up and stood on the step below her
and she bent over him as if she wanted to lift him up. And it was less
than five minutes since Sam Hollis left her.

"Come around by way of the side door of grandma's house, Maurice, and
through her yard and into my house, and nobody will see you. And then
no old grannies will talk and we'll have a little supper all to
ourselves. Hurry now." She was talking as if she owned him. I did not
hear what Maurice said, nor I did not want to hear; but making for the
corner, he went by me like a shot, and "O Lord!" I heard him groan as
he passed me, not recognizing me--not even seeing me, I believe.

I did not know what to make of it and let him go by. But after he had
turned the corner and Minnie Arkell had shut her door--and she watched
him till he disappeared around the corner--I ran after him. In my
hurrying after him I heard the voice of Clancy coming down the street.
He was singing. I had heard from Nell of Clancy being at the ball,
where he was as usual in charge of the commissary. I could imagine how
they must have drove things around the punch-bowl with Clancy to the
wheel. He was coming along now and for blocks anybody that was not
dead could hear him. And getting nearer I had to admire him. He was
magnificent, even with a list to port. Not often, I imagined, did men
of Clancy's lace and figure get into evening dress. The height and
breadth of him!--and spreading enough linen on his shirt front to make
a sail for quite a little vessel. He was almost on top of me, with

"Oh, hove flat down on th' Western Banks
Was the Bounding Billow, Captain Hanks--
And----"

when I hailed him.

"Hulloh, if it ain't Joe Buckley. Why, Joey, but aren't you out pretty
late to-night? But maybe you're only standing watch for somebody?
Three o'clock, Joey, and no excuse for you, for you didn't have to
stand by the supplies--" But then I rushed him around the corner, and
down the street to the side door of Mrs. Arkell's and just in time to
head off Maurice, bound as I knew for Minnie Arkell's house across the
yard. I didn't have a chance to say a word to Tommie, but he didn't
have to be told. If I'd been explaining for a week he couldn't have
picked things up any better than he did.

"Maurice--hi, Maurice! Oh, 'tis you, isn't it. Well, Maurice-boy, all
the night I waited for a chance to have a word with you, but ne'er a
chance could I get. Early in the evening--when I was fit for ladies'
c