im in the window might
almost have read his friend's dejection in his embarrassed face.

But Waring came eagerly forward, answered the season's greetings, and
said quickly:

"Are you still in the same mind about the West, Mr. Bulstrode?"

(Poor Bulstrode!)

"I mean to say, sir, if you still feel like giving me this chance, I've
a favor to ask. Would you let me go _alone_?"

Bulstrode gasped.

"Since last night a lot has happened to me, not only since you've
befriended me, but since I tussled with that fellow here. I'd like a
chance to see what I can do alone. If you, as you so generously plan,
go with me, I shall feel watched--protected. It will weaken me more
than anything else. I suppose I shall go all to pieces, but I'd like
to try my strength. If I could suddenly master that chap with my fists
after months of dissipation----"

Bulstrode finished for him:

"You can master the rest."

"Don't give me any extra money," pleaded the tramp, as if he foresaw
his friend's impulse. "Pay my ticket out West, if you will, and write
to the man who is there, and I'll start in."

Bulstrode beamed on him.

"You're a man," he assured him--"a man."

"I may become one."

"You're a fine fellow."

"You'll trust me, then?"

"Implicitly."

"Then let me start to-day. I'm reckless--let me get away. I may get
off at the first station and pawn my clothes and drink and drink to a
lower hell than before--but let me try alone."

"You shall go alone--and go to-day."

Prosper came in with the coffee; he, too, was beaming, and the servants
below-stairs were all agog. Waring was a hero.

"Prosper," said his master, in French, "will you, after you have served
breakfast, go out to the market quarters and see if you can discover
for me a medium-sized, very well-proportioned little Christmas tree?
Fetch it home with you."

Waring smiled faintly.

Bulstrode smiled too, and more comprehendingly, and Prosper smiled and
said:

"Mais certainement, monsieur."

THE SECOND ADVENTURE

II

IN WHICH HE TRIES TO BUY A PORTRAIT

Bulstrode was extremely fond of travel, and every now and then treated
himself to a season in London or Paris, and in the May following his
adventure with Waring he saw, from his apartments in the Hotel Ritz,
from Boulevard, Bois, and the Champs Elysees, as much of the
maddeningly delicious Parisian springtime "as was good for him at his
age," so he said! It gave the feeling that he w