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The Fifth Wheel

Short Stories

"Fox-in-the-Morning"

A Bird of Bagdad

A Blackjack Bargainer

A Call Loan

A Chaparral Christmas Gift

A Chaparral Prince

A Comedy in Rubber

A Cosmopolite in a Cafe

A Departmental Case

A Dinner at--------*

A Double-Dyed Deceiver

A Fog in Santone

A Harlem Tragedy

A Lickpenny Lover

A Little Local Colour

A Little Talk about Mobs

A Madison Square Arabian Night

A Matter of Mean Elevation

A Midsummer Knight's Dream

A Midsummer Masquerade

A Municipal Report

A Newspaper Story

A Night in New Arabia

A Philistine in Bohemia

A Poor Rule

A Ramble in Aphasia

A Retrieved Reformation

A Ruler of Men

A Sacrifice Hit

A Service of Love

A Snapshot at the President

A Strange Story

A Technical Error

A Tempered Wind

According to Their Lights

After Twenty Years

An Adjustment of Nature

An Afternoon Miracle

An Apology

An Unfinished Christmas Story

An Unfinished Story

Aristocracy Versus Hash

Art and the Bronco

At Arms With Morpheus

Babes in the Jungle

Best-Seller

Between Rounds

Bexar Scrip No. 2692

Blind Man's Holiday

Brickdust Row

Buried Treasure

By Courier

Calloway's Code

Caught

Cherchez La Femme

Christmas by Injunction

Compliments of the Season

Confessions of a Humorist

Conscience in Art

Cupid a La Carte

Cupid's Exile Number Two

Dickey

Dougherty's Eye-Opener

Elsie in New York

Extradited from Bohemia

Fickle Fortune or How Gladys Hustled

Friends in San Rosario

From Each According to His Ability

From the Cabby's Seat

Georgia's Ruling

Girl

He Also Serves

Hearts and Crosses

Hearts and Hands

Helping the Other Fellow

Holding Up a Train

Hostages to Momus

Hygeia at the Solito

Innocents of Broadway

Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet

Jimmy Hayes and Muriel

Law and Order

Let Me Feel Your Pulse

Little Speck in Garnered Fruit

Lord Oakhurst's Curse

Lost on Dress Parade

Madame Bo-Peep, of the Ranches

Makes the Whole World Kin

Mammon and the Archer

Man About Town

Masters of Arts

Memoirs of a Yellow Dog

Modern Rural Sports

Money Maze

Nemesis and the Candy Man

New York by Camp Fire Light

Next to Reading Matter

No Story

October and June

On Behalf of the Management

One Dollar's Worth

One Thousand Dollars

Out of Nazareth

Past One at Rooney's

Phoebe

Proof of the Pudding

Psyche and the Pskyscraper

Queries and Answers

Roads of Destiny

Roses, Ruses and Romance

Rouge et Noir

Round the Circle

Rus in Urbe

Schools and Schools

Seats of the Haughty

Shearing the Wolf

Ships

Shoes

Sisters of the Golden Circle

Smith

Sociology in Serge and Straw

Sound and Fury

Springtime a La Carte

Squaring the Circle

Strictly Business

Strictly Business

Suite Homes and Their Romance

Telemachus, Friend

The Admiral

The Adventures of Shamrock Jolnes

The Assessor of Success

The Atavism of John Tom Little Bear

The Badge of Policeman O'Roon

The Brief Debut of Tildy

The Buyer From Cactus City

The Caballero's Way

The Cactus

The Caliph and the Cad

The Caliph, Cupid and the Clock

The Call of the Tame

The Chair of Philanthromathematics

The Champion of the Weather

The Church with an Overshot-Wheel

The City of Dreadful Night

The Clarion Call

The Coming-Out of Maggie

The Complete Life of John Hopkins

The Cop and the Anthem

The Count and the Wedding Guest

The Country of Elusion

The Day Resurgent

The Day We Celebrate

The Defeat of the City

The Detective Detector

The Diamond of Kali

The Discounters of Money

The Dog and the Playlet

The Door of Unrest

The Dream

The Duel

The Duplicity of Hargraves

The Easter of the Soul

The Emancipation of Billy

The Enchanted Kiss

The Enchanted Profile

The Ethics of Pig

The Exact Science of Matrimony

The Ferry of Unfulfilment

The Fifth Wheel

