LASSITER

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVII, Issue 5, 31 January 1912, Page 42

LASSITER

ay

RICHARD WASHBURN CHILD.

THERE is, as you know, a eafe that spreads its tables out on to the sidewalks where, over an ice or a liqueur, one ean see the ban t pavilion, the Prado, and the Malecou with one eye-sweep. When the air is balmy, the sky above planted with stars, and the moonlight falls upon the grim romance of Morro Castle across the harbour month, it is pleasant to sit there, looking with a dreamy mind into the faces of the Havana parade of Cubans, negroes, and Spaniards. These people are better artistic productions than ourselves. As for the Spanish women, in their Parisian tinery and flick and flash of jewellery, they have a way of suggesting sun-ripened fruit in cut glass. And when the Carnival is at its height! "They all seem to know better how to play.” said Miss Dorothy C. Fineh, wrinkling her’ perfect nose with an expression of pique. "We—and all Americans —know how to do everything except to live and have fun. Oh, dear!” Iler companion across the insignificant diameter of the little companionable ■table was none other than our friend, Martin Lassiter, who had been left alone with her for three reasons. The first was that old Cheever Fineh, who cold out to the Steel Trust after he ha I lost the knack of living, and Mrs Cheever Thorndike Fineh, who had resigned ■her social leadership only when she had become wearied of well-ordered and well-organised joy, were tired, and wanted an excuse to use their eighteen-dollars-a-day suite in the hotel over the restaurant. The second reason was that Lassiter had three learned degrees, an appointment as full professor in psychology, a most desirable ancestry traced to the Lassiters of County Laseiter, who lived in a time long before the name Flinch had been changed to Fineh, and had proven, after test, that he would make love to the perfect daughter academically—which won't work. The third reason was that conventions are unnecessary in places where no one knows you. So Martin, immaculate in white alpaca, sat there with complete happiness and with Dorothy of the golden hair and glowing health. There was the moon, the Carnival, the luxuriant, soft music, the laughter, the smell of flowers, the spinning past of motor ears, the languid roll of elegant broughams; he eared not for the hidden reasons why his mind, which had reached middle age twentv vears in advance of his body, had allowed him to feel that all tip mad joy of many universes were in Miss Finch’s graceful hands, lurking at the corners of her mouth, or tied by the strands of hair above her white forehead. He cared not why he had even forgotten that she owned all the bonds of the Intra State and Western Railroad. He cared not that she knew little of learned matters, had no experience in wit beyond that kind which is bred at dances and functions, and had never learned to do anything useful.

He eared not why. To. the devil with psychology! He was in love! He made up his mind tliat he would express this emotion then and there. Far in the distance he could hear the shuffling and weird chanting of a negro “eomparsa"—the solemn orgy of Africa kept alive in the Indies. The moment Seemed fitting. He adjnetisl his glasses, playing with a little coffee cup with White lingers of his other hand.

"I'm glad tliat we met here—that is, in Havana, at this time,” he began. Miss Finch opened her eyes—a delightful spectacle, especially in a soft evening light. “Why, so am I!” she said, for she liked Lassiter very much, hie manners, his odd sense of humour and his brilliant intellect. “Nevertheless,” she added, with a slight movement of her shoulders beneath the •clinging material which covered them, "nevertheless, you seem to have forgotten me entirely. Tou have not been listening. I said I wished we Americans knew how to play —how to live.” "I beg your pardon,” Martin stammered. “Yes—-yes. You are right.” He was a little taken baek by the unwonted philosophical mood of the young lady. "But spontaneity is, perhaps, an attribute of animals and children. Nations that ean play are nations of peasants, of children, of animal spirits. There is something to be said for those peoples who do not know how to play.” “Not for mine,” said Dorothy. “Chicago is her home.” Martin allowed himself the delight of laughing patronisingly. The point of view of the girl was so refreshing and so young. "Well,” she said, resting her chin on the back of her hand, "why not? What do we gain by always being so dead In earnest about life—like mother and father? Why is everybody so crazy about getting a big store of something! Look at father. It’s money. Look at yourself. It’s learning. All right, if you can have a good time doing it. But I wish to be a child, a peasant, an animal—if it’s necessary to know how to live. Here we sit. Well, let’s join tha parade and throw confetti!”. Lassiter’s spirits wriggled sympathetically. He looked about at the noisy concourse on the Prado beneath the bobbing lights and then at his watch. It was nearly two. A moment of hush brought the sound of the breakers rolling in from the Gulf onto the beach that stretched along towards the Vedado. A cat-footed waiter prowled about- the empty tables left as the patrons’ ranks were thinne 1. Lassiter then closed his watch with a snap, put it back in his pocket, and touched his shaven lip with his finger. “It’s too late,” he said with a tone of finality. "We are all going to breakfast with the Department Commander at ten. Ami 'besides —I think your mother expects us to stay here.” "There!” nodded Miss Dorothy. "There speaks a civilised man —a nice, highly-civilised man—a man with manners and customs all cut out of the pattern book. If I couldn’t be devilish, or foolish, or happy, I wouldn’t want to live. What’s the use? What’s the use of thinking so hard about a dollar or a Ph. D.. or a breakfast with a Department Commander. I’d rather be a peasant.” “Oh, well,” said Martin, with a fluttering in hie throat, "I have another

