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Show - ... - - -I I ' :s 1 ...;'. ''Y '; v ' s' . " .mi: liAROLD M"CGRATH J Aviiiwr o iuzArts and nA5KS Of AAN ON Till; 130X cfo, lllvisirvil COPYUIOMT l'HI iy 1VIMV1 - l KWII.L CoMPAAIV . , . Fori line Chedsoye." 1 1 1 H blue eyes became less hard and Ms mouth less delimit, "i repeat, thei heart kIkiiiIiI Ixt 1 1 j ! 1 1 1 1 j but a pump. Oth-rrwlwi Oth-rrwlwi ll gets In tin; way, ji-'-otri tin obsl i'ij:t Ion, u bottomless pit. Willpower, Will-power, ( li ii I 'h tin! ticket, I can face a Hon without an extra heal, I ran face Hid vtirloiiH countenances of death without an additional flutter; and yet, here's a girl wIki, when I site her or think of her, sends tliii pulse, soaring from sc vent y seven tip to eight y-four. Had business; besides, It's ho Infernally Infer-nally unfashionable, it's lianl work for a man to keep Ma balance 'twlxt Ihe devil anil the deep, blue una; Glo ronda on one side anil Fortune, on the other, Cloconda throws open windows anil doors at my approach; but For-tuni; For-tuni; locks anil batH hers, nor knocks al mine. That's tin: way It always goes. "If a man roulil only go back ten years and lake a ni-w Ktart. Ass!" balling Ms fl Bt at the reflect Ion In the mirror. "Snivel and whim; over tho In d of your own making. You had your opportunity, hut you listened to the popping of champagne-corks, the mutter of i-ardH, the Inane drivel of chorus-ladles. You had a decent college col-lege reiord, too. Hah! What a guileless guile-less fool you were! You ran on, didn't yo u, till you found your neck In the loop at the end of the. ro;-? And perhaps that toft footed, estimable brother of yours didn't yank it taut, as a hangman's? -You heard the codicil; Into one- ear and out the other. Even then you had your chance; patler.ee tor tv.o t-l.ort yearK. and a million. So, a thoiiiand times no. You knew what you wire about, empty-headed fool! And today, two pennies for a dead man's i-ys" lie dropped his fist dejectedly. When- had the first step begun? And where would be the last? In some drab corner, pofsibly; drink, morphine, mor-phine, or starvation; he'd never have the courage to finish It with a bullet, lie was terribly bitter. Everything wortli while teemed to have slipped iilng. Tin- United Hoinaiiiv- and Ad vmiiui'ti Company Is not listed at present. pres-ent. If It was, I'd sell u few shares on my own hook. Tim kind 1Oid known that I "vi stock enough and to spate." He laughed again, hut wit limit li-mit the 1. -iiven of humor. "When t befool be-fool killer hiialehcH up the last fool, let rogues look to t hemticl ves ; and Inula urn getting hcareer every day. "I'erc Ival Algernon! O n;.e of pie etb! 1 wonder, does he wear high col-lain col-lain and spats, or ban she plumbed blm i i-i u i a t ely ? She Is geni'ially tight. Mut man chanees borne In seven ),ais. I'm an authority when It i'diik',1 In that. Iiok what's happened In ine lii nevi-n .ais! Flint, Horace, w hhiill llitie, thi-ll we'll Miioke our pipe lii the billiard room, then we'll soltly approach Krchal Algernon and II t rwluee him to Slnbad. This in-i! in-i! i end nt cv hi r-loit to Itagdad was a Mioke on iny part; It will work Into gei.. !al plan as i-mooildv i-.s If It I. .ill been giaaned fur tin- part. Sillh.'ld. I might jt st as well have assumed that name Horace Kit. bad, sounds well lid locks W II " lie Uhcd III i-:!. are, bin hand gently rubbing his chin. f.. did i.i.i-secn U,,- trlel: of talblng aloud. In a low monotone, a habit tteijiiite.t curing perloiU .f bunv iit.ern, 1 i n t h- S'JUl.d of b's o w n oli.- had mici. .did In l-li l:d leg his to: ting mind What n woman. wh.T wlf-, t)yj wou!d bae l. ti to the light man! Odd thing. man can do almost tciy-thing tciy-thing but dire.-! 1.1s an.-ctlons; tl.iy must b-iliawn She wi s not for Mm; nay. inn '. n on a 6 -' rt l:le. Ii. uht-h uht-h i-ii l.i. m a fool. In tli:.- f).e wonld !:a' mad.- bi:n a rich man. Alaik! It was rilwais the otie w a pursued that we lovi-d and IieM-r the one that pursued ns. "I'm c.fr.ild f h r; and there vou I SYNOPSIS. Si Hi IVivlvnl .1hii ium Jaii-, Vti'i rrlvttfnt of th lotrvgi,lttan Oriental Uiii; oeingMuy of Npw Yeik. tlilrslln tar le-uiu.-. U In I'ntro on bunlneia lilo CHAPTER II. An Affabla Rojuo. Tho i-rrtaj; coutnlnliij; tho setHlo-mati setHlo-mati wtih the rv emlblti cuffs drew up at tho aid ntriiiu. Instantly lU Arab guides surged and eddied round him; but their vhitnor broke against a fviiuposurH as effective as ginnite. 'l'he rvr was almost dltvctly succeeded by a low gnrgle, as of little waves reood-ltS. reood-ltS. Tim proposed victim had not Token a word; to the Arabs It was not mv-essarv; In some manner, subtle, and ttnlenerlbable. they reeognl.-ed a brother. Ho eurrUnl a Ions, cylindrical cylindri-cal butnilo w nipped In heavy paper Tarlously seenrt-d by windings of thick twlno. Ills rx-gard for this bundle was oaa of tender solicitude, for he tucked It under his arm. cumbersome though It was. and waved ssido the carriage porter, who was. however, permitted to carry In the ktt-bas. Th manager appeatvd. W hen comes h not upon the scene? His quick, calculating eye was not w holly assured. as-sured. Tho stranger s homespun was travel woni and time-worn, and of a cut popular to the season gone the yar before. No fat letter of credit here, was the not unreasonable conclusion conclu-sion reached by the manager. S:lll. with that caution acquired by years of experience, which haj culminated In what Is known as Swiss diplomacy, he brought Into beins the accustomed salutatory smi!e and Inquired if the gent'.eman had written ahead for reservation, res-ervation, otherwise It would not be possible to accommodate him. "I telegraphed." crisply. "The name. If you please?" ""Ryanne; spelled R-y-a double-n e Rave you over been In County Clare?'' "No. sir." The manager added a Question with the uplift of his eyebrows. eye-brows. "WI1." was tie enlightening answer, an-swer, "you pronounc It as they do there." The manager scanned the little slip of paper In his hand. "Ah, yes; we have reserved a room for you, sir. The French style rather confused me." This was not offered In Irony, or sarcasm, sar-casm, or satire; mining In a Swiss brain for the saving grace of humor Is about as remunerative as the extraction ex-traction of gold from sea-water. Nevertheless, Nev-ertheless, the Swiss has the talent of swiftly subtracting from a confusion of Ideas one point of Illumination: there was a quality to the stranger's tone that decided him favorably. It was the voice cf a man In the habit of being obeyed; and In these days it was the power of money alone that obtained obedience to any man. Beyond Be-yond this, the same nebulous cogita- Tlm porter then understood that lie was dealing nut wit It a species of mild lunacy, but with that hind of light hearted onlclMii upon which the. world (as porteis know 111 had set Its approving seal. In brief, he mulled faintly; and If he had tiny pleasantry to puss In turn, the approach of the uuintiger. now clothed metaphorically In deferent lallstit, relegated It to the Umbo of things thought but left unsaid. "Here. Is a letter (or yini. Mr. liy-anile. liy-anile. Have you any more luggage?" "No." Mr. liynuiKi smiled. "Shall I pay for my room In ndwiiice?" "Oh. no. sir!" Ten .Vei ls ago tho manager would have blushed at having hav-ing been so misunderstood. "Your room Is IPS." "Will you have a boy show me the w ay ?" "1 shall myself attend to that. If the room Is not what you wlah ll j may be exchanged " I "The room Is tho one I telegraphed for. I am supers! It Ions to a degree. , On thrre boats I have had line stalo-! stalo-! rooms numbered Ii'S. Twice the iinin-her iinin-her of my hotel room has Iwt n the same. On the last voyage there were I icS passengers, ami the captain bad made "OS voyages ou the Mediterranean." Mediterra-nean." "Quite a coincident. " "Ah. If roulette could be played with such a certainty." Mr. liyai'.ne sighed. Mt -lied up his bundle, which, being heavy, was N ginning gin-ning to wear upon his arm. and signified signi-fied to ti e manager to lead the way. As they vanished round the corner to the lift, the head porter studied the guest list. lie had looked over It a i!o;en times that day, but this wus the first instance of his being really Interested In-terested In It. As his chin was freshly fresh-ly shawn ho had no s'ubhle to stroke to excite his mental processes; so he fell back, as we say, upon tho consoling con-soling ends of his abundant mustache. mus-tache. Curious, but 'all ilin persons were occupying or about to occupy adjacent rooms. There r.i tru'.y nothing mysterious about It, save that the stranger had picked out these very names as a target for his banter. Fortune For-tune Chedsoye; It was rather an unusual un-usual name; but as she l ad arrived only an hour or so before, he could not distinctly recall her featun s. And then, there was that word bucolic. He mentally turned ll over and over as physically ho was wont to do with rost-cards left In Ids rare to mail. He could make notbh'.g of the word, except that It smacked of tho Fast Indian plague. Here he was saved from further cerebral ngony by a tlm ly int-rrup-lion. A man. who was not of bucol; persuasion either in dres or sp'-ech. urban from the tips of h's bleached fingers to the buib of his bibulous nose, leaned ncro.-s the count- r and apked if Mr. Horace Hyaline had yet arrived. Yes, he had Just arrived; he paring minutes from lime tables. For a man In his business It was a clever expedient, decelvliig wll but those who knew hliu. He hesitated at the door, however, hs If be hud changed his inliid In lliti twenty odd paces It took to reach It. He stared for a long p, Hod at the eldeily gi nth-man who was watching the feluccas ou Hi" river through '!' window, 'I he white mustache and Imperial stood out in crisp relief against the ruddy sunburn on bis face. If be was iiwaiai of this scrutiny on the part of the pursy gentleman, gen-tleman, he gave not the least sign. I The revolving door spun round, pending pend-ing a pun" of outdoor air Into the lounging room. 'I he ehl.-i ly g.-ntl. inini then smiled, and applied Ms thumb and foi.ling.r to the wax.n point ol his Impel lal. In the liitei v. iilng time Mr. lly .nine entered bis room, tht.w the bundle, on the bed. sal down Lenlde I'., .mil lead his litter. .Sha.lu-.VS and l'.:-lltn moved licli.Mi his line; frovvl.s that I halileUe.l It. Millies til.. I Ill-lliCVid It.j Weill. tl hold tho trick of will'.ag l- t-l t-l . In th. y hat.-, their lb. .lights Hash ai d bum fnun lln- t line. I o I they love, 'ti i lettered lllll-lc 1 ' th' ' I conspire, the br. adtb of their imagh j j nation Is without hoiUuIi Al best, , man can mditf only 11 polite 1h.mi..--.s j j letter, l.'.s love Hot. I. Were ai'.jildgid I long siti. t, u maudlin c. H.-ction of loo..e sentence!. In this letter Mr. Hyaline Hy-aline found the thr. .- ai ts of Hfc. "She's n goial gei.eml: but hang the:,e. brimstone elforts of l.t-ts Sliej talks too much of b. art. For my part, j I prefer to rigard It as a mi-r.- phs j leal function, a pump, a motor, a power pow-er that gives action to the legs, ruber In coming or In going, mere i.pe. Sully In going." 11.- laugh. -d "W. '.!. b,-rs j Is tho Inspiration and hern Is the law. And to think that the could plan all this ou tl.n spur of the moment, down io the minutest detail! It's a si 1. -nee " Ho put th letter away, slul out his legs and glared at the dusty tips of his shors. "The 1'nitcd liomanoe and Adventure Company. Ltd.. of New-York, New-York, linil'in. and Faris. She l.aB the creatrst gift ( f ail. the rcni-e of hu- j nior." He rose and opened his kit bag doubtful!)-. He rummaged about In tho depths and at last straightened up w :h a mild oath. "Not a pair of cuffs In the whole outfit, riot a shirt, not n collar. Oh. well, when a man has to leave Hag. lad :.e wav I did. over the back fence, so to speak, liti! n tloi-Mi't count." H" drew- down his ruffs, d-Machod at d revetted t m. he turned his fold-i.n: fold-i.n: collar w rsii'4 side out, and UM-d H i- uiali r !-!(! (,f j.,. f.,o!-rug as a arm, tlm glint, of a polbihed Kh'-lder, his was the esHonen of life, he, coveted. He smiled at. the thought and the fcur knowledge thai he was not. the only wolf in tho fold. Ay, and who among (hone dainty It-d Hiding Hoods might be fooled by a vulpine grandmother? Truth, when a fellow winnowed It fa 11 down to a handful, there were only fools and rogues. If one was a fool, the rogim got you, and he In turn devoured de-voured himself. He held his glass toward the table-lamp, table-lamp, moved It slowly to and fro under un-der his nose, epieurcanly ; then be sipped the wine. Something like! It ran across his tongue and down his throat In tingling fire, neeUiriouH ; and he went, half way to Olympus, to the, feet of the gods. For wex-ks he had lived In the. vilest haunts, In desperate straits, his life In his open hands; and now once more he bad crawled from the depths to the outer crust of the world. It did not matter that he was destined to go down Into the depths again; so long as the Epaxk burned he was going to crawl back each time. Hamnable luck! He could have lived like a prince. Twenty-four hundred, and all In two nights, a steady stream of gold Into the pockets of men whom he could have cheated with consummate consum-mate ease, and didn't. A fine wolf, whose predatory Instincts were