The Flag Paramount

The Fool-Killer

The Foreign Policy of Company 99

The Fourth in Salvador

The Friendly Call

The Furnished Room

The Gift of the Magi

The Girl and the Graft

The Girl and the Habit

The Gold That Glittered

The Greater Coney

The Green Door

The Guardian of the Accolade

The Guilty Party - An East Side Tragedy

The Halberdier of the Little Rheinschloss

The Hand that Riles the World

The Handbook of Hymen

The Harbinger

The Head-Hunter

The Hiding of Black Bill

The Higher Abdication

The Higher Pragmatism

The Hypotheses of Failure

The Indian Summer of Dry Valley Johnson

The Lady Higher Up

The Last Leaf

The Last of the Troubadours

The Lonesome Road

The Lost Blend

The Lotus And The Bottle

The Love-Philtre of Ikey Schoenstein

The Making of a New Yorker

The Man Higher Up

The Marionettes

The Marquis and Miss Sally

The Marry Month of May

The Memento

The Missing Chord

The Moment of Victory

The Octopus Marooned

The Passing of Black Eagle

The Pendulum

The Phonograph and the Graft

The Pimienta Pancakes

The Plutonian Fire

The Poet and the Peasant

The Pride of the Cities

The Princess and the Puma

The Prisoner of Zembla

The Proem

The Purple Dress

The Ransom of Mack

The Ransom of Red Chief

The Rathskeller and the Rose

The Red Roses of Tonia

The Reformation of Calliope

The Remnants of the Code

The Renaissance at Charleroi

The Roads We Take

The Robe of Peace

The Romance of a Busy Broker

The Rose of Dixie

The Rubaiyat of a Scotch Highball

The Rubber Plant's Story

The Shamrock and the Palm

The Shocks of Doom

The Skylight Room

The Sleuths

The Snow Man

The Social Triangle

The Song and the Sergeant

The Sparrows in Madison Square

The Sphinx Apple

The Tale of a Tainted Tenner

The Theory and the Hound

The Thing's the Play

The Third Ingredient

The Trimmed Lamp

The Unknown Quantity

The Unprofitable Servant

The Venturers

The Vitagraphoscope

The Voice of the City

The Whirligig of Life

The World and the Door

Thimble, Thimble

Tictocq

To Him Who Waits

Tobin's Palm

Tommy's Burglar

Tracked to Doom

Transformation of Martin Burney

Transients in Arcadia

Two Recalls

Two Renegades

Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen

Ulysses and the Dogman

Vanity and Some Sables

What You Want

While the Auto Waits

Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking

Witches' Loaves







The ranks of the Bed Line moved closer together; for it was cold. They
were alluvial deposit of the stream of life lodged in the delta of Fifth
Avenue and Broadway. The Bed Liners stamped their freezing feet, looked
at the empty benches in Madison Square whence Jack Frost had evicted
them, and muttered to one another in a confusion of tongues. The
Flatiron Building, with its impious, cloud-piercing architecture looming
mistily above them on the opposite delta, might well have stood for the
tower of Babel, whence these polyglot idlers had been called by the
winged walking delegate of the Lord.

Standing on a pine box a head higher than his flock of goats, the
Preacher exhorted whatever transient and shifting audience the north
wind doled out to him. It was a slave market. Fifteen cents bought you a
man. You deeded him to Morpheus; and the recording angel gave you
credit.

The preacher was incredibly earnest and unwearied. He had looked over
the list of things one may do for one's fellow man, and had assumed for
himself the task of putting to bed all who might apply at his soap box
on the nights of Wednesday and Sunday. That left but five nights for
other philanthropists to handle; and had they done their part as well,
this wicked city might have become a vast Arcadian dormitory where all
might snooze and snore the happy hours away, letting problem plays and
the rent man and business go to the deuce.