reason. It's selfish. I wanted this moment here with you. There is ten years’ difference in our ages. I mean by tliat—that it lias been found that— What I wanted to say ” “Wait!” Miss Finch leaned her lithe young body over the table. A glass rolled off onto the tile*, tinkling into bits. The paseers-by — turned and laughed at the music of it. “Wait, Martin,'’ she said earnestly. "I know

what you wanted to say. I eonld tell by your expression. I’ve seen it in other faces before. Eight other men—but I shouldn’t have said anything about them. You see I like you. But the trouble is—l am not a complicated person a bit. lam elementary. But you aren’t. That’s the trouble. Just as I have been saying. We are totally different, I’m afraid. What did I say just now? Give me an elementary man. And I do not think you are an elementary man. Are you ?”

“V ery decidedly in my feelings.” "Toward me?” "Yes.” “But all the bloom is off you,” Martin,” she said, attempting the easy manner of old friends. “Laughter and sunlight and things like daisies and anger and the fun of letting loose —once in a while— Oh, you are way beyond all of them. You’re not a savage.” He looked back at her painfully, feeling convinced perhaps. That feeling of the stake lost, the prize beyond winning, the woman out of reach, is terrible. Bachelors through the ages have accumulated a vast amount of evidence in support of its claim to sharp pain. “I’m sorry you reminded me of the breakfast,” Dorothy said, after a thick vegetation of silence had grown up between them. “I suppose I ought to ask you to take me to the elevator.” Lassiter motioned to the waiter with his eyeglasses held between his thumb and forefinger. It seemed to him in the moments of paying the eheck and walking with her through the tables and the palm bedecked courtyard, that the girl had never seemed so beautiful. The fish that breaks the hook is larger for having escaped. Martin felt like the typhoid fever. He has never been able "to remember saying good-night to her; in fact he only began to realise reality when he found himself standing mi the ed-e of the sidewalk. Chance played fast and loose then with the Blake Professor of Experimental Psychology. A hack—a good, oldfashioned, Kalamazoo-made hack—had just discharged its freight of eveningdress gentlemen and sparkling, scarfed ladies at the hotel door. “My man,” said Martin to the driver, “have you an engagement?” The fellow on the box shook his head. "You speak English?” The driver nodded. Lassiter climbed in, adjusted his glasses on his thin aquiline nose, and placed his feet on the seat before him. "Take me where there is trouble—trouble with a large T,” he said savagely. The driver wiped the edges of his hat on his coat sleeve; with perfect impudence he lit a cigarette, puffed it down in four Titanic inhalings and with four volcanic explosions of smoke. The horse's ears hung down. The Cuban snapped the -stump directly over the animal’s forelock. Then he turned around slowly and inspected his passenger. His deliberate manner was the more obvious because, though it is char-

