e in his
pocket.

"Alas!" he remarks, strikin' a match on my shoe. "Alas!"

"When can the body be seen?" asks Scanlan. "And is it a church funeral
or will they pull it off at the house?"

"This is no time for levity," mutters Harold. "I'm ruined!"

"I only got ten bucks with me," the Kid tells him, "but I'll part
with--"

"Poof!" sneers Harold, wavin' his hands like a head waiter. "Money! I
am not in need of that. Why, my father--" He breaks off to take the
bill from the Kid's hand and shove it in his pocket. "Rather than
offend you!" he explains. "No," he goes on, "this is a more serious
matter than money. I--" He flicks away the cigarette, jumps up off
the rock and gives us both the up and down. "I am going to take you
two into my confidence," he says, "and perhaps you will help me."

"Go on!" encourages the Kid. "I'm all worked up--shoot it!"

"Well, then," says Harold, with the air of a guy pleadin' guilty to
save his old father. "In the first place, my name is not J. Harold
Cuthbert!"

There was no answer from us, and Harold seemed peeved because we had
not collapsed at his confession.

"What is it?" I asks, when the silence begin to hurt the ears.

"Trout!" pipes Harold, bitterly. "Joe Trout!"

"Yeh?" says the Kid. "Well, what's the matter with that? What did you
can it for?"

"Ha, ha!" hisses Harold, with a "curse you!" giggle. "Where could a
man get with a name like _that_?"

"In the aquarium!" yells the Kid. "I knew you'd fall!"

Harold shakes his head and blows himself to another sigh.

"Imagine a moving picture leading man named Trout!" he goes on. "I
changed my name as a sacrifice to the movies, for--"

"Just a minute!" I butts in. "On the level now, where _did_ you get
your movin' picture experience?"

"As assistant bookkeeper in a grocery store!" he answers. "Now you
have it!"

"But you said your father was a big man in Wall Street!" I busts out.

"He is!" answers Harold, lookin' over at the Santa Fe. "They don't
come any bigger. He's a traffic policeman at the corner of Broadway
and Wall Street and stands six foot four in his socks!"

"Sweet Cookie!" shouts the Kid, and falls off the rock.

When we recover from that, Harold has smoked the other cigarette, and
he nods for my box. Then he asks us do we want to hear the rest.

"If you don't tell it," says the Kid, "you'll never leave here alive!
Hurry up, I'm dyin' to hear it!"

"Well," says the ex-J. Ha