The hour of eight was but a little while past; sightseers in a small,
dark mass of pay ore were gathered in the shadow of General Worth's
monument. Now and then, shyly, ostentatiously, carelessly, or with
conscientious exactness one would step forward and bestow upon the
Preacher small bills or silver. Then a lieutenant of Scandinavian
coloring and enthusiasm would march away to a lodging house with a squad
of the redeemed. All the while the Preacher exhorted the crowd in terms
beautifully devoid of eloquence--splendid with the deadly, accusative
monotony of truth. Before the picture of the Bed Liners fades you must
hear one phrase of the Preacher's--the one that formed his theme that
night. It is worthy of being stenciled on all the white ribbons in the
world.

_"No man ever learned to be a drunkard on five-cent whisky."_

Think of it, tippler. It covers the ground from the sprouting rye to the
Potter's Field.

A clean-profiled, erect young man in the rear rank of the bedless
emulated the terrapin, drawing his head far down into the shell of his
coat collar. It was a well-cut tweed coat; and the trousers still showed
signs of having flattened themselves beneath the compelling goose. But,
conscientiously, I must warn the milliner's apprentice who reads this,
expecting a Reginald Montressor in straits, to peruse no further. The
young man was no other than Thomas McQuade, ex-coachman, discharged for
drunkenness one month before, and now reduced to the grimy ranks of the
one-night bed seekers.

If you live in smaller New York you must know the Van Smuythe family
carriage, drawn by the two 1,500-pound, 100 to 1-shot bays. The carriage
is shaped like a bath-tub. In each end of it reclines an old lady Van
Smuythe holding a black sunshade the size of a New Year's Eve feather
tickler. Before his downfall Thomas McQuade drove the Van Smuythe bays
and was himself driven by Annie, the Van Smuythe lady's maid. But it is
one of the saddest things about romance that a tight shoe or an empty
commissary or an aching tooth will make a temporary heretic of any
Cupid-worshiper. And Thomas's physical troubles were not few. Therefore,
his soul was less vexed with thoughts of his lost lady's maid than it
was by the fancied presence of certain non-existent things that his
racked nerves almost convinced him were flying, dancing, crawling, and
wriggling on the asphalt and in the air above and around the dismal
campus of the Bed Line army. Nearly four weeks of straight whisky and
a diet limited to crackers, bologna, and pickles often guarantees a
psycho-zoological sequel. Thus desperate, freezing, angry, beset by
phantoms as he was, he felt the need of human sympathy and intercourse.

The Bed Liner standing at his right was a young man of about his own
age, shabby but neat.

"What's the diagnosis of your case, Freddy?" asked Thomas, with the
freemasonic familiarity of the damned--"Booze? That's mine. You don't
look like a panhandler. Neither am I. A month ago I was pushing the
lines over the backs of the finest team of Percheron buffaloes that ever
made their mile down Fifth Avenue in 2.85. And look at me now! Say; how
do you come to be at this bed bargain-counter rummage sale."

The other young man seemed to welcome the advances of the airy
ex-coachman.

"No," said he, "mine isn't exactly a case of drink. Unless we allow that
Cupid is a bartender. I married unwisely, according to the opinion of my
unforgiving relatives. I've been out of work for a year because I don't
know how to work; and I've been sick in Bellevue and other hospitals for
months. My wife and kid had to go back to her mother. I was turned out
of the hospital yesterday. And I haven't a cent. That's my tale of woe."

"Tough luck," said Thomas. "A man alone can pull through all right. But
I hate to see the women and kids get the worst of it."

Just then there hummed up Fifth Avenue a motor car so splendid, so red,
so smoothly running, so craftily demolishing the speed regulations that
it drew the attention even of the listless Bed Liners. Suspended and
pinioned on its left side was an extra tire.

When opposite the unfortunate company the fastenings of this tire became
loosed. It fell to the asphalt, bounded and rolled rapidly in the wake
of the flying car.

