accustomed to drink, because no one bothered him there with the exception of the waiter who served the drinks, he came upon the figure of Billy O'Ryan deep in the throes of thirst. Billy's brow was furrowed and his thoughts were of the grape. Marny called for the waiter and ordered wine.

Of course Billy would have a drink. Marny watched him thoughtfully, at first, as the young man raised the glass to anxious lips, tasted his own and marked the play of passions in the other's face.

"Blue eyes," Marny found himself ruminating. "Not bad at heart, I suppose. Lord, though, I hope he doesn't tell his story." In the meantime, the wine, that was coursing in Billy's veins, commenced to talk.

Of course he told Marny all about it. The mother at home (always a mother, Marny reflected), the old line about no work (he wants more wine, of course), and so forth and so on. Marny listened, politely attentive. He had heard this thing before. Case hardened, he was, to it. "Always a mother, a sick wife or something," he reflected. And then the sly little people of the claret commenced to mount up and up into his own brain and Billy's story touched him.

Marny was far from the state of being under. Only, the grime and reek that cluttered about the place, the music of the broken down guitar and the mutterings of Billy, all were blended into something that was close to music, reposeful, dreamy.

"After all," he concluded, with a smile, "it isn't the wicked world they tell about."

Billy was weeping now. "Yes, yes, the poor mother." Marny reflected and commenced to find a kind of pity for the boy.

"Too bad, youngster, too bad," he found himself saying.

Just at this juncture the waiter passed the door that opened on Marny's private, palace chamber. Weeping is never tolerated in dance halls. You can break the furniture, complain about the service and raise general earth-disturb

ing hell, but you must never cry.

"Look here," the white aproned individual offered, entering the room. "Cut that stuff out. We don't want no bawlin' in THIS place. Besides, you've had enough. Yes, I mean YOU," looking through Billy's eyes.

The O'Ryan individual looked up and tearfully remonstrated. And then he spilled his wine.

"I said to cut it out." The waiter's words bristled business. "You'd better take the air. I'm sick of your photograph around here anyhow."

With that he took the hapless Billy by the collar. Waiters in Pacific street have a way of doing this that is quite convincing.

It came with a sudden, spurting point of fire. The waiter released his hold on Billy's collar, threw his hands up over his head, coughed oddly and then dropped. Marny regarded him in the flash of a second where he had tumbled to the floor and considered how white and mean he looked there.

Then he turned to Billy. The boy's gun had dropped to the table, where it smoked and steps were approaching.

"Look here," he said. The words were pregnant, burning. Sudden resolve was pictured in his eyes. "Get out of here. There's the back door and then the alley. Leave the gun here. You know the way. Go home, boy, to your mother. I know the gang in here, leave it to me to fix things up."

And Billy slipped away. Meanwhile the gun lay quiet on the table.

It was Plunkett talking.

"How did it happen sergeant?"

"Just as I said it would." The other's words were final. "He got stewed up of course. This time he killed a man. Some waiter down at the Crescent I believe. You must know the joint."

"Were there no extenuating circumstances?" Plunkett's words ran together dejectely.

"Not any that I have heard of," the sergeant answered. "Appears to be a clean case of murder. He'll get the limit this time, sure."

O, this is not the raving of a drug

Nfiend, nor the hysterical babbling

of a nervous, coffee drinking woman. While I admit the consumption of an ordinary amount of the pleasant drink, I am quite sure that it is not enough to affect me to any extent.

I am just an ordinary, normal young wife, who can't write a page without some sort of personal pronoun in every line. I am not timid nor excessively imaginative. I am newly arrived in a strange city and live in a lovely little bungalow in a new suburb. I haven't had time to acquire even a cat.

It was last week, Saturday night. Supper was ready-pot-roast and mashed potatoes-and I was playing over some old pieces and keeping up the fire in the library. The wind was cold, with occasional spatters of rain to remind one of the stormy night. Everything looked so comfortable and homey that I was puffed with pride when I heard Peter's step. Leap is a better word. He simply tore in, and, before I could say "hello," he was upstairs throwing things into his grip. A few minutes later he was gone, supperless, his explanation sinking in my brain. He had unexpected out-oftown business. He would eat on the train. I was to stay with my sole woman acquaintance, Mrs. Brawley. He would return tomorrow.

But Mrs. Brawley was out of town! I could not foist byself on anyone else! I must stay alone!

spick and span in a hurry, for my thoughts turned toward the fire and the newest magazine. Especially attractive was the new detective serial. Happily I snapped out the dining-room lights and began.

