ification disc,' he barks.

"Bein' in Paris for a bat, I had exchanged with my bunkie, Bill Hanson.
`Let him look,' thinks I; and he reads Bill's check.

"`If you fool me,' says he, 'I'll folly ye and I'll do you in if it
takes the rest of my life. You understand?' `Sure,' says I, me tongue
in me cheek. `Bong! Alez vouz en!' says he.

"`How the hell,' sez I, `do I get out of here?' `You're a Yankee
soldier. The Flies don't know you were in here. You go and kick on
that door and make a holler.'

"So I done it good; and a cope opens and swears at me, but when he sees
a Yankee soldier was locked in the wash-room by mistake, he lets me out,
you bet."

Clinch smiled a thin smile, poured out three fingers of hooch.

"What else?" asked Smith quietly.

"Nothing much. I didn't go to no roo Quinze Octobre. But I don't never
want to see that fella Quintana. I've been waiting till it's safe to
sell -- what was in that packet."

"Sell what?"

"What was in that packet," replied Clinch thickly.

"What was in it?"

"Sparklers -- since you're so nosey."

"Diamonds?"

"And then some. I dunno what they're called. All I know is I'll croak
Quintana if he even turns up askin' for 'em. He frisked somebody. I
frisked him. I'll kill anybody who tries to frisk me."

"Where do you keep them?" enquired Smith naively.

Clinch looked at him, very drunk: "None o' your dinged business," he
said very softly.

The dancing had become boisterous but not unseemly, although all the men
had been drinking too freely.

Smith closed the pantry bar at midnight, by direction of Eve. Now he
came out into the ballroom and mixed affably with the company, even
dancing with Harvey Chase's sister once -- a slender hoyden, all flushed
and dishevelled, with a tireless mania for dancing which seemed to
intoxicate her.

She danced, danced, danced, accepting any partner offered. But Smith's
skill enraptured her and she refused to let him go when her beau, a late
arrival, one Charly Berry, slouched up to claim her.

Smith, always trying to keep Clinch and Quintana's men in view, took no
part in the discussion; but Berry thought he was detaining Lily Chase
and pushed him aside.

"Hold on, young man!" exclaimed Smith sharply. "Keep your hands to
yourself. If your girl don't want to dance with you she doesn't have
to."

Some of Quintana's gag came up to listen. Berry glared at Smith.

"Say," he said, "I seen you before somewhere.