panion with a strange yearning. It
might have been to take him by the throat; it might have been some
gentler motive, but his hand stole at last toward an inner coat pocket.

He said: "I know times are a bit lean now and then in your game, Bantry.
I wonder if you could use a bit of the long green? Just now I'm very
flush, and--"

He produced a thickly stuffed bill-fold, but Bantry smiled and touched
Woodbury's arm.

"Couldn't possibly, you know."

He considered a moment and then, with a smile: "It's a bit awkward for
both of us, isn't it? Suppose I keep your name under my hat and you give
me a few little inside tips now and then on polo news, and that sort of
thing?"

"Here's my hand on it. You've no idea what a load you take off my mind."

"We've circled about and are pretty close to the Garden again. Could you
let me out here?"

The car rolled to an easy stop and the reporter stepped out.

"I'll forget everything you wish, Mr. Woodbury."

"It's an honour to have met you, sir. Use me whenever you can.
Goodnight."

To the chauffeur he said: "Home, and make it fast."

They passed up Lexington with Maclaren "making it fast," so that the big
car was continually nosing its way around the machines in front with
much honking of the horn. At Fifty-Ninth Street they turned across to
the bridge and hummed softly across the black, shimmering waters of the
East River; by the time they reached Brooklyn a fine mist was beginning
to fall, blurring the wind-shield, and Maclaren slowed up perceptibly,
so that before they passed the heart of the city, Woodbury leaned
forward and said: "What's the matter, Maclaren?"

"Wet streets--no chains--this wind-shield is pretty hard to see
through."

"Stop her, then. I'll take the wheel the rest of the way. Want to travel
a bit to-night."

The chauffeur, as if this exchange were something he had been expecting,
made no demur, and a moment later, with Woodbury at the wheel, the motor
began to hum again in a gradually increasing crescendo. Two or three
motor-police glanced after the car as it snapped about corners with an
ominous skid and straightened out, whining, on the new street; but in
each case, having made a comfortable number of arrests that day, they
had little heart for the pursuit of the grey monster through that chill
mist.

Past Brooklyn, with a country road before them, Woodbury cut out the
muffler and the car sprang forward with a roar. A gust of increasing
wind w