ort of
confused improvisation.

His data was no longer morose.

"Holdin' on cud do annything," he assured the barman.

"It isn't a bad wurrld, at all, if wan looks at it through grane
glasses.

"Shure, I'm in a bit av a hole at prisint, but not too dape to crawl out
of."

Then after a pause, to enable himself to "shake hands," so to speak,
with the suddenly developed genial aspect of affairs, he informed the
barman, with the philosophy of his potations, that "A laugh will always
mend a kick, providin' th' kick ain't too hard."

This pleased the barman, who responded in his characteristic fashion,
and Dennis, in acknowledgment, substituted the price of breakfast as
fitting return of civilities.

However, this was the climax.

Dennis could advance no farther. His bibulous friend, with apprehensive
disapproval, offered a few diplomatic suggestions involving the
retirement of the young man to his room, which the latter accepted with
an unbalanced gravity that administered its reproof even through the
callous epidermis of the barman.

Arrived at his room, Dennis, influenced by his accelerated circulation,
was convinced that the apartment was oppressively warm, and divested
himself of his coat and waistcoat.

In doing so he detached the dickey from his neck, and as it fell to the
floor the curious tale contained in its predecessors appealed
unmistakably to his enkindled imagination.

Oblivious of the campaign arranged for the day, heedless of the inner
protest, Dennis, with all the abandon of his condition, hastened to
remove the oil paper from the rear of the dickey, and began a race with
his moral lapse in a feverish perusal of the following.

CHAPTER IV

When Raikes returned to his room he seemed to himself like a sunset
mocked by the adjacent horizon, with tantalizing suggestions for which
it was reflectively responsible.

With the proper inspiration, there is a degree of poetry in the worst of
us.

The knowledge that he would be compelled to restore the gem to its owner
in the morning bestirred another comparison.

This time his idealism was not so elevated.

He likened it to a divorce from a vampire which had already digested his
moral qualities.

The sapphire exhausted him.

The only parallel irritation was one which Raikes inflicted upon himself
now and then.

This was on the occasions when he established himself in some
unobtrusive portion of the bank and watched with greedy inter