Thomas McQuade, scenting an opportunity, darted from his place among the
Preacher's goats. In thirty seconds he had caught the rolling tire,
swung it over his shoulder, and was trotting smartly after the car. On
both sides of the avenue people were shouting, whistling, and waving
canes at the red car, pointing to the enterprising Thomas coming up with
the lost tire.

One dollar, Thomas had estimated, was the smallest guerdon that so grand
an automobilist could offer for the service he had rendered, and save
his pride.

Two blocks away the car had stopped. There was a little, brown, muffled
chauffeur driving, and an imposing gentleman wearing a magnificent
sealskin coat and a silk hat on a rear seat.

Thomas proffered the captured tire with his best ex-coachman manner
and a look in the brighter of his reddened eyes that was meant to be
suggestive to the extent of a silver coin or two and receptive up to
higher denominations.

But the look was not so construed. The sealskinned gentleman received
the tire, placed it inside the car, gazed intently at the ex-coachman,
and muttered to himself inscrutable words.

"Strange--strange!" said he. "Once or twice even I, myself, have fancied
that the Chaldean Chiroscope has availed. Could it be possible?"

Then he addressed less mysterious words to the waiting and hopeful
Thomas.

"Sir, I thank you for your kind rescue of my tire. And I would ask you,
if I may, a question. Do you know the family of Van Smuythes living in
Washington Square North?"

"Oughtn't I to?" replied Thomas. "I lived there. Wish I did yet."

The sealskinned gentleman opened a door of the car.

"Step in please," he said. "You have been expected."

Thomas McQuade obeyed with surprise but without hesitation. A seat in a
motor car seemed better than standing room in the Bed Line. But after
the lap-robe had been tucked about him and the auto had sped on its
course, the peculiarity of the invitation lingered in his mind.

"Maybe the guy hasn't got any change," was his diagnosis. "Lots of these
swell rounders don't lug about any ready money. Guess he'll dump me out
when he gets to some joint where he can get cash on his mug. Anyhow,
it's a cinch that I've got that open-air bed convention beat to a
finish."

Submerged in his greatcoat, the mysterious automobilist seemed, himself,
to marvel at the surprises of life. "Wonderful! amazing! strange!" he
repeated to himself constantly.

When the car had well entered the crosstown Seventies it swung eastward
a half block and stopped before a row of high-stooped, brownstone-front
houses.

"Be kind enough to enter my house with me," said the sealskinned
gentleman when they had alighted. "He's going to dig up, sure,"
reflected Thomas, following him inside.

There was a dim light in the hall. His host conducted him through a door
to the left, closing it after him and leaving them in absolute darkness.
Suddenly a luminous globe, strangely decorated, shone faintly in
the centre of an immense room that seemed to Thomas more splendidly
appointed than any he had ever seen on the stage or read of in fairy
tales.

The walls were hidden by gorgeous red hangings embroidered with
fantastic gold figures. At the rear end of the room were draped
portières of dull gold spangled with silver crescents and stars. The
furniture was of the costliest and rarest styles. The ex-coachman's feet
sank into rugs as fleecy and deep as snowdrifts. There were three or
four oddly shaped stands or tables covered with black velvet drapery.

Thomas McQuade took in the splendors of this palatial apartment with one
eye. With the other he looked for his imposing conductor--to find that
he had disappeared.

"B'gee!" muttered Thomas, "this listens like a spook shop. Shouldn't
wonder if it ain't one of these Moravian Nights' adventures that you
read about. Wonder what became of the furry guy."

Suddenly a stuffed owl that stood on an ebony perch near the illuminated
globe slowly raised his wings and emitted from his eyes a brilliant
electric glow.

With a fright-born imprecation, Thomas seized a bronze statuette of
Hebe from a cabinet near by and hurled it with all his might at the
terrifying and impossible fowl. The owl and his perch went over with a
crash. With the sound there was a click, and the room was flooded with
light from a dozen frosted globes along the walls and ceiling. The gold
portières parted and closed, and the mysterious automobilist entered the
room. He was tall and wore evening dress of perfect cut and accurate
taste. A Vandyke beard of glossy, golden brown, rather long and wavy
hair, smoothly parted, and large, magnetic, orientally occult eyes gave
him a most impressive and striking appearance. If you can conceive
a Russian Grand Duke in a Rajah's throne-room advancing to greet a
visiting Emperor, you will gather something of the majesty of his
manner. But Thomas McQuade was too near his _d t's_ to be mindful of his
_p's_ and _q's_. When he viewed this silken, polished, and somewhat
terrifying host he thought vaguely of dentists.