aeteristic of his profession, It is far from characteristic of his race. ■• “Would Senor wish to attend a riot?” he asked, starting his horse forward down the Prado. “Yes —an explosion—fire-riot—any-thing! Is a riot in progress?” "Soon.” “Soon!” exclaimed Lassiter in surprise. “How ean one know that?” The Cuban laughed at his passenger’s ignorance. "There is ten —twenty, many

sailors of the United States ashore. From boat called the Coyote. Cruiser. It is Carnival, Senor. 'Some of the police off duty this afternoon rowed to the boat, Senor. They made faces —like this. They mean: ‘We dare you to come ashore.* Therefore the Americanos do it. I drive you to San Valeneia-street. You will not be disappointed, Senor. Un peso por bora.” "Will it be safe?” The driver shrugged his shoulders, easting a supercilious glance up at the laurels under which, in the central plaza, the carriage was rolling. "Senor is looking for—what is the word—trouble —trouble with one big ‘T’?” Lassiter’s instincts, in spite of the Cuban’s irony, were immediately in favour of the safer and saner plan of turning back. He reflected that he was in a strange land, among strange people, speaking a strange tongue, a people who produced large numbers of undersized and villainous-looking individuals, a people who thought easily of assassination, riots, rumpuses and rebellions, dungeon tortures and executions at sunrise. A scientist who has forgotten his undergraduate days thinks of these things coolly and logically. Furthermore, any other Bostonian would have sprung to the old •conservative, self-assured phrase: “It is best”; Lassiter. remembering that he carried his grandfather's watch, did indeed say to himself: "It is beet that I return to the hotel.” Then he thought of the gleaming Miss Finch, and he felt that if a sausage machine had been at hand he would have thrown the watch into it, chain, gold pencil, cigarette-holder and all. "Go to it!” he said to the driver, remembering that this expressive bit of slang had fallen from the most beautiful lips in the world. He leaned baek on the cushions, gazing about at the iron gratings and shutters in the tinted walls of a narrow side street, where the horse's hoofs on the cobblestones echoed as they fell with a noisy cloop-cloop-eloop. Another noise, however, was asserting itself. In front, somewhere, there was a glow of light and the distant mumble of voices, laughter and mechanical pianos. Through a cross lane a surging crowd of merry-makers was shoving in two streams. No women •were there; between the lines of little saloons, pool roonie aud cafes, gay with crepe paper, fl age and white-framed mirrors, the meb without reason or individual volition, shouting, laughing, jostling, drinking, waving hands, and, like Martin Lassiter, wishing to see

trouble, was composed of men. It • came, went and eddied like dust in the Triad. Here, and there three or four sailors’ uniforms appeared in a group. Here and there two or three of the brown-clad, swarthy, waxed-moustached policemen stood at corners of streets, directing those who paused to keep on with the movement of the others. These groups were watched by the bacchanalians as if the quarter from which trouble would come had already been determined. “This is no place." thought Lassiter, ‘for the Blake Professor of Experimental Psychology! ” The crowd, surging forward through the cross street at this moment, engulfed the hack. Passersby leered at the gleam of Martin's glasses and at the solemnity Of his face that was so

out of keeping with the occasion and the time of night, He seemed like a newly-starched and ironed shirt blown by the wind into an environment that boded ill to its continued whiteness. (Even Lassiter himself fel-t so when a cigar, projected out of one of the openfront saloons, landed with its hot. scattering fire on the horse’s back. The animal plunged, slipped on the cobbles, and was up again, his old blood coursing wildly in anger and terror. The driver was struggling with the reins, sawing at the bit; the crowd was scattering in front of the horse’s plunges. Lassiter “thought it best” to open the door and step out into the street. He at once found himself borne away in the stream of men; indeed, he only liad one chance to see his horse and vehicle being led by three of the gesticulating, comic-opera policemen in the opposite direction. The driver was standing upright on his seat, waving his arms. After several moments of anxiety and elbowing, he found that the darker the shut-in street became, the thinner was the crowd. In fact, he disengaged himself and leaned up against a plaster wall, straightening his necktie and wondering what he had better do next. He felt in his pocket. His money was gone! “They ore child-like, playful people!” he said to himself softly. As if they had answered him, a great roar went up back there where the lights burned and the pianos drummed. Shouts, imprecations in Spanish, the scurry of the crowd, bobbing of hats, the sharp barking of police rattles and one good old American impropriety of speech lifted above the tumult, convinced him that the expected fight had begun. He could not see how he could help very much. Rowdyism was not •his inclination. Therefore he walked away from it. He had not gone very far, however, when pistol shots cracked out behind—• the signal of distress of Cuban police who have had their clubs taken away, and as if in immediate answer came the yells and the clatter of a detachment of the Rural Guards bearing down upon him from the other direction—from the corner toward which he had been directing his steps. Far an advance of them loped a huge Irishman in the uniform of the United States Navy, engaged in his flight and at the same moment, as if to establish his nationality, he was daring them to fight, running and threatening at the same moment. He was far enough in advance of the detachment to stop when he recognised in Lassiter’s panic-stricken face the countenance of an American. ’What’s the matter with ye, man?” he cried. “Run!” ‘T haven’t done anvthing.” Martin gasped. “Ye was born in the Stales, an’ that’s enough, me bye! They can tell it m

