"You know, Bishop," I said, shutting my eyes and speaking fast to get it overas I imagine you must, Mag,

when you confess to Father Phelan"that was all aa little farcecomedythe whole businessall of

"I mean aa fib; in fact, many of them. II was justit was long agoand I had to make you believe"

His soft old eyes looked at me unbelieving. "You don't mean to say you deliberately lied!"

Oh, Maggie, I felt so little and so nasty! I haven't felt like that since I left the Cruelty. And I'm not nasty,

And that put a backbone in me again. Fred Obermuller's wife just won't let anybody think worse of her than

"Now, look here, Bishop Van Wagenen," I broke out, "if I were the abandoned little wretch your eyes accuse

me of being I wouldn't be in your carriage confessing to you this blessed minute when it'd be so much easier

not to. Surelysurely, in your experience you must have met girls that go wrongand then go right for ever

and ever, Amen. And I'm very right now. Butbut it has been hard for me at times. And at those timesah,

you must know how sincerely I mean itat those times I used to try to recall the sound of your voice, when

you said you'd like to take me home with you and keep me. If I had been your daughter you'd have had a

heart full of loving care for me. And yet, if I had been, and had known that benevolent fatherhood, I should

need it lessso much less than I did the day I begged a prayer from you. Butit's all right now. You don't

That made him sit up and stare, I tell you. Even the Bishop had heard of Nancy Olden. But suddenly,

unaccountably, there came a queer, sad look over his face, and his eyes wouldn't meet mine.

"You evidently forget that you have already told me you are the wife of Mr.Mr. Ober"

"Obermuller. Oh, that's all right." I laughed aloud. I was so relieved. "Of course I am, and he's my manager,

and my playwright, and my secretary, andmymy dear, dear boy. There!" I wasn't laughing at the end of

"There! there!" he said, patting me on the shoulder. "Forgive me, my dear. I am indeed glad to know that you

"YesI have even told Mrs. Van Wagenen about you and how I was attracted to you and believedahem!"

"Ohoh, have you!" I gave a wriggle as I remembered that Maltese lace Maria wanted and that Iugh!

But, luckily, he didn't notice. He had taken my hand and was looking at me over his spectacles in his dear,

"Tell me now, my dear, is there anything that an old clergyman can do for you? I have an engagement near

here and we may not meet again. I can't hope to find you in my carriage many more times. You are

Oh, the gentle courtesy of his manner! I loved his solicitude. Fatherhungry girls like us, Maggie, know how

"You know," I said slowly, "the thing that keeps a woman straight and a man faithful is not a matter of bricks

and mortar nor ways of thinking nor habits of living. It's something finer and stronger than these. It's the

magic taboo of her love for him and his for her that makes themsacred. With that to guard themwhy"

"Yes, yes," he patted my hand softly. "Still, the old see the dangers of an environment that a young and

"My associates? Oh, you've heard about Beryl Blackburn. Wellshe'sshe's just Beryl, you know. She

wasn't made to live any different. Some people steal and some drink and some gamble and some . . . Well,

Beryl belongs to the last class. She doesn't pretend to be better than she is. And, just between you and me,

Bishop, I've more respect for a girl of that kind than for Grace Weston, whose husband is my leading man,

you know. Why, she pulls the wool over his eyes and makes him the laughingstock of the company. I can't

All at once I stopped. But wasn't it like me to spoil it all by bubbling over? I tell you, Maggie, too much truth

I was afraid that I'd lost him, for he spoke with a stately little primness as the carriage just then came to a

stop; I had been so interested talking that I hadn't noticed where we were driving.

"Ah, here we are!" he said. "I must ask you to excuse me, Missah, Mrs.that isthere's a public meeting

of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children this afternoon that I must attend. Goodby, then"

"Oh, are you bound for the Cruelty, too?" I asked. "Why, so am I. Andyesyesthat's the Cruelty!"

The Cruelty stands just where it did, Mag, when you and I first saw it; most things do in Philadelphia, you

know. There's the same prim, official straight upanddownness about the brick front. The steps don't look

so steep now and the building's not so high, perhaps because of a skyscraper or two that've gone up since. But

it chills your blood, Maggie darlin', just as it always did, to think what it stands for. Not man's inhumanity to

man, but women's cruelty to children! Maggie, think of it, if you can, as though this were the first time you'd

I waked from that to find myself marching up the stairs behind the Bishop's rigid little back. Oh, it was stiff

My coming with the Bishopwe seemed to come together, anywaymade the people think he'd brought

me, so I must be just all right. I had the man bring in the toys I'd got out in the carriage, and I handed them

"They're for the children. I want them to have them all and now, please, to do whatever they want with them.

There'll always be others. I'm going to send them right along, if you'll let me, so that those who leave can take

something of their very own with themsomething that never belonged to anybody else but just themselves,

you understand. It's terrible, don't you know, to be a deserted child or a tortured child or a crippled child and

have nothing to do but sit up in that bare, clean little room upstairs with a lot of other strangelingsand just

think on the cruelty that's brought you here and the cruelty you may get into when you leave here. If I'd had a

dollif Mag had only had a set of dishes or a little tin kitchenif the boy with the gouged eye could have

I became conscious then that the matrona new one, Mag, ours is gonewas staring at me, and that the

Who came to my rescue? Why, the Bishop, like the manly little fellow he is. He forgave me even Beryl in

"It's Nance Olden, ladies," he said, with a dignified little wave of his hand that served for an introduction.