"Say, doc," said he resentfully, "that's a hot bird you keep on tap.
I hope I didn't break anything. But I've nearly got the williwalloos,
and when he threw them 32-candle-power lamps of his on me, I took a
snap-shot at him with that little brass Flatiron Girl that stood on the
sideboard."

"That is merely a mechanical toy," said the gentleman with a wave of his
hand. "May I ask you to be seated while I explain why I brought you to
my house. Perhaps you would not understand nor be in sympathy with the
psychological prompting that caused me to do so. So I will come to the
point at once by venturing to refer to your admission that you know the
Van Smuythe family, of Washington Square North."

"Any silver missing?" asked Thomas tartly. "Any joolry displaced? Of
course I know 'em. Any of the old ladies' sunshades disappeared? Well,
I know 'em. And then what?"

The Grand Duke rubbed his white hands together softly.

"Wonderful!" he murmured. "Wonderful! Shall I come to believe in the
Chaldean Chiroscope myself? Let me assure you," he continued, "that
there is nothing for you to fear. Instead, I think I can promise you
that very good fortune awaits you. We will see."

"Do they want me back?" asked Thomas, with something of his old
professional pride in his voice. "I'll promise to cut out the booze and
do the right thing if they'll try me again. But how did you get wise,
doc? B'gee, it's the swellest employment agency I was ever in, with its
flashlight owls and so forth."

With an indulgent smile the gracious host begged to be excused for two
minutes. He went out to the sidewalk and gave an order to the chauffeur,
who still waited with the car. Returning to the mysterious apartment,
he sat by his guest and began to entertain him so well by his witty and
genial converse that the poor Bed Liner almost forgot the cold streets
from which he had been so recently and so singularly rescued. A servant
brought some tender cold fowl and tea biscuits and a glass of miraculous
wine; and Thomas felt the glamour of Arabia envelop him. Thus half an
hour sped quickly; and then the honk of the returned motor car at the
door suddenly drew the Grand Duke to his feet, with another soft
petition for a brief absence.

Two women, well muffled against the cold, were admitted at the front
door and suavely conducted by the master of the house down the hall
through another door to the left and into a smaller room, which was
screened and segregated from the larger front room by heavy, double
portières. Here the furnishings were even more elegant and exquisitely
tasteful than in the other. On a gold-inlaid rosewood table were
scattered sheets of white paper and a queer, triangular instrument or
toy, apparently of gold, standing on little wheels.

The taller woman threw back her black veil and loosened her cloak. She
was fifty, with a wrinkled and sad face. The other, young and plump,
took a chair a little distance away and to the rear as a servant or an
attendant might have done.

"You sent for me, Professor Cherubusco," said the elder woman, wearily.
"I hope you have something more definite than usual to say. I've about
lost the little faith I had in your art. I would not have responded to
your call this evening if my sister had not insisted upon it."

"Madam," said the professor, with his princeliest smile, "the true Art
cannot fail. To find the true psychic and potential branch sometimes
requires time. We have not succeeded, I admit, with the cards, the
crystal, the stars, the magic formulæ of Zarazin, nor the Oracle of
Po. But we have at last discovered the true psychic route. The Chaldean
Chiroscope has been successful in our search."

The professor's voice had a ring that seemed to proclaim his belief in
his own words. The elderly lady looked at him with a little more
interest.

"Why, there was no sense in those words that it wrote with my hands on
it," she said. "What do you mean?"

"The words were these," said Professor Cherubusco, rising to his full
magnificent height: "_'By the fifth wheel of the chariot he shall
come.'_"

"I haven't seen many chariots," said the lady, "but I never saw one with
five wheels."