well as me. Them devils will skewer ye as quick as they’d look at ye.” He grabbed the professor’s sleeve, “Follow me!” Lassiter heard the machete-swords being struck against the paving and house walls and the “Yah-yah yah!” of the charging guards; he could see the sparks fly. However clear his conscience, he concluded to east his fortune with the sailor-man. The idea of holes in oneself is odious. He, too, ran, and, infected with the other’s spirit, he too looked back over his shoulder and uttered an unfriendly, unacademic sentiment. “My name's Mike Brophy, of the. Coyote,” said the sailor. ‘‘An’ -speakin’ of names, there is Valencia's beer garden ahead of us. We may get in there an’ up the stairs. Do ye mind the way

the saloon men is tryin’ to get the shutter* ”p! ” “Where are we going’’’ gasped Lassiter. He could see the crowd scattering like peas on a barrel top. Even the sailors, engaged in beating about with the policemen’s clubs, were taking to flight. “Stop here,” said Brophy. “Valencia is so fat he can’t move quick Put yer foot in that door crack! Move quick, you skip jack!” The professor obeyed his superior, and their combined strength forced the rotund Valencia back until there was room enough to squeeze inside, where, except for the street light which peeped in at the shutter cracks, it was pitch dark. The air was still heavy with cigar smoke and the odour of wet glasses. Lassiter could hear the panting of his companion and their fat host and then the sound of blades beating on the door and commanding voices. A hand reaching out through the ink of the gloom clutched this shoulder. “Come wid me,” whispered Brophy, “there is stairs somewhere here.” “Fine!” said Martin. He was beginning to enjoy himself. He felt the delight of flight into the unknown, mysterious regions of the second floor. It was a surprise to him when Brophy pushed open the door at the head of the stairs that a flood of light came forth, showing the living quarters of Valencia. When the door had been closed behind them, he saw that sitting on a sofa in front, of the heavy curtains over the windows was a Cuban girl of no mean appearance. She smiled as if she had expected them. “We’re safe here,” Brophy was saying. “An’ this here lady is Valencia’s oldest daughter. She don’t speak our jabber, but she's a lady. Flora, let me introduce yer to this here guy. He’s a friend of mine, an’ all right, I guess.” Lassiter bowed, the girl smiled; the room was both clean and cool. “Thank you for your kind words,” Martin said to Brophy.

