ggar. "Straw hats will be worn next winter."

The eyes of both men sparkled with a curious exhilaration. The
plain-clothes man drew a deep and sudden breath, and appeared to shiver.
So a soldier may breathe at the command to charge; so a thoroughbred
shivers when the barrier is about to fall.

"There will be nice pickings," said the beggar; "there will be enough
geese to feed ten thousand."

The plain-clothes man dropped a penny into the tin cup. "By the way,"
he asked professionally, "where can I lay hands on Red Monday?"

The beggar shook his strong head curtly. "Hands off," he said.

"When did _he_ join the church?"

"Last night, with tears and confession. A strong man Red, now that he
has seen the light."

The plain-clothes man laughed and passed on, still loitering.

The "Danse Macabre" had come to a timely end, if that which is without
tempo may be said to have any relation with time, and the trio of
Chopin's "Funeral March" was already in uneven progress. The legless man
sat on the bare pavement, his back against the handsome area railing of
No. 1 Fifth Avenue, and steadily revolved the mechanism of the organ
with his hairy, powerful hand.

Passers were now more frequent. Some looked at him and continued to look
after they had passed, others turned their eyes steadfastly away. Some
pitied him because he was a cripple; others, upon suddenly discovering
that he had no legs, were shocked with a sudden indecent hatred of him.
A lassie of the Salvation Army invited him to rise up and follow Christ;
he retorted by urging her to lie down and take a rest. Then, as if
premonition had laid strong hands upon him and twisted him about, he
turned, and looked upward into the fresh, rosy face of Barbara Ferris.

Their eyes met. Always the child of impulse, and careless of appearance
and opinion, she felt her thoughts, none too cheerful or optimistic that
morning during her long walk down the avenue, drawn by the expression
upon the legless man's face to a sudden focus of triumph and solution.
She struck the palm of one small workman-like hand with the back of the
other, and exclaimed: "By George!"

The face that was upturned to hers was no longer the insolent, heavy
face of success which we have attempted to describe, but one in which
the sudden leaping into evidence of a soul dismissed facts of color,
contour, and line as matters of no importance. If there was wickedness
in his glance, there were also awe and wonde