"Progress," said the professor--"progress in science and mechanics has
accomplished it--though, to be exact, we may speak of it only as an
extra tire. Progress in occult art has advanced in proportion. Madam, I
repeat that the Chaldean Chiroscope has succeeded. I can not only answer
the question that you have propounded, but I can produce before your
eyes the proof thereof."

And now the lady was disturbed both in her disbelief and in her poise.

"O professor!" she cried anxiously--"When?--where? Has he been found? Do
not keep me in suspense."

"I beg you will excuse me for a very few minutes," said Professor
Cherubusco, "and I think I can demonstrate to you the efficacy of the
true Art."

Thomas was contentedly munching the last crumbs of the bread and fowl
when the enchanter appeared suddenly at his side.

"Are you willing to return to your old home if you are assured of a
welcome and restoration to favor?" he asked, with his courteous, royal
smile.

"Do I look bughouse?" answered Thomas. "Enough of the footback life for
me. But will they have me again? The old lady is as fixed in her ways as
a nut on a new axle."

"My dear young man," said the other, "she has been searching for you
everywhere."

"Great!" said Thomas. "I'm on the job. That team of dropsical
dromedaries they call horses is a handicap for a first-class coachman
like myself; but I'll take the job back, sure, doc. They're good people
to be with."

And now a change came o'er the suave countenance of the Caliph of
Bagdad. He looked keenly and suspiciously at the ex-coachman.

"May I ask what your name is?" he said shortly.

"You've been looking for me," said Thomas, "and don't know my name?
You're a funny kind of sleuth. You must be one of the Central Office
gumshoers. I'm Thomas McQuade, of course; and I've been chauffeur of
the Van Smuythe elephant team for a year. They fired me a month ago
for--well, doc, you saw what I did to your old owl. I went broke on
booze, and when I saw the tire drop off your whiz wagon I was standing
in that squad of hoboes at the Worth monument waiting for a free bed.
Now, what's the prize for the best answer to all this?"

To his intense surprise Thomas felt himself lifted by the collar and
dragged, without a word of explanation, to the front door. This was
opened, and he was kicked forcibly down the steps with one heavy,
disillusionizing, humiliating impact of the stupendous Arabian's shoe.

As soon as the ex-coachman had recovered his feet and his wits he
hastened as fast as he could eastward toward Broadway.

"Crazy guy," was his estimate of the mysterious automobilist. "Just
wanted to have some fun kiddin', I guess. He might have dug up a dollar,
anyhow. Now I've got to hurry up and get back to that gang of bum bed
hunters before they all get preached to sleep."

When Thomas reached the end of his two-mile walk he found the ranks of
the homeless reduced to a squad of perhaps eight or ten. He took the
proper place of a newcomer at the left end of the rear rank. In a file
in front of him was the young man who had spoken to him of hospitals and
something of a wife and child.

"Sorry to see you back again," said the young man, turning to speak to
him. "I hoped you had struck something better than this."

"Me?" said Thomas. "Oh, I just took a run around the block to keep warm!
I see the public ain't lending to the Lord very fast to-night."

"In this kind of weather," said the young man, "charity avails itself of
the proverb, and both begins and ends at home."

And the Preacher and his vehement lieutenant struck up a last hymn of
petition to Providence and man. Those of the Bed Liners whose windpipes
still registered above 32 degrees hopelessly and tunelessly joined in.

In the middle of the second verse Thomas saw a sturdy girl with
wind-tossed drapery battling against the breeze and coming straight
toward him from the opposite sidewalk. "Annie!" he yelled, and ran
toward her.

"You fool, you fool!" she cried, weeping and laughing, and hanging upon
his neck, "why did you do it?"

"The Stuff," explained Thomas briefly. "You know. But subsequently nit.
Not a drop." He led her to the curb. "How did you happen to see me?"

"I came to find you," said Annie, holding tight to his sleeve. "Oh, you
big fool! Professor Cherubusco told us that we might find you here."

"Professor Ch---- Don't know the guy. What saloon does he work in?"

"He's a clairvoyant, Thomas; the greatest in the world. He found you
with the Chaldean telescope, he said."