“Oh, that's all right, old sleuth,’ replied the sailor. “I’m sorry ye fell down. Them white clothes ain’t no good fer that purpose.” Lassiter noticed a patronising tone in the red-headed, blue-eyed sailor’s voice and he found himself wishing to assert, at least, an equality. “Doesn't amount to anything,” he said roughly. ’■'Where ye from," asked the other. “Boston.” “Play chess’" Lassiter thought he was being ridiculed. He was silent. “I seen a board over in the corner.” “Well,” said Martin, who prided himself on some skill in the game, “I do play.” “Let’s have a game!" exclaimed Brophy, mopping his forehead. “That is, unless she wants to play with ye." The girl seemed to understand this, for she shook her pretty head as she brought the board to them. Lassiter found himself intent on the game before he knew it. Brophy was no mean player. Gradually even the threatening signaling of police rattles outside was forgotten. Th- T ’-i«hman won. “Play another?" Lassiter inquired. “No, I guess not," said the sailor. “Say! Yer know it takes brains to play chess—what? Why don’t ye play with Flo? She likes ye. She likes quiet gents like us.” The girl, however, who seemed to catch the meaning of this, 'blushed and moved from behind Lassiter's chair where she had sat during the play. She picked up a guitar from the sofa and began to sing one of her crooning Cuban songs which wandered here and there in soft ease. Her large eyes interrogated those of Martin as she played; when she had finished she tilted her head so that the front of her brown neck showed a straight line and laughed softly. “Say, this is a good place, me bye?” said Brophy. “You bet,” replied Martin. “We don't want any drinks, do we?” “Oh, no.” ‘•"Well. then, if we don't get out before it’s light, an’ they catch us in this section. we 11 get pinched. You couldn’t fight yer way loose like me. So goodby, Flora. Yer daddy is still downstairs keepin’ folks out of the coffee shop.” The girt looked at the floor. She was very pretty in that pose and unconscious of it. iShe twined her round fingers in her scarf, as if embarrassed, speaking in a low tone to Brophy. As for Lassiter, he made his farewell with a beaming smile, and a wide-sweeping bow. “We’re goin’ out onto the back street.” explained Brophy on the stairs. “An’ make our get-away.” Martin disregarded that explanation. He said, "She told a special good-by to you.” “What did she say?” “She asked me to bring ye up again to-morrow night. She wanted to know first if ye was married." “Can’t be possible!” exclaimed Martin, wiping his eyeglasses. “I believe that knowledge is even a richer store than I had thought—occupying a wider field,” he said as if to himself. “Yer talk like a pair of rubber boots, mate,” said Brophy, opening the iron gate leading into the dark street. “An’ watch out now! They’d go fer my uniform on sight. We’d better take different tacks, mate. I’ll get ye into trouble. “Oh, no,” Martin replied. “I’ll stick till you get out of this and back to the ship.” Brophy grunted, but Martin felt a touch upon his shoulder. He knew that it was the affectionate clutch of the big freckled hand of his companion, and he could feel the flow of a pleasant unaffected sympathy that gave a surprising

measure of conleul and aatufacUuu. The deserted alley through which they felt their cautious way opened onto a dimly lighted street. Brophy’s alert eyes saw the two policemen at the corner a moment before their attention, drawn by Lassiters white alpaca suit, had awakened them into action. The two Americans could see them lean down to beat on the sidewalk with their clubs; they could hear answering signals from the other eud of the alley and the sound of running feet. They were trapped. Policemen bore down on them from both directions. “Listen!" growled the sailor, almost pulling Lassiter off his feet. “Ha! There is three of ’em! I’ll take these two. The other one is yours. We’ll fight our way out of this, do ye mind!” A warm tingling crept over the professor's body. “Aye. aye, sir,” he said jovially. "When ye see the flash of a gun, be sure to quit," cautioned Brophy. “An’ when ye close in, cover yer head from them night sticks an’ go fer their legs if ye Trave a chance. Belay there! Ye shrimps!" The first two officers were upon him. Just before Martin turned to meet his man he saw the sailor side-step the first onslaught and by a skillful movement of his leg throw one of the foreigners into the gutter. "Star spangled banner!" laughed Brophy. He was closing with the second man. Even after Lassiter turned to meet his own opponent, he could hear the give"and take of blows. Crack! the sound of the night stick. Bam! the impact of the closed fist. He felt a strange emptiness in his stomach —the despairing, sick feeling of those unused to contest. Then upon the fleshy part of his neck he received the first blow of the lignum vitae. It was a delicious tonic. The pain of the blow was sharp but welcome; it awakened a new set of emotions, filled the distressing hole "in Lassiter’s stomach and brought him onto his toe with the joy of conflict.. The policeman was fighting viciously. His club, his left fist, his sharp kicks seemed to come from every direction. Lassiter, ducking his head and body to a well protected crouch, plunged into this rain of blows with which the officer, acting with experience, expected to confuse his prey. The clasp of the policeman's body was satisfying. Lassiter, digging his toes into the dirt, rushed his adversary across the alley and against the masonry. With a free hand he pounded on the chin of the policeman, directing upward jabs that brought forth gasping Spanish ejaculations. They went down together. In the dark Lassiter felt for the night stick and twisted the bent wrist that held it until the grasp had been relaxed. They were up again in an unscientific conflict of fists. Bam! Lassiter felt •that another such on his cheek-bone would determine the issue. He shook his head, grunted, drove his arm forward. Bam! This time the solid blow, had landed on the policeman’s mouth. Lassiter felt that the satisfaction of this punch had a money value of several hundred dollars. Baek and forth it went. At last a moment came when the Unban officer, now fighting blindly, had disengaged himself and fallen back for another rush. It allowed Martin a chance to glance over his shoulder. One of Brophy’s adversaries was stretched out in sleep on the pavement: the sailor was sitting on the other. He was a grinning spectator of larssiter's contest. “Go it. me bye!" came his panting voice. “If 1 don’t help ye. ye'll feel better satisfied." Lassiter braced himself again, threw out his knee, and with a crooked arm caught the charging policeman on the

