tance with the police, in consequence, extensive. And
finally, that he was now at Selwoode was not in the least his fault,
but all the doing of an N. & O. brakesman, who had in uncultured
argument, reinforced by a coupling-pin, persuaded Mr. Flinks to
disembark from the northern freight on the night previous.

Mr. Flinks, then, sat leaning against a tree in the gardens of
Selwoode, some thirty feet from the wall that stands between Selwoode
and Gridlington, and nursed his pride and foot, both injured in that
high debate of last evening, and with a jackknife rounded off the top
of a substantial staff designed to alleviate his present lameness.
Meanwhile, he tempered his solitude with music, whistling melodiously
the air of a song that pertained to the sacredness of home and of a
white-haired mother.

Subsequently to Cock-eye Flinks (as the playbill has it), enter a
vision in violet ruffles.

Wide-eyed, she came upon him in her misery, steadily trudging toward
an unknown goal. I think he startled her a bit. Indeed, it must be
admitted that Mr. Flinks, while a man of undoubted talent in his
particular line of business, was, like many of your great geniuses, in
outward aspect unprepossessing and misleading; for whereas he looked
like a very shiftless and very dirty tramp, he was as a matter of fact
as vile a rascal as ever pawned a swinish soul for whiskey.

"What are you doing here?" said Margaret, sharply. "Don't you know
this is private property?"

To his feet rose Cock-eye Flinks. "Lady," said he, with humbleness,
"you wouldn't be hard on a poor workingman, would you? It ain't my
fault I'm here, lady--at least, it ain't rightly my fault. I just
climbed over the wall to rest a minute--just a minute, lady, in the
shade of these beautiful trees. I ain't a-hurting nobody by that,
lady, I hope."

"Well, you had no business to do it," Miss Hugonin pointed out, "and
you can just climb right back." Then she regarded him more intently,
and her face softened somewhat. "What's the matter with your foot?"
she demanded.

"Brakesman," said Mr. Flinks, briefly. "Threw me off a train. He
struck me cruel hard, he did, and me a poor workingman trying to make
my way to New York, lady, where my poor old mother's dying, lady, and
me out of a job. Ah, it's a hard, hard world, lady--and me her only
son--and he struck me cruel, cruel hard, he did, but I forgive him for
it, lady. Ah, lady, you're so beautiful I know you're got a kind,