nes now; and so is Neal Ward, walking the
streets of Chicago, looking for work on a newspaper, and finally
finding it. And so are Mrs. Jane Barclay and Miss Barclay, as they
sail away on their ten days' cruise of the Mediterranean. And while
the orchestra plays and the man in the middle of row A of the dress
circle edges out of his seat and in again, we cannot hear John Barclay
sigh when the last telephone call is answered, and he finds that
nothing can be done. And he is not particularly cheered by the
knowledge that the Associated Press report that very afternoon is
sending all over the world the story of the indictment. But late in
the afternoon Judge Bemis, in whose court the indictment was found,
much to his chagrin, upon evidence furnished by special counsel sent
out from Washington--Judge Bemis tells him, as from one old friend to
another, that the special counsellor isn't much of a lawyer. The
pleasant friendly little rip-saw laugh of the judge over the telephone
nearly a thousand miles away is not distinct enough to be heard across
the stage even if the carpenters were not hammering, and the orchestra
screaming, and the audience buzzing; but that little laugh of his good
friend, Judge Bemis, was the sweetest sound John Barclay had heard in
many a day. It seemed curious that he should so associate it, but that
little laugh seemed to drown the sound of a clicking key in a lock--a
large iron lock, that had been rattling in his mind since noon. For
even in the minds of the rich and the great, even in the minds of men
who fancy they are divinely appointed to parcel out to their less
daring brethren the good things of this world, there is always a
child's horror of the jail. So when Mr. Barclay, who was something of
a lawyer himself, heard his good friend, Judge Bemis, laugh that
pleasant little friendly laugh behind the scenes, the heart of Mr.
Barclay gave a little pulse-beat of relief if not of joy.

But an instant later the blight of the indictment was over him again.
Hammer away, and scream away, and buzz away with all your might, you
noises of the playhouse; let us not hear John Barclay hastening across
the bridge just before the early winter sunset comes, that he may
intercept the _Index_ and the _Banner_ in the front yard of the
Barclay home, before his mother sees them. Always heretofore he has
been glad to have her read of his achievements, in the hope that she
would come to approve them, and to view things