hadn't made any breaks to speak of, and it was near time
for the Lady Mildred to be floatin' in, when I pipes off a tall,
husky-lookin' gent, with a funny black lid and an umbrella tucked under
one arm, gawpin' up at the sign on the church.

"Tourist from Punk Hollow lookin' for the Flatiron Buildin'," says I to
myself; but the next minute he comes meanderin' up the steps, fishin' a
card out of his pocket. You can bet I plants myself in the door and
calls for credentials!

But, say, he had the goods. There was the ticket, all right, with the
name wrote on it, and it didn't need but one squint at the pasteboard
for me to break into a cold sweat. It wa'n't anybody else but Mr.
William Morgan!

"Say," says I, as hoarse as a huckster, "are you Brother Bill?"

"Why," says he, kind of surprised, but not half so stunned as I thought
he'd be,--"why, I suppose I am."

You wouldn't have guessed it. Not that he didn't look the brother part;
for he did. He went Mildred two or three inches better in height, and he
had snappy black eyes and black hair like hers. The points that goes
with a striped suit and the lock step was missin', though. But how you
goin' to tell, in these times when our toniest fatwads is sittin' around
the mahogany votin' to raise the price of chewin' gum to-day, and
gettin' a free haircut to-morrow? There wa'n't any time for me to stand
there guessin' whether he'd been pardoned, or had slid down the rain
pipe. Somethin' had to be done, and done quick.

"Dodge in here and wait a minute," says I. "There's some word been left
for you."

With that I sneaks down the side aisle and into the little cloakroom,
where Mr. Robert was keepin' Benny's mind off'n what was comin' to him
by makin' him count the geranium leaves in the carpet.

"Mr. Robert," says I, luggin' him off to one side, "you want to give up
predictin' the future. Bill's come!"

"What Bill?" says he.

"The one from the rock pile, Brother Bill," says I.

"That's lovely!" says he.

"It's all of that," says I.

"I hope he's not wearing his uniform still," says Mr. Robert.

"Not on the outside," says I. "He looks like he'd pinched a minister's
Monday suit somewhere. But it ain't the way he looks that's worryin' me;
it's what he's liable to do any minute to put the show on the blink."

"That's so, Torchy," says he. "Can't we get him out of the way somehow?"

"It's a tough proposition," says I; "but if you'll put on a sub for me
at the door