en he turned
as if to get a clearer light upon the face. Ashamed to show the
tenderness that filled his honest heart, he hummed "Kingdom Coming,"
relit his cigar, and presently began to talk again.

"Now, then, Flint, it's your turn to keep guard, and Thorn's to tell
his romance. Come, don't try to shirk; it does a man good to talk of
such things, and we're all mates here."

"In some cases it don't do any good to talk of such things; better let
'em alone," muttered Thorn, as he reluctantly sat down, while Flint as
reluctantly departed.

With a glance and gesture of real affection, Phil laid his hand upon
his comrade's knee, saying in his persuasive voice, "Old fellow,
it _will_ do you good, because I know you often long to speak of
something that weighs upon you. You've kept us steady many a time,
and done us no end of kindnesses; why be too proud to let us give our
sympathy in return, if nothing more?"

Thorn's big hand closed over the slender one upon his knee, and the
mild expression, so rarely seen upon his face, passed over it as he
replied,--

"I think I could tell you almost anything if you asked me that way,
my boy. It isn't that I am too proud,--and you're right about my
sometimes wanting to free my mind,--but it's because a man of forty
don't just like to open out to young fellows, if there is any danger
of their laughing at him, though he may deserve it. I guess there
isn't now, and I'll tell you how I found my wife."

Dick sat up, and Phil drew nearer, for the earnestness that was in
the man dignified his plain speech, and inspired an interest in his
history, even before it was begun. Looking gravely at the river and
never at his hearers, as if still a little shy of confidants, yet
grateful for the relief of words, Thorn began abruptly:--

"I never hear the number eighty-four without clapping my hand to my
left breast and missing my badge. You know I was on the police in New
York, before the war, and that's about all you do know yet. One bitter
cold night I was going my rounds for the last time, when, as I turned
a corner, I saw there was a trifle of work to be done. It was a bad
part of the city, full of dirt and deviltry; one of the streets led to
a ferry, and at the corner an old woman had an apple-stall. The poor
soul had dropped asleep, worn out with the cold, and there were her
goods left with no one to watch 'em. Somebody was watching 'em.
however; a girl, with a ragged shawl over her head, s