unlike the loud
purring of a cat. Senator Bull pushed the cigars in his direction, and
Van Rensselaer was equally assiduous with the whiskey and soda. Our
visitor seemed perfectly at home. He drank,--drank deeply,--and wiping
his mouth on his sleeve, drank again.

"The hair of the goat is certainly good for the butt," said he, smiling,
and displaying a set of marvellously white and regular teeth. "Now,
gentlemen, I am quite ready to fulfil my part of the agreement. If my
little story interests you, you are welcome to it. It was this way.

"I was a doctor by profession, carpenter by trade, stevedore by
occupation; then came harder times--booze--more booze--despair, illness,
and I found myself discharged from the hospital, down and out--a hobo!
Yet tramp life is not so bad after all. I like it. I like the open-air
existence, the freedom from care and responsibility, and--the hours. I
am much alone, and genius, you know, grows corpulent in solitude.

"My name is Tippett--Livingstone Tippett. Age, of no special moment. You
know," he said pleasantly, "there are two things all of us lie
about--our ages and our incomes. As this is a true story I will drop the
_age_ question. It is better so.

"My early life was uneventful. I was brought up by a pious mother in a
quiet, deeply religious home; every influence uplifting and
good-instilling. I was taught, among other things, to regard liquor in
any form with abhorrence, and that drunkenness was the sin of sins. I
was surrounded with every safeguard a loving mother could devise, and it
was not until after her death and my wife's that I took to drink. My
father and grandfather both died drunkards. Heredity, in my case,
overcame both training and environment, and my troubles hurried on the
inevitable.

"I passed through college unscathed, studied medicine, walked the
hospitals, and began the practice of my profession under the most
favorable auspices. I fell in love with a charming girl, and blessed
with my good mother's approval we were married. Our future seemed
singularly bright and untroubled. Life is a game and I was considerably
ahead of the game. I was certainly playing on velvet.

"When my Elizabeth and I announced that instead of going abroad we would
spend our honeymoon at 'Raven Hill' our little world thought it quite
absurd. They were charitably inclined, however, and made excuses for us
upon the ground that we were too much absorbed in each other to know
what we