The fire crackled, and in my absorption, slowly died down. The story held me. None of the usual noises nor the increasing whistle of the storm made the slightest impression on my hearing. I devoured "She was standing beside it, staring with fixed and glassy eyes at something in the lower hall." And I leaped and stared with popping eyes! I needed them too badly to permit them to become glassy. For at this intense moment our electric lights gave a quivering flicker and expired. Thanking my stars for the red coals, I stood with my back to them, peering into the surrounding gloom. Above the sigh and moan of the wind, reason assured me that the ghastly, luminous spot in the diningroom was merely a reflected gleam from the library.

And so my mind reassured me and kept on reassuring me, but did not succeed until the faraway power plant decided to pursue its usual function. The detective story was not resumed. I dared not risk it. Being a serial, it would leave off at some hair lifting place without the finishing comfort of a satisfying conclusion. So I seated myself, first, though ashamed of such ignoble weakness, turning on every downstairs light. The chair I took was in the corner by the chimney where a full view of the lower house could be obtained. I also heaped the grate with pitchy sticks.

Calmness restored, the volume that endeavored to hold my attention was a volume of dignified, placid poetry. Sure

ly nothing could be more productive of mental ease. But any notion of tranquility fled with the abrupt, terrifying jingle of the telephone bell. To answer, it was necessary to go into the back hall. Recalling this fact with rising horror, I remembered there was no light! The bulb had been broken yesterday. I hesitated. Loud and long shrilled the bell. It might be Peter! Boldly I advanced without a backward glance. "Hold the phone," bade a commanding operator. I held that phone, held it, held it! My grasp grew frenzied. My eyes as frantically glared at the faint lustre which denoted the cheerful behavior of the librarly lights.

Still I waited-and a door shut softly, with a little pushing noise as if of wind sucked under it. Soundlessly, with a suffocating throat, I slipped the receiver back on the hook. Upon my straining ears came a faint rasp; such a rasp as some one crouching on the floor might make. A creak as if a man roughly shod had incautiously tried to rise. Paralyzed and listening, I stood there; again the stealthy door sound immediately followed by a rattling thump! Oh! And I forgot the pounding of my heart in the tearful relief which followed.

"Why," reason reminded me quite severely, "have you forgotten your careless habit of propping umbrellas anywhere and everywhere? That the pantry door has no latch, and that a draft from the neglectfully open kitchen window would close it?" Of course! My intellect was equal to the occasion.

Jauntily I banged out a gay song upon the piano, but now the player attachment was employed. In spite of an intellect, the real Me was unable to put enough force in her fingers. After a half hour of mad music I resolved upon a march to bed. Again the firm advance without a backward glance. Out went the dining-room globes, out in the library! Nothing around me but dark. Deep, fathomless dark. No hope but the pale and spiritless hall illumination above. With heroic control I mounted those winding stairs with a sauntering air of bravado, with a meditative mein.

But it was the most active meditating ever indulged in by my very average brain. The subject which filled my bursting thought was this:

Could I reach the top of the stairs without throwing that rearward peep in search of the skeleton, which, in my childhood days, I felt sure was ever ready to pounce on my defenseless back? Well, I am proud to say that the march ended in victory. With chin stiffly set I walked without a quickened step into my bedroom, turned on the lights and slowly, masterfully locked the door! knew myself quite well. Had I weakened, panic would have followed, then a gasping and maddened rush into the room, the indispensible snap of cheering electrics, and a bound upon the bed to huddle for a while with fearful expectations of new fears to come.

I

My confidence somewhat restored by this admirable conduct, it was a fairly simple matter to put out the hall light which had been forgotten in the conflict. But for all my acquired poise the hand that relocked the door shook.

Hastily I undressed. An animal instinct newly aroused made me burrow deep into the warm coverings. I felt secluded, almost protected. Then, sluggishly the idea grew; the smugness enfolding me more securely than a thousand blankets was not courage. It was due to the yellow of that beastly chandelier! To "Onwards, Christian Soldiers" forcefully hummed through set teeth, set to prevent a sick imitation of castenets from clattering in the quiet room, I threw back the covers. I rose. I pulled the curtains wide. I did not care who saw me from the street, for at least I could and did obtain some comfort from the distant corner arc-light. Last of all, raging at myself, I locked my closet door, conscious, as I did so, that it was the most foolish of all my idotic actions to imprison a lot of poor little dresses!

Then I committed the fateful deed, which, to me, was as the Chair to the criminal. Only I did not have that prospect of oblivion which awaits the murderer.

In other words, by a thrust of a rigid forefinger, I plunged myself into dark

ness.

