a glass to see myself in it just
once, when my eye caught the window of the next house.

It would do for a mirror all right, for the dark green shade was down.
But at sight of the shade blowing in the wind I forgot all about the
collar.

It's this way, Mag, when they press you too far; and that little rat of
a lawyer had got me most to the wall. I looked at the window,
measuring the little climb it would be for me to get to it,--the house
next door was just one story higher than the one where I was, so its
top story was on a level with the roof nearly where I stood. And I
made up my--mind to get what would let Tom off easy, or break into jail
myself.

And so I didn't care much what I might fall into through that window.
And perhaps because I didn't care, I slipped into a dark hall, and not
a thing stirred; not a footstep creaked. I felt like the
Princess--Princess Nancy Olden--come to wake the Sleeping Beauty; some
dude it'd be that would have curly hair like Tom Dorgan's, and would
wear clothes like my friend Latimer's, over in Brooklyn.

Can you see me there, standing on one leg like a stork, ready to lie or
to fly at the first sound?

Well, the first sound didn't come. Neither did the second. In fact,
none of 'em came unless I made 'em myself.

Softly as Molly goes when the baby's just dropped off to sleep, I
walked toward an open door. It was a parlor, smelly with tobacco, and
with lots of papers and books around. And nary a he-beauty--nor any
other kind.

I tried the door of a room next to it. A bedroom. But no Beauty.

Silly! Don't you tumble yet? It was a bachelor's apartment, and the
Bachelor Beauty was out, and Princess Nancy had the place all to
herself.

I suppose I really ought to have left my card--or he wouldn't know who
had waked him--but I hadn't intended to go calling when I left home.
So I thought I'd look for one of his as a souvenir--and anything else
of his I could make use of.

There were shirts I'd liked for Tom, dandy colored ones, and suits with
checks in 'em and without. But I wanted something easy and small and
flat, made of crackly printed yellow or green paper, with numbers on it.

How did I know he had anything like that? Why, Mag, Mag Monahan, one
would think you belonged to the Bishop's set, you're so simple!

I had to turn on the electric light after a bit--it got so dark. And I
don't like light in other people's houses when they're not at home, and
neither