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By Courier

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







It was neither the season nor the hour when the Park had frequenters;
and it is likely that the young lady, who was seated on one of the
benches at the side of the walk, had merely obeyed a sudden impulse
to sit for a while and enjoy a foretaste of coming Spring.

She rested there, pensive and still. A certain melancholy that
touched her countenance must have been of recent birth, for it had
not yet altered the fine and youthful contours of her cheek, nor
subdued the arch though resolute curve of her lips.

A tall young man came striding through the park along the path near
which she sat. Behind him tagged a boy carrying a suit-case. At
sight of the young lady, the man's face changed to red and back to
pale again. He watched her countenance as he drew nearer, with hope
and anxiety mingled on his own. He passed within a few yards of her,
but he saw no evidence that she was aware of his presence or
existence.

Some fifty yards further on he suddenly stopped and sat on a bench at
one side. The boy dropped the suit-case and stared at him with
wondering, shrewd eyes. The young man took out his handkerchief and
wiped his brow. It was a good handkerchief, a good brow, and the
young man was good to look at. He said to the boy:

"I want you to take a message to that young lady on that bench. Tell
her I am on my way to the station, to leave for San Francisco, where
I shall join that Alaska moose-hunting expedition. Tell her that,
since she has commanded me neither to speak nor to write to her, I
take this means of making one last appeal to her sense of justice,
for the sake of what has been. Tell her that to condemn and discard
one who has not deserved such treatment, without giving him her
reasons or a chance to explain is contrary to her nature as I believe
it to be. Tell her that I have thus, to a certain degree, disobeyed
her injunctions, in the hope that she may yet be inclined to see
justice done. Go, and tell her that."

The young man dropped a half-dollar into the boy's hand. The boy
looked at him for a moment with bright, canny eyes out of a dirty,
intelligent face, and then set off at a run. He approached the lady
on the bench a little doubtfully, but unembarrassed. He touched the
brim of the old plaid bicycle cap perched on the back of his head.
The lady looked at him coolly, without prejudice or favour.

"Lady," he said, "dat gent on de oder bench sent yer a song and dance
by me. If yer don't know de guy, and he's tryin' to do de Johnny
act, say de word, and I'll call a cop in t'ree minutes. If yer does
know him, and he's on de square, w'y I'll spiel yer de bunch of hot
air he sent yer."

The young lady betrayed a faint interest.

"A song and dance!" she said, in a deliberate sweet voice that seemed
to clothe her words in a diaphanous garment of impalpable irony.
"A new idea--in the troubadour line, I suppose. I--used to know the
gentleman who sent you, so I think it will hardly be necessary to
call the police. You may execute your song and dance, but do not
sing too loudly. It is a little early yet for open-air vaudeville,
and we might attract attention."

"Awe," said the boy, with a shrug down the length of him, "yer know
what I mean, lady. 'Tain't a turn, it's wind. He told me to tell
yer he's got his collars and cuffs in dat grip for a scoot clean out
to 'Frisco. Den he's goin' to shoot snow-birds in de Klondike. He
says yer told him not to send 'round no more pink notes nor come
hangin' over de garden gate, and he takes dis means of puttin' yer
wise. He says yer refereed him out like a has-been, and never give
him no chance to kick at de decision. He says yer swiped him, and
never said why."

The slightly awakened interest in the young lady's eyes did not
abate. Perhaps it was caused by either the originality or the
audacity of the snow-bird hunter, in thus circumventing her express
commands against the ordinary modes of communication. She fixed her
eye on a statue standing disconsolate in the dishevelled park, and
spoke into the transmitter:

"Tell the gentleman that I need not repeat to him a description of my
ideals. He knows what they have been and what they still are. So
far as they touch on this case, absolute loyalty and truth are the
ones paramount. Tell him that I have studied my own heart as well as
one can, and I know its weakness as well as I do its needs. That is
why I decline to hear his pleas, whatever they may be. I did not
condemn him through hearsay or doubtful evidence, and that is why I
made no charge. But, since he persists in hearing what he already
well knows, you may convey the matter.

"Tell him that I entered the conservatory that evening from the rear,
to cut a rose for my mother. Tell him I saw him and Miss Ashburton
beneath the pink oleander. The tableau was pretty, but the pose and
juxtaposition were too eloquent and evident to require explanation.
I left the conservatory, and, at the same time, the rose and my
ideal. You may carry that song and dance to your impresario."

"I'm shy on one word, lady. Jux--jux--put me wise on dat, will yer?"

"Juxtaposition--or you may call it propinquity--or, if you like,
being rather too near for one maintaining the position of an ideal."

The gravel spun from beneath the boy's feet. He stood by the other
bench. The man's eyes interrogated him, hungrily. The boy's were
shining with the impersonal zeal of the translator.

"De lady says dat she's on to de fact dat gals is dead easy when a
feller comes spielin' ghost stories and tryin' to make up, and dat's
why she won't listen to no soft-soap. She says she caught yer dead
to rights, huggin' a bunch o' calico in de hot-house. She side-
stepped in to pull some posies and yer was squeezin' de oder gal to
beat de band. She says it looked cute, all right all right, but it
made her sick. She says yer better git busy, and make a sneak for de
train."

The young man gave a low whistle and his eyes flashed with a sudden
thought. His hand flew to the inside pocket of his coat, and drew
out a handful of letters. Selecting one, he handed it to the boy,
following it with a silver dollar from his vest-pocket.

"Give that letter to the lady," he said, "and ask her to read it.
Tell her that it should explain the situation. Tell her that, if she
had mingled a little trust with her conception of the ideal, much
heartache might have been avoided. Tell her that the loyalty she
prizes so much has never wavered. Tell her I am waiting for an
answer."

The messenger stood before the lady.

"De gent says he's had de ski-bunk put on him widout no cause. He
says he's no bum guy; and, lady, yer read dat letter, and I'll bet
yer he's a white sport, all right."

The young lady unfolded the letter; somewhat doubtfully, and read it.

DEAR DR. ARNOLD: I want to thank you for your most kind and
opportune aid to my daughter last Friday evening, when she was
overcome by an attack of her old heart-trouble in the conservatory
at Mrs. Waldron's reception. Had you not been near to catch her as
she fell and to render proper attention, we might have lost her. I
would be glad if you would call and undertake the treatment of her
case.
Gratefully yours,
Robert Ashburton.

The young lady refolded the letter, and handed it to the boy.

"De gent wants an answer," said the messenger. "Wot's de word?"

The lady's eyes suddenly flashed on him, bright, smiling and wet.

"Tell that guy on the other bench," she said, with a happy, tremulous
laugh, "that his girl wants him."




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