Oh, I'm used to it now, Maggie, but I do like it. All the ladyswells buzzed about me, and there Nance stood

preening herself and crowing softly tilltill from among the bunch of millinery one of them stepped up to

me. She had a big smooth face with plenty of chins. Her hair was white and her nose was curved and she

"Clever! My, how clever!" she exclaimed, as though the sob in my voice that I couldn't control had been a bit

She was feeling for her glasses. When she got them and hooked them on her nose and got a good look at

"I remember you very well, Mrs. Ramsay. I hope you haven't forgotten me. I've often wanted to thank you for

your kindness," I said slowly, while she as slowly recovered. "I think you'll be glad to know that I am

I put it square up to him. And he met it like the little man he isperhaps, too, my bit of charity to the Cruelty

"I don't think it will be necessary, Miss Olden," he said gently. "I can do that for you at some future time."

We had tea there in the Board rooms. Oh, Mag, remember how we used to peep into those awful, imposing

Board rooms! Remember how strange and resentful you feltlike a poor little redhaired nigger up at the

blockwhen you were brought in there to be shown to the woman who'd called to adopt you!

It was all so strange that I had to keep talking to keep from dreaming. I was talking away to the matron and

the Bishop about the playroom I'm going to fit up out of that bare little place upstairs. Perhaps the same

child doesn't stay there very long, but there'll always be children to fill itmore's the cruel pity!

Then the Bishop and I climbed up there to see it and plan about it. But I couldn't really see it, Mag, nor the

poor, whitefaced, wiseeyed little waifs that have succeeded us, for the tears in my eyes and the ache at my

heart and the queer trick the place has of being peopled with you and me, and the boy with the gouged eye,

He put his gentle thin old arm about my shoulders for a moment when he saw what was the matter with me.

"OhI wantI want to do something for them," I cried. "I want to do something that counts, that's got a

heart in it, that knows! You knew, didn't you, it was truewhat I said downstairs? I wasI am a Cruelty

"My dear," he said, very stately and sweet, "I'll be proud to be your assistant. You've a kind, true heart

And just at that minute, as I was preceding him down the narrow steps, a girl in a red coat trimmed with

chinchilla and in a red toque with some of the same fur blocked our way as she was coming up.

We looked at each other. You've seen two peacocks spread their tails and strut as they pass each other? Well,

the peacock coming up wasn't in it with the one going down. Her coat wasn't so fine, nor so heavy, nor so

newly, smartly cut. Her toque wasn't so big nor so saucy, and the fur on itnot to mention that the

descending peacock was a brunette and . . . well, Mag, I had my day. Miss Evelyn Kingdon paid me back in

She didn't recognize me, of course, even though the two red coats were so near, as she stopped to let me pass,

that they kissed like sisters, ere they parted. But, Mag, Nancy Olden never got haughty that there wasn't a fall

waiting for her. Back of Miss Kingdon stood Mrs. Kingdonstill Mrs. Kingdon, thanks to Nance

Oldenand behind her, at the foot of the steps, was a frail little oldfashioned bundle of black satin and old

"Maria," he saidsome men say their wives' first names all the years of their lives as they said them on their

weddingday"I want you to meet Miss OldenNance Olden, the comedian. She's the girl I wanted for my

daughteryou'll remember, it's more than a year ago now since I began to talk about her?"

I held my breath while I waited for her answer. But her poor, shortsighted eyes rested on my hot face

"It's an old joke among us," she said pleasantly, "about the Bishop's daughter."

We stood there and chatted, and the Bishop turned away to speak to Mrs. Kingdon. Then I seized my chance.

"I've heard, Mrs. Van Wagenen," I said softly and oh, as nicely as I could, "of your fondness for lace. We are

going abroad in the spring, my husband and I, to Malta, among other places. Can't I get you a piece there as a

Her little lacemittened, parchmentlike hands clasped and unclasped with an almost childish eagerness.

"Oh, thank you, thank you very much; but if you would give the same sum to charity"

"I will," I laughed. She couldn't guess how glad I was to do this thing. "And I'll spend just as much on your

I promised Henrietta a box for tonight, Maggie, and one to Mrs. Kingdon. The Dowager told me she'd love

"But you'll come with me, won't you, Bishop?" she said, turning to him. "And you, Mrs. Van?"

The Bishop blushed. Was he thinking of Beryl, I wonder. But I didn't hear his answer, for it was at that

moment that I caught Fred's voice. He had told me he was going to call for me. I think he fancied that the old

Cruelty would depress meas dreams of it have, you know; and he wanted to come and carry me away from

it, just as at night, when I've waked shivering and moaning, I've felt his dear arms lifting me out of the black

But it was anything but a doleful Nance he found and hurried down the snowy steps out to a hansom and off

to rehearsal. For the Bishop had said to me, "God bless you, child," when he shook hands with both of us at

parting, and the very Cruelty seemed to smile a grim benediction, as we drove off together, on Fred and