givin' me
an excellent reference and sayin' I was a good valet an' all like
that, sir.

"After leavin' there I went out and got some supper, and then I went up
to Kelly's place and horned into an open game of pool. You know Kelly's
place is pretty close to the Union Station and when it come about ten
o'clock I got tired and went an' sat down in the corner, eatin' a hot
dog from the stand in Kelly's--an' then I sort of got to thinkin'
things over.

"An' thinkin' things over that way, Mr. Carroll--I began to think that
Mrs. Lawrence was doin' a terrible foolish thing, and I was kinder sorry
about it. Now don't get no idea that I'm wantin' you to believe I got a
soft heart or anythin' like that--but then I sort of liked Mr. Warren and
I knew Mrs. Lawrence was a decent woman--and I knew once she got on the
train with Mr. Warren she was done for. And when I got to thinkin' about
that, sir--it struck me that maybe somethin' could be done to keep 'em
from eloping with each other that way. Not that I was plannin' to do
anything--but curiosity sort of got me, and along about eleven o'clock or
a little while after I went out of Kelly's and up to the Union Station. I
sat down over in the corner and waited for somethin' to happen--sort of
hopin' maybe I had been wrong all the time and there wasn't going to be
no elopement.

"I waited there a long time, and then suddenly a taxicab came up to the
curb and Mr. Warren got out. Then the taxicab beat it down-town again and
Mr. Warren went in the station. And as he come in one door, I beat it out
of the other."

"Why?" snapped Leverage.

"Because him seein' me there was certain to start somethin'. And I wasn't
hankerin' for nothin' like that to happen. So I went across the street
and tried to get shelter against the wall of that dump of a hotel over
there. An' it was cold: I ain't seen such a cold night in my life. I
almos' froze to death."

"And yet you continued to stand there?"

"Sure--I was curious. Kinder foolish, maybe, but I wanted to see had I
figured right about him eloping with Mrs. Lawrence. So I stood there,
darn near dead with the cold, when the midnight Union Station street car
stopped an' Mrs. Lawrence got out. An' the first thing I noticed was that
she wasn't carryin' no suit-case. I noticed that on account of havin'
seen her suit-case in Mr. Warren's car that day. She didn't carry
nothin' but one of these handbag things that women lug around with 'em."

"How w