the officer, pausing and lowering
his lifted club. "Are ye soused, man? Or is it your way of sayin'
good avenin' to your frinds?"

Cleggett smiled. He had first known McCarthy years before when he was
a reporter, and more recently had renewed the acquaintance in his walks
across the bridge.

"I didn't know you were there, McCarthy," he said.

"No?" said the officer. "And who were ye jabbin' at, thin?"

"I was just limbering up my wrist," said Cleggett.

"'Tis a quare thing to do," persisted McCarthy, albeit good-humoredly.
"And now I mind I've seen ye do the same before, Mr. Cleggett. You're
foriver grinnin' to yersilf an' makin' thim funny jabs at nothin' as ye
cross the bridge. Are ye subjict to stiffness in the wrists, Mr.
Cleggett?"

"Perhaps it's writer's cramp," said Cleggett, indulging the pleasant
humor that was on him. He was really thinking that, with $500,000 of
his own, he had written his last headline, edited his last piece of
copy, sharpened his last pencil.

"Writer's cramp? Is it so?" mused McCarthy. "Newspapers is great
things, ain't they now? And so's writin' and readin'. Gr-r-reat
things! But if ye'll take my advise, Mr. Cleggett, ye'll kape that
writin' and readin' within bounds. Too much av thim rots the brains."

"I'll remember that," said Cleggett. And he playfully jabbed the
officer again as he turned away.

"G'wan wid ye!" protested McCarthy. "Ye're soused! The scent av it's
in the air. If I'm compilled to run yez in f'r assaultin' an officer
ye'll get the cramps out av thim wrists breakin' stone, maybe.
Cr-r-r-amps, indade!"

Cramps, indeed! Oh, Clement J. Cleggett, you liar! And yet, who does
not lie in order to veil his inmost, sweetest thoughts from an
unsympathetic world?

That was not an ordinary jab with an ordinary cane which Cleggett had
directed towards the toolhouse door. It was a thrust en carte; the
thrust of a brilliant swordsman; the thrust of a master; a terrible
thrust. It was meant for as pernicious a bravo as ever infested the
pages of romantic fiction. Cleggett had been slaying these gentry a
dozen times a day for years. He had pinked four of them on the way
across the bridge, before McCarthy, with his stomach and his realism,
stopped the lunge intended for the fifth. But this is not exactly the
sort of thing one finds it easy to confide to a policeman, be he ever
so friendly a policeman.

Cleggett--Old Clegg, the copyreader--Clegg, the c