ers
hungrily for a second; then turned back on Norcross, carefully mixing a
Scotch highball.

As Norcross finished with the siphon, his eyes wandered downward again.

"Ever been about much down there?" he asked suddenly. Bulger crossed
the room and looked down over his shoulder.

"Where?" he asked, "The Street or--"

"Trinity Churchyard."

"Once I sang my little love lays there in the noon hour," answered
Bulger. "I was a gallant clerk and hers the fairest fingers that ever
caressed a typewriter--" The intent attitude of Norcross, the fact that
he neither turned nor smiled, checked Bulger. With the instinct of the
courtier, he perceived that the wind lay in another tack. He racked the
unused half of his mind for appropriate sentiments.

"Bully old graveyard," he brought out; "lot's of good people buried
there."

"Know any of the graves?"

"Only Alexander Hamilton's. Everyone knows that."

"That one--see--that marble shaft--not one of the old ones."

"If you're curious to know," answered Bulger easily, "I'll find out on
my way down to-morrow. I suppose if you were to go and look, and the
reporters were to see you meditating among the tombs, we'd have a scