s of every disease known to the human body.

Then the roystering throng. The Elysian Fields. It was the beach
about which the tide ebbed and flowed. It was a rough rock-bound beach
upon which the waters of life beat themselves into a fury of excess.
Its lights were the beacons of the wreckers set up for the destruction
of the human soul.

Chief amongst the wreckers was Pap Shaunbaum, a Hebrew of doubtful
nationality, and without scruple. He prided himself that he was a
caterer for the needs of the people. His thesis was that the northland
battle needed alleviation in the narrow lap of luxury where vice ruled
supreme. He had spent his life in searching the best means of personal
profit out of the broad field of human weakness, and discovered the
Elysian Fields.

He had labored with care and infinite thought. He had built on a
credit from the vast bank of experience, and owned in the Elysian
Fields the finest machine in the world for wrecking the soul and pocket
of the human race.

Every attraction lay to hand. The dance hall was aglitter, the floor
perfect, and the stage equipped to foster all that appealed to the
senses. The hotel with its splendid accommodation, its bars, its
gaming rooms, its dining hall, its supper rooms, its bustle of
elaborate service. There was nothing forgotten that ingenuity could
devise to loosen the bank rolls of its clientele, and direct the flow
of gold into the proprietor's coffers--not even women. As Dr. Bill
declared in one of his infrequent outbursts of passionate protest: "The
place is one darnation public brothel; a scandal to the northland, a
shame on humanity."

It was here, gazing down on the crowded dance hall, from one of the
curtained boxes adjacent to the stage, on which a vaudeville programme
was being performed, that two men sat screened from the chance glance
of the throng below them.

A table stood between them, and an uncorked bottle of wine and two
glasses were placed to their hand. But the wine stood untouched, and
was rapidly becoming flat. It had been ordered as a custom of the
place. But neither had the least desire for its artificial stimulation.

They had been talking in a desultory fashion. Talking in the pleasant
intimate fashion of men who know each other through and through. Of
men who look upon life with a vision adjusted to a single focus.

They were watching the comings and goings of familiar faces in the
glittering overdressed throng