d trembling for his
billet, and by this time Nickie the Kid, his bruises painted with iodine,
and his battered head liberally patched with court plaster, was sleeping
off the effects of his overdose of whisky.

The truants had to be on duty early that day, for the story of the escape
of the man-monkey and, his capture by the heroes of 'Tween Bridges
brought people from all over the district to inspect the marvel, but
Madhi remained on his straw in the dark recesses of his cage, stiff, sore
and filled with bitterness, while Professor Thunder explained to his awed
patrons the animal's amazingly human viciousness, his love for drink, and
his utterly depraved nature.

"D'yeh think I'm fallin' into fat. Nickie?" whispered the Living
Skeleton, from his pedestal that evening. "I ate an awful lot o' cheese."

The Missing Link shook his head and groaned. "Next time I get tight I
won't do it in character," he said, "my realisation of the part is too
convincing."

CHAPTER XIX.

THE LINK'S LAST APPEARANCE.

IT is not forgotten that Mr. Nicholas Crips was a man of amatory
instincts; he had a very warm if not particularly sincere regard for the
sex, and in his brighter moments, when a relapse from his natural
dilatoriness induced him to have a clean-shave, a perfunctory combing,
and a general trimming-up, ladies of a certain class approaching the
middle-ages found him not wholly forbidding.

Nickie's close application to an artistic career as the leading feature
of Professor Thunder's Museum of Marvels had lifted him out of what had
become an habitual impecuniosity, and in his brief unprofessional moments
he wore a whole suit and boots that did not openly advertise his sockless
condition.

In addition, Nickie was leading a fairly fat and easy life; he had put on
condition; he was quite at his best; and a flirtatious matron might have
found him a fairly presentable person. Madame Marve, the Egyptian Mystic,
was a good wife to Professor Thunder, and a good mother to Letitia,
according to the lights of show people at the conventions of the game,
but she was still young enough to appreciate genuine admiration, and had
sufficient of the vanity of the profession to roll a lively, dark eye for
effect now and again.

Naturally, the lively, dark eye rolled in Nickie's direction once in a
way, and Nickie responded with the beams of a tender, grey orb. He had a
way of languishing a little when only Madame Marve was near, and he