Minute after minute, and then some more, until five had passed. I know, for I counted the tick-tocks of the alarm on the dresser. After contemplating with an unwinking stare, the blackness on the far side of the room, I turned to the windows whence came the aforesaid street corner gleam. But as I turned, the suffocating heart-pounding sensation filled my throat. Heavens! What wa-! There by the east window hung my pale pink kimona, and, in the momentary faint beam of a turning automobile, had been transformed into a most effective spectre. My self scorn was dreadful. I shut my eyes and, as a punishment, dug around in my memory for the remnants of my high school geometry. What is a locus?—I drearily questioned myself. Something about a point or a line. No, it was a point. maybe it was a perpendicular-sleepily, dimly, two silvery, soothing tinkles sank into my wavering senses. Ah! Found! They were the points of my loc

Or

I was awake. Painlessly, thoroughly

awake. I had aroused without that dozing so often filled with terrors climax

71

ed by an endless fall from which one is rescued by a timely return to wakefulness. Day, plain old day was around me, filling every cranny with its commonplace presence. Crossly I slapped at a fly and missing him, rose and deliberately pursued the unfortunate insect with a swatter until my murderous instinct was satisfied. Yawningly wondering whether Peter would be late to supper, I splashed, dressed and breakfasted. I made the house neat and put fresh flowers in the vases. I practiced for an hour, and, when I had read the morning paper, finished the detective installment, leaving the characters grouped prosaically around the fountain in their back yard. Rather bored by myself, I rounded out an ordinary day, but began to brighten when preparing Peter's supper. By the time he arrived I was very gay. Joyously I welcomed him and happily demanded the details concerning his trip.

And then Peter asked me how I enjoyed the evening at Mrs. Brawley's. He was horrified to learn of my lonely night. "But do you mean to say you stayed here all alone?" he exclaimed.

"Why, Peter!" and I laughed, "You don't suppose that I was afraid!"

You may scan skies drifting blue

That you think of fairest hue;

G

OD! but I hate it-the big old pile of red bricks-I hate every brick of it. I've hated it all my life, and that is-let me see-I don't remember, but yesterday I heard the superintendent's wife telling a visitor that I was over seventy; yes, that's it seventy. Seventy years I've hated it for I was born here-bad luck to me!

Oh but I hate the woman who bore me -I do not call her, Mother-she was no mother to me. I do not hate her because she had me the way she did-mind that! If she had kept me I would have worked my fingers to the bone to do back for her-but no! she left me here, the helpless babe of her own body and went away.

Not with the man who had me. Lord! but I hate him, too, because having had me he would not father me as a man should.

No, it was not with him that she went away-but the uncle-damn him!-her uncle, the one I hate most of all, and my life has been full of hates-of but one thing in my life have I had good and plenty, and that is HATE!-Oh, yes, there is always plenty of hate in the Old Infirmary. I wonder sometimes if it is so outside, always hate-hate-hate, and only enough love now and then like the candles we used to burn, just enough light to show how dark it is.

The old man, her uncle is dead now, so they say, and resting in his grave— and I am glad he is! I hope that the worms gnaw him so that he cannot rest even there in his grave-that old man who told my mother if she would desert me and leave me here he would overlook everything and take her back to her home he was rich, they say-and my mother like the good for nothing huzzy

that she was, left me here and went with him-think of that will ye-there was a mother for ye! They say there is a many of 'em like her outside there-and here, too, plenty of 'em to come and go clickety-click on their little high heels and leave their babies to be sent to the "Home" they have for such. They don't keep 'em here any more like they did me I don't know why but they don't. But there has been now and then one different. I mind one quiet little thing that had her baby here and wouldn't leave it go. She was bound that she'd keep it, and she did, too, and carried it off with her a-laughing and a-cooing in her arms-Lord; if I'd had a mother like that what wouldn't I a' done for her?

But no! off she goes and that's the last o' her. I never heard how she lived or how she died-and I don't care either -damn her! All I know is that thinking of it all gnaws and gnaws me like I hope the worms do at the old uncle who coaxed her away.

So, I've never had anybody-no own folks at all. Of course we'er had superintendants and their wives, some good and some bad, but even the best of 'em don't care much only for their own folks.

Once as I was a-talking about it, one of the old, old women spoke up and she says "You have too-there's God!-God loves you, man-he does so!"

"God!" I laughs-"I don't know no more about Him than I do about that mother o' mine who got me into this and then left me! All I know about Him is that he's a good one to swear by when you get so mad at the meanness things that you can't stand it and all you can do is to swear and bear it.”

of

Says the old woman, "Man, don't ye never read your Bible?"