slowly
and disparagingly.

"What is it, Snipy?" asked the other. "Got the blues again?"

"No, I ain't" said the seedy one, sniffing again. "But I don't like your
talk. You and me have been friends, off and on, for fifteen year; and I
never yet knew or heard of you giving anybody up to the law--not no one.
And here was a man whose saleratus you had et and at whose table you had
played games of cards--if casino can be so called. And yet you inform
him to the law and take money for it. It never was like you, I say."

"This H. Ogden," resumed the red-faced man, "through a lawyer, proved
himself free by alibis and other legal terminalities, as I so heard
afterward. He never suffered no harm. He did me favors, and I hated to
hand him over."

"How about the bills they found in his pocket?" asked the seedy man.

"I put 'em there," said the red-faced man, "while he was asleep, when I
saw the posse riding up. I was Black Bill. Look out, Snipy, here she
comes! We'll board her on the bumpers when she takes water at the tank."

SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLS

I

Old Jerome Warren lived in a hundred-thousand-dollar house at 35 East
Fifty-Soforth Street. He was a downtown broker, so rich that he could
afford to walk--for his health--a few blocks in the direction of his
office every morning, and then call a cab.

He had an adopted son, the son of an old friend named Gilbert--Cyril
Scott could play him nicely--who was becoming a successful painter as
fast as he could squeeze the paint out of his tubes. Another member of
the household was Barbara Ross, a step-niece. Man is born to trouble;
so, as old Jerome had no family of his own, he took up the burdens of
others.

Gilbert and Barbara got along swimmingly. There was a tacit and tactical
understanding all round that the two would stand up under a floral bell
some high noon, and promise the minister to keep old Jerome's money
in a state of high commotion. But at this point complications must be
introduced.

Thirty years before, when old Jerome was young Jerome, there was a
brother of his named Dick. Dick went West to seek his or somebody else's
fortune. Nothing was heard of him until one day old Jerome had a letter
from his brother. It was badly written on ruled paper that smelled
of salt bacon and coffee-grounds. The writing was asthmatic and the
spelling St. Vitusy.

It appeared that instead of Dick having forced Fortune to stand and
deliver, he had been held up himself