as most ungodly proud of you; I've seen you do grand things, my
little man, grand things. But you're a coward too, Johnnie; sitting in
your own house while your horse-thief friend used your cellar to work
out the disgrace of the man who gave his good name to save your
own--that was a fine trick--a damn fine trick, wasn't it, Mr.
Barclay?"

Barclay started to go, but the crowd blocked his way. Dolan saw that
Barclay was trying to escape. "Turn tail, will you, my little man?
Wait one minute," cried Dolan. "Wait one minute, sir. For what was you
conniving against the big man? I know--to win your game; to win your
miserable little game. Ah, what a pup a man can be, Johnnie, what a
mangy, miserable, cowardly little pup a man can be when he tries--and
a decent man, too. Money don't mean anything to you--you got past
that, but it's to win the game. Why, man, look at yourself--look at
yourself--you'd cheat your own mother playing cards with matches for
counters--just to win the game." Dolan waved for the crowd to break.
"Let him out of here, and get out yourselves--every one of you. This
is public property you're desecrating."

Dolan sat alone in his office, pale and trembling after the crowd had
gone. Colonel Culpepper came puffing in and saw the Irishman sitting
with his head in his hands and his elbows on the table.

"What's this, Jake--what's this I hear?" asked the colonel.

"Oh, nothing," answered Dolan, and then he looked up at the colonel
with sad, remorseful eyes. "What a fool--what a fool whiskey in a
man's tongue is--what a fool." He reached under his cot for his jug,
and repeated as he poured the liquor into a glass, "What a fool, what
a fool, what a fool." And then, as he gulped it down and made a wry
face, "Poor little Johnnie at the mill; I didn't mean to hit him so
hard--not half so hard. What a fool, what a fool," and the two old
men started off for the harness shop together.

Neal Ward that night, in the _Banner_ office alone, wrote to his
sweetheart the daily letter that was never mailed.

"How sweet it is," he writes, "to have you at home. Sometimes I hear
your voice through the old leaky telephone, talking to Aunt Molly;
her phone and ours are through the same board, and your voice seems
natural then, and unstrained, not as it is when we meet. But I know
that some way we are meeting--our souls--in the infinite realm
outside ourselves--beyond our consciousness--either sleeping o