etlll riveted to that obsolete thing called conscience! "Conscience? Hot! Let us for once be frank and write It down as caution, as fear of publicity, anything but the white guardian-angel of the Immortality of the eouI. Heap up th gold, Apollyon; heap it up, higher and higher, till not a squeak of that still small voice that once awoke the chap In the Old Testament can ever again be heard. Now, no more retrospection, Horace; no more analysis; the vital question simmers down to this: If Fercival Algernon "balks, how far will four sovereigns go?" CHAPTER III. The Holy Yhiordes. George drank his burgundy perfunctorily. perfunc-torily. Had it been astringent as the native wine of torsica, he would not have noticed it. The little nerves that ran from his tongue to his brain had temporarily lost the power of communication. com-munication. And all because of the girl across the way. He couldn't keep his eys from wandering in her direction. di-rection. She faced him diagonally. She late but little, and when the elderly elder-ly gentleman poured out for her a glass of sauterne, she motioned It aside, rested her chin upon her folded fold-ed hands, and stared not at but through her vis a-vis. It was a lovely head, topped with coils of lustrous, light brown haiti; an oval face, of white and rose and ivory tones; scarlet lips, a small, regular reg-ular nose, and a chin the soft roundness round-ness of which hid the resolute lift to it. To these attributes of loveliness was added a perfect form, the long, flowing curves of youth, not the abrupt contours of maturity. George couldn't recollect when he had been so impressed im-pressed by a face. From the moment she had stepped down from the car riage, his interest had been drawn, and had grown to such dimensions that when he entered the dining-room his glance immediately searched for her table. What luck in finding her across the way! He questioned if ha had ever seen her before. There was something familiar; the delicate profile pro-file stirred some sleeping memory but did not wake it. How to meet her, and when he did meet her, how to interest her? If she would only drop her handkerchief, her purse, something to give him an excuse, ex-cuse, an opening. Ah, he was certain fhat this time the hydra-headed one should not overcome him. To gain her attention and to hold it, he would have faced a lion, a tiger, a wild-elephant. To diagnose these symptoms might not he fair to George. "Love at first sight" reads well and sounds well, but we hoary-headed philosophers philoso-phers know that the phrase is only poetical license. Once, and only once, she looked in his direction. It swept over him with the chill of a winter wind that he meant as much to her as a tree, a fence, a meadow, as seen from the window of a speeding railway train. But this observation, transient as it was, left with him the indelible impression im-pression that her eyes were the saddest sad-dest he had ever seen. Why? Why-should Why-should a young and beautiful girl hav eyes like that? It could not mean physical weariness, else the face would in some way have expressed It. The elderly man appeared to do his best to animate her; he was kindly and courteous and by the gentle way he laughed at intervals was trying to bolster up the situation with a Jest or two. The girl never so much as smiled, or shrugged her shoulders; she was as responsive to these overtures as marble mar-ble would have been. (TO BE CONTINUED.) Ail III1; Tri fpwg tion that had subdued the Arabs outside out-side acted likewise upon him. Here was a brother. 'Mall?" "I will see, sir." The manager summoned sum-moned a porter. "Room 203." The porter caught up the somewhat collapsed kit-bag, which had in all evidence evi-dence received some rough usage In Its time, and reached toward the roll. Mr. Ryanne Interposed. "I will see to that, my man," tersely. terse-ly. "Yes, sir." "Where is your guest-list?" demanded de-manded Mr. Ryanne of the manager. "The head-porter's bureau, sir. I will see if you have any mail." The manager passed Into his own bureau. It was rather difficult to tell whether this man was an American or an Englishman. Eng-lishman. His accent was western, but his manner was decidedly British. At any rate, that tone and carriage must be bastioned by good English sovereigns, sover-eigns, or for once his Judgment was at fault. The porter daBhed up-stairs. Mr. Ryanne, his bundle still snug under his arm, sauntered over to the head-porter's head-porter's