ater on
in the evening. Sargeant joined him over his coffee and cigarette, but
declined to go with him to the theatre.

"Another game on to-night?" asked Condy.

"I suppose so," admitted the other.

"I guess I'll join you to-night," said Condy. "I've had the blue devils
since morning, and I've got to have something to drive them off."

"Don't let me urge you, you know," returned Sargeant.

"Oh, that's all right!" Condy assured him. "My time's about up,
anyways."

An hour later, just as he, Sargeant, and the other men of their "set"
were in the act of going upstairs to the card-rooms, a hall-boy gave
Condy a note, at that moment brought by a messenger, who was waiting
for an answer. It was from Blix. She wrote:

"Don't you want to come up and play cards with me to-night? We haven't
had a game in over a week?"

"How did she know?" thought Condy to himself--"how could she tell?"
Aloud, he said:

"I can't join you fellows, after all. 'Despatch from the managing
editor.' Some special detail or other."

For the first time since the previous evening Condy felt his spirits
rise as he set off toward the Washington Street hill. But though he
and Blix spent as merry an evening as they remembered in a long time,
his nameless, formless irritation returned upon him almost as soon as
he had bidden her good-night. It stayed with him all through the week,
and told upon his work. As a result, three of his articles were thrown
out by the editor.

"We can't run such rot as that in the paper," the chief had said.
"Can't you give us a story?"

"Oh, I've got a kind of a yarn you can run if you like," answered
Condy, his week's depression at its very lowest.

"A Victory Over Death" was published in the following Sunday's
supplement of the "Times," with illustrations by one of the staff
artists. It attracted not the least attention.

Just before he went to bed the Sunday evening of its appearance, Condy
read it over again for the last time.

"It's a rotten failure," he muttered gloomily as he cast the paper from
him. "Simple drivel. I wonder what Blix will think of it. I wonder
if I amount to a hill of beans. I wonder WHAT she wants to go East
for, anyway."

Chapter IX

The old-fashioned Union Street cable car, with its low, comfortable
outside seats, put Blix and Condy down just inside the Presidio
Government Reservation. Condy asked a direction of a sentry nursing
his Krag-Jorgensen at the termi