disappearance did not speak well for the young man in whom the boss
had taken an interest.

"Has he paid up at Kenny's?" Rainsford asked hopelessly.

Falutini did not understand. "Signora Kenni," informed the fireman,
"mutche cri, kids mutche cri, altro." Fairfax, the fellow made Rainsford
understand, had left his clothes and belongings.

"Ah," Rainsford thought, "it looks worse than at first."

"No," Falutini explained, "no fight." Then he broke forth into an
explanation from which Rainsford vainly tried to create some order.
Statues and terra-cotta figures mingled with an explanation of theft of
some property of Fairfax's and his flight in consequence.

"I'll close up here in a quarter of an hour, and go over and see Mrs.
Kenny. Steve Brodie will take your engine, and you look out for
yourself, my man, and don't get bounced when you come in to report
to-morrow."

Rainsford saw Mrs. Kenny in the kitchen-bedroom-parlour of the
first-class hotel (Gents only). When he came in and sat down in the
midst of the Irish family Rainsford did not know that he was the second
gentleman that had crossed the threshold since the sign had swung in the
window. Mary Kenny was intelligible, charmingly so, and her account was
full of colour; and the young man's character was drawn by a woman's
lips, with a woman's tenderness.

"Ah, wurra sor," she finished, "Oi cud go down on me knees to him if it
wasn't for Pathrick Kenny. It was an evil day when that Hitalian came to
the dure. Wud ye now?" she offered, as though she suggested that he
should view sacred relics, "wud ye feel like goin' up to his room and
castin' an eye?"

Peter Rainsford did so, feeling that he was taking a man at a
disadvantage, but consoling himself with the thought that Fairfax's
disappearance warranted the invasion. Mrs. Kenny, the baby on her arm,
stood by his side, and called over the objects as though she were a
showman at a museum.

"That's his bury, sor, and the best wan in the hotel, and them's his
little ornyments an' foolin's in order on the top. Matty reds his room
up, an' never a hand but mine puts his wash to rights." She pulled a
drawer open. "His beautiful starched shirts, I doos them with me own
hands and charges him as though he was me son; an' there is his
crayvats, an' over there," she pointed with her thumb, "stud the image,
bad cess to the Hitalian an' his likes, Mr. Rainsford, an' many's the
time I've stud beyont the dure an' heard him si