bureau and ran his glance up and down the columns of visiting-cards. visiting-cards. Once he nodded with approval, and again he smiled, having discovered discov-ered that which sent a ripple across his sleeping sense of amusement. Major Ma-jor Callahan, room 206; Fortune Chedsoye, Ched-soye, 205; George P. A. Jones, 210. "Hm! the Major smells of County Antrim and the finest whisky in all the isle. Fortune Chedsoye; that is a pleasing name; tinkling brooks, the waving green grasses in the meadows, mead-ows, the kine In the water, the fleeting fleet-ing shadows under the oaks; a pastoral, pas-toral, a bucolic name. To claim For-r For-r tune for mine own; a, happy thought." As he uttered these poesy expressions expres-sions aloud, In a voice low and not un-jileaslng, un-jileaslng, for all that It was bantering, banter-ing, the head-porter stared at him with mingling doubt and alarm; and as if to pronounce these emotions mutely for the benefit of the other, he permitted per-mitted his eyes to open their widest. "Tut, tut; that's all right, porter. I am cursed with the habit of speaking my inmost thoughts. Some persons are afflicted with Insomnia; some fall asleep in church; I think orally. Beastly Beast-ly habit, eh?" Everything Worth While Seemed to Have Slipped Through His Fingers. Ran His Glance Up and Down the Columns of Visiting Cards. are. There isn't a man living who has gone bapk of that Mona Lisa smile of hers. If she was the last woman and I was the last man, I don't say." He hunted for a cigarette, but failed to find one. "Almost at the bottom, boy; Ihe winter of our discontent, and no sun of York to make it glorious. Twenty-four hundred at cards, and to lose it like a tyro! Wallace has taught me all he knows, but I'm a booby. Twenty-four hundred, firm's money. It's a failing of mine, the firm's money. But, damn it all, 1 can't cheat a man at cards; I'd rather cut his throat." He found his pipe, and a careful search of the corners of his coat-pockets revealed a meager pipeful of tobacco. to-bacco. He picked out the little balls of wool, the ground-coffee, the cloves, and pushed the charge home into the crusted bowl of his briar. "To the devil with economy! A pint of burgundy and a perfecto if they hale us to Jail for it. I'm dead tired. I've seen three corners in hell in the past two months. I'm going as far as four sovereigns will take me. through his fingers, his pleasure-loving fingers. "Come, come, Horace; buck up. Still the ruby kindles in the vine. No turning back now. We'll go on till we come bang! against the wall. There may be some good bouts between here and there. I wonder what Gioconda would say if she knew why I was so eager for this game?" He went down to dinner, and they gave him a table in an obscure corner, as a subtle reminder that his style was passe. He didn't care; he was hungry and thirsty. He could see nearly every one, ever, if only a few could see him. This was somewhat to his vantage. He endeavored to pick out Percival Algernon; Alger-non; but there were too many high collars, too many monocles. So he contented himself with a mild philosophical philo-sophical observance of the scene. The murmur of voices, rising as the wail of the violins sank, sinking as the wail rose; the tinkle of glass and china, the silver and linen, the pretty women in their rustling gowns, the delicate perfumes, the flash of an was even now on his way to his room. The urban gentleman nodded. Then, with a finger slim and well-trimmed, he trailed up and down the guest-list. "Ha! I see that you have the Duke of What-d'-ye-call from Germany here. I'll give you my card. Send it up to Mr. Ryanne. No hurry. I shall be in again after dinner." He bustled off toward the door. He was pursy, well-fed, and decently dressed, the sort of a man who, when he moved in any direction, created the impression that he had an important engagement somewhere else or was shoe-polisher. It was the ingenious procedure of a man who was used to being out late nights, who made all things answer all purposes. This rapid and singularly careless toilet completed, com-pleted, he centered his concern upon the more vital matter of finances. He was close to the nadir: four sovereigns, sover-eigns, a florin, and a collection of battered bat-tered coppers that would have tickled the pulse of an amateur numismatist "No vintage to-night, my boy; no long, fat Havana, either. A bottle of stout and a few raga of plug-cut; .that's the pace we'll travel this eve- |