the right nor the left, like a man asleep. He had gone to
his room, locked his door behind him, and sat down upon the edge of his
bed and given himself up to an eager dream of crime. His heart beat,
now fast, now slow; a cold sweat enveloped him; he felt from time to
time half suffocated.

Suddenly he heard a loud knocking at his door--not as if made by the
hand, but as if some one were hammering. He started and gasped with a
choking rattle in his throat. His eyes seemed straining from their
sockets. He opened his lips, but no sound came forth.

The sharp rapping was repeated, once and again. He made no answer. Then
a loud voice said:

"Hello, Andy, you asleep?"

He threw himself back on his pillow and said yawningly, "Yes. That you,
Sam? Why don't you come in?"

"'Cause the door's locked."

He rose and let Sleeny in; then threw himself back on the bed,
stretching and gaping.

"What did you make that infernal racket with?"

"My new hammer," said Sam. "I just bought it to day. Lost my old one
the night we give Farnham the shiveree."

"Lemme see it." Offitt took it in his hand and balanced and tested it.
"Pretty good hammer. Handle's a leetle thick, but--pretty good hammer."

"Ought to be," said Sam. "Paid enough for it."

"Where d'you get it?"

"Ware & Harden's."

"Sam," said Offitt,--he was still holding the hammer and giving himself
light taps on the head with it,--"Sam."

"Well, you said that before."

Offitt opened his mouth twice to speak and shut it again.

"What are you doin'?" asked Sleeny. "Trying to catch flies?"

"Sam," said Offitt at last, slowly and with effort, "if I was you, the
first thing I did with that hammer, I'd crack Art Farnham's cocoa-nut."

"Well, Andy, go and crack it yourself if you are so keen to have it
done. You're mixing yourself rather too much in my affairs, anyhow,"
said Sam, who was nettled by these too frequent suggestions of Offitt
that his honor required repair.

"Sam Sleeny," said Offitt, in an impressive voice, "I'm one of the kind
that stands by my friends. If you mean what you have been saying to me,
I'll go up with you this very night, and we will together take it out
of that aristocrat. Now, that's business."

Sleeny looked at his friend in surprise and with some distrust. The
offer was so generous and reckless, that he could not help asking
himself what was its motive. He looked so long and so stupidly at
Offitt, that the latter at last divined his fe