taut cords of hie ne«k. His whole body seemed to yield. It turned over once, rolling off Martin’s bent leg, and lay whimpering in foreign tongue on the ground. Martin, wheeling toward his friend, made a wry face. "My Country ’Tis of Three,” he eaid, profanely. They took flight through the gloom, gaining a hundred yards and turning two corners before the police signals of distress sounded from the alley they had left. "Yer all right, old marlin spike!” panted Brophy. Lassiter had received several degrees; none had given him so much pride as thin one; none were of greater honour, he felt sure. Ho ran like a glad boy, regardless of sore muscles, bruises and throbbing swellings about his eyes, regardless of the 'Blake Professorship. At last be saw, through the grey of dawn which came down into the Havana streets, a eab rocking along ahead of them. He hailed H. "For,” he explained to the sailor, “you will be safer under some sort of cover. Otherwise you would attract attention.” “Attention!” cried Brophy. “Yer oughter see yerself. Yer look like somethin’ that’s been brought out of a Cellar!” Lassiter once inside the cab, which he directed to the hotel, had an opportunity to catch glimpses of himself in the tiny mirror between the front windows. He looked very little like * respectable person of learning and refinement. His collar was torn, his necktie had disappeared; his right eye peeped out from a puff of bruises that were fast turning a rich purple. “An’ look up here,” said Brophy, mockingly, pointing with a thick forefinger to a red welt on his forehead. “Do ye mind the signature of the peeler's night stick. Anybody’d think to see ns that I was in bad company again. An’ it’ll be daylight before we get there! Sure, I’d be ashamed to be seen tendin’ money to ye.” “Money?” repeated Lassiter with a gasp. “Oh, well, it’s lucky I had a two dollar bill in my other pocket.” “Did ye get lifted;’’ Martin nodded s’ eepishly. “And yet,” said he, “it was worth it.” The Prado was long, beautiful, and deserted in the first burst of sunlight. Birds among the palms, which nodded in the morning salt wind, were singing pleasantly. Lassiter was glad to be so satisfied, so healthy, so tired, so sore and so alive. He thrust the sighing thoughts of Miss Dorothy Finch from h.s mil d as often they intruded; there v | ' time enough to suffer on her a hen his world began to move 1 a!y again. He was sure he v. ■ n >t have to see her for several day-: the best plan, he refleeted, would be to leave a nice, little, polite note, informing the Finch family that he had gone to Mafanzas. There he eould hide until his eye had taken on its natural shape and colour. So he concluded as the vehicle drew up before the hotel. And thus are the plans of the wise and good built for immediate overthrow. Lassiter and Brophy had just stepped out of the eab, and the former was paying the driver while the latter was casting a weather eye toward the open, dark blue waters of the Gulf. It was at this moment that the sailor heart a rippling laugh. He looked aloft. He was sure that it had proceeded from behind the shutters over the balcony. “Sure, it has a good, young, healthy sound to it.” he «aid aloud, "an’ I don’t know whether it was pokin’ fun at my red hair or your red nose.” “What’s that?” said Lassiter. "Nothin’ at all,” Brophy answered. “Where’s the eab gain’? Sure I want to ride in it to the wharf below there. M here i.s it goin’ now?” “If you must know, I’ll tell you—for a two quart bottle of arnica and alcohol. Sit down here on this step and wait a while.” Brophy hitched up his trousers, in the back pocket of which he found two brown paper cigarettes, which had been flattened to the thinness of knife I lades. "Them is swell cigarettes,” ha said. “That's all 1 got. I’ve been savin’ ’em. One of 'em is fer ye.” “Many thanks,” replied Lassiter, nursing a sore shin with his disengaged band. “It’s a fine morning.” The smoke was delicious. He leaned back against one of the white columns and looked in smiling silence ou his new friend. “It’s lucky for my reputation that no one who knows me is up.” ha •aid. “I think she knows yer,” said Brooby. Wl- who 7”