"He's a liar," said Thomas. "I never had it. He never saw me have
anybody's telescope."

"And he said you came in a chariot with five wheels or something."

"Annie," said Thoms solicitously, "you're giving me the wheels now. If
I had a chariot I'd have gone to bed in it long ago. And without any
singing and preaching for a nightcap, either."

"Listen, you big fool. The Missis says she'll take you back. I begged
her to. But you must behave. And you can go up to the house to-night;
and your old room over the stable is ready."

"Great!" said Thomas earnestly. "You are It, Annie. But when did these
stunts happen?"

"To-night at Professor Cherubusco's. He sent his automobile for the
Missis, and she took me along. I've been there with her before."

"What's the professor's line?"

"He's a clearvoyant and a witch. The Missis consults him. He knows
everything. But he hasn't done the Missis any good yet, though she's
paid him hundreds of dollars. But he told us that the stars told him we
could find you here."

"What's the old lady want this cherry-buster to do?"

"That's a family secret," said Annie. "And now you've asked enough
questions. Come on home, you big fool."

They had moved but a little way up the street when Thomas stopped.

"Got any dough with you, Annie?" he asked.

Annie looked at him sharply.

"Oh, I know what that look means," said Thomas. "You're wrong. Not
another drop. But there's a guy that was standing next to me in the bed
line over there that's in bad shape. He's the right kind, and he's got
wives or kids or something, and he's on the sick list. No booze. If you
could dig up half a dollar for him so he could get a decent bed I'd like
it."

Annie's fingers began to wiggle in her purse.

"Sure, I've got money," said she. "Lots of it. Twelve dollars." And then
she added, with woman's ineradicable suspicion of vicarious benevolence:
"Bring him here and let me see him first."

Thomas went on his mission. The wan Bed Liner came readily enough. As
the two drew near, Annie looked up from her purse and screamed:

"Mr. Walter-- Oh--Mr. Walter!

"Is that you, Annie?" said the young man meekly.

"Oh, Mr. Walter!--and the Missis hunting high and low for you!"

"Does mother want to see me?" he asked, with a flush coming out on his
pale cheek.

"She's been hunting for you high and low. Sure, she wants to see you.
She wants you to come home. She's tried police and morgues and lawyers
and advertising and detectives and rewards and everything. And then she
took up clearvoyants. You'll go right home, won't you, Mr. Walter?"

"Gladly, if she wants me," said the young man. "Three years is a long
time. I suppose I'll have to walk up, though, unless the street cars are
giving free rides. I used to walk and beat that old plug team of bays we
used to drive to the carriage. Have they got them yet?"

"They have," said Thomas, feelingly. "And they'll have 'em ten years
from now. The life of the royal elephantibus truckhorseibus is one
hundred and forty-nine years. I'm the coachman. Just got my
reappointment five minutes ago. Let's all ride up in a surface car--that
is--er--if Annie will pay the fares."

On the Broadway car Annie handed each one of the prodigals a nickel to
pay the conductor.

"Seems to me you are mighty reckless the way you throw large sums of
money around," said Thomas sarcastically.

"In that purse," said Annie decidedly, "is exactly $11.85. I shall take
every cent of it to-morrow and give it to professor Cherubusco, the
greatest man in the world."

"Well," said Thomas, "I guess he must be a pretty fly guy to pipe off
things the way he does. I'm glad his spooks told him where you could
find me. If you'll give me his address, some day I'll go up there,
myself, and shake his hand."

Presently Thomas moved tentatively in his seat, and thoughtfully felt an
abrasion or two on his knees and his elbows.

"Say, Annie," said he confidentially, maybe it's one of the last dreams
of booze, but I've a kind of a recollection of riding in an automobile
with a swell guy that took me to a house full of eagles and arc lights.
He fed me on biscuits and hot air, and then kicked me down the front
steps. If it was the _d t's_, why am I so sore?"

"Shut up, you fool," said Annie.

"If I could find that funny guy's house," said Thomas, in conclusion,
"I'd go up there some day and punch his nose for him."




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