but Cap wouldn't let him--said
you'd be back and might help him. Wasn't that it, Cap?"--this to the
landlord, who nodded in reply.

"How could _I_ help him?" asked Harry, selecting a tallow dip from a row
on a shelf, but in a tone that implied his own doubt in the query, as
well as his relief, now that the man was really a stranger.

"Well, this is your port, so I 'ear. Some o' them high-flyers up 'round
the park might lend a hand, may be, if you'd tip 'em a wink, or some o'
their women folks might take a shine to 'em."

"Looked hungry, did you say?" Harry asked, lighting the dip at an oil
lamp that swung near the bar.

"Yes--holler's a drum--see straight through him; tired too--beat out.
You'd think so if you see him. My play--clubs."

Harry turned to the landlord: "If this man comes in again give him
food and lodging," and he handed him a bank bill. "If he is here in the
morning let me see him. I'm going to bed now. Good-night, men!"

CHAPTER XXV

Should I lapse into the easy-flowing style of the chroniclers of
the period of which I write--(and how often has the scribe wished he
could)--this chapter would open with the announcement that on this
particularly bleak, wintry afternoon a gentleman in the equestrian
costume of the day, and mounted upon a well-groomed, high-spirited white
horse, might have been seen galloping rapidly up a country lane leading
to an old-fashioned manor house.

Such, however, would not cover the facts. While the afternoon was
certainly wintry, and while the rider was unquestionably a gentleman, he
was by no manner of means attired in velveteen coat and russet-leather
boots with silver spurs, his saddle-bags strapped on behind, but in
a rough and badly worn sailor's suit, his free hand grasping a bundle
carried loose on his pommel. As to the horse neither the immortal James
or any of his school could truthfully picture this animal as either
white or high-spirited. He might, it is true, have been born white and
would in all probability have stayed white but for the many omissions
and commissions of his earlier livery stable training--traces of which
could still be found in his scraped sides and gnawed mane and tail; he
might also have once had a certain commendable spirit had not the ups
and downs of road life--and they were pretty steep outside Kennedy
Square--taken it out of him.

It is, however, when I come to the combination of horse and rider that
I can with entire safe