“Pipe the young lady over there by the hotel door.” Lassiter turned like' one who expects to see an angel with a flaming sword. It was tbe truth. There, fresh, indescribably neat, graceful and smiling, stood the daughter of Cheever Fineh. “Good morning,” she said. Martin was speechless. He stood up. “Is she yours?” whispered Brophy in aw-ed tones, pulling off his cap. He was sure he had guessed right, in spite of his friend's silence, and hh first instinct was to save him from disgrace. “Don’t get any ideas, ma’am. Not too sudden,” he said. “Yer see, it was this way—we had a little difference with some foreigners.” “Thank you for telling me,” said Dorothy. At the sight of Lassiter’s woebegone face, she could no longer control her laughter. “There!” said Brophy, drawing himself up. “Yer see there is nothin’ to worry about, old sleuth. I’ve squared it fer ye. She’s laughin’ at ye.” “Dorothy,” exclaimed Lassiter in torment, “this is the result of unforeseen circumstances.” “How violent they must have been!” she interposed sweetly. “But were you in an explosion, Martin?” She turned toward the sailor. “Was he?” Brophy’s earnest face, which had expressed only loyalty to his companion, relaxed now into a broad smile. “He does look pretty bad, ma’am,” he said. "But you see, there was three of them policemen, and he an’ I never fought together before. Yes, miss. An’ after I had got two of ’em fixed I had a chance to watch his style. That last clout was a peach, miss. It made tha Cuban see clams perchin’ on telegraph wires, miss. Take it from me, yer gentleman friend is all right, or my name ain’t Brophy.” “Oh, thank you,” said the girl, holding out her hand. "Martin, why did

you forget an introduction? Thin is a pleasure, Mr. Brophy.” The sailor grinned. “I ain’t had an introduction to him yet,” he said. “Indeed,” exclaimed Dorothy. “Mr. Martin Lassiter, allow me to present you to your old and honoured friend, Mr. Brophy, U.S.N. And now, Mr. Bropfliy, you won’t mind if I take Mr. Lassiter away from you? I don’t think his appearance thia morning does him full justice.” “Oh, Dorothy, I want to tell you ” "Not now. I don't want you sitting out here. That’s why I dressed and eame down. I have some pride!” “He doee look a bit stove in, miss,” said the sailor judicially. “He looks like a last year’s bird's nest,” she said. “Come, Martin.” He had never heard her speak to him before with a tone of proprietorship. His instinct was to obey. "Good-by, Brophy, old fellow,” said he. "Good-by, old marlin spike,” said Brophy. ‘l’ll tell the driver to leave the arnica with the clerk.” Only when Lassiter turned, as they walked through the hotel office toward the elevator, and saw that Miss Fineh was walking beside him with as much smiling self-possession as if she had been walking with a ruler in robes of state, did he feel the agonising pain of conviction that he had severed the last possibility of winning her. Therefore it was no ordinary surprise to him when, in the elevator, with the boy’s back turned toward them, she slipped her warm hand into his. “Positively,” she said, “I believe you will pass. When I look at your eye, Martin, I begin to believe that you are human.”