pon the bed, and sulked for the rest of that
day of rain and gloom.

CHAPTER II

Wanted: Information

Sulking never yet solved a mystery nor will it accomplish much toward
bettering an unpleasant situation. After a day of unmitigated gloom and
a night of uneasy dreams, Ford awoke to a white, shifting world of the
season's first blizzard, and to something like his normal outlook upon
life.

That outlook had ever been cheerful, with the cheerfulness which comes
of taking life in twenty-four-hour doses only, and of looking not too
far ahead and backward not at all. Plenty of persons live after that
fashion and thereby attain middle life with smooth foreheads and cheeks
unlined by thought; and Ford was therefore not much different from his
fellows. Never before had he found himself with anything worse than
bodily bruises to sour life for him after a tumultuous night or two in
town, and the sensation of a discomfort which had not sprung from some
well-defined physical sense was therefore sufficiently novel to claim
all his attention.

It was not the first time he had fought and forgotten it afterwards. Nor
was it a new experience for him to seek information from his friends
after a night full of incident. Sandy he had always found tolerably
reliable, because Sandy, being of that inquisitive nature so common to
small persons, made it a point to see everything there was to be seen;
and his peculiar digestive organs might be counted upon to keep him
sober. It was a real grievance to Ford that Sandy should have chosen the
hour he did for indulging in such trivialities as hair-cuts and
shampoos, while events of real importance were permitted to transpire
unseen and unrecorded. Ford, when the grievance thrust itself keenly
upon him, roused the recreant Sandy by pitilessly thrusting an elbow
against his diaphragm.

Sandy grunted at the impact and sat bolt upright in bed before he was
fairly awake. He glanced reproachfully down at Ford, who stared back at
him from a badly crumpled pillow.

"Get up," growled Ford, "and start a fire going, darn you. You kept me
awake half the night, snoring. I want a beefsteak with mushrooms,
devilled kidneys, waffles with honey, and four banana fritters for
breakfast. I'll take it in bed; and while I'm waiting, you can bring me
the morning paper and a package of Egyptian Houris."

Sandy grunted again, slid reluctantly out into the bitterly cold room,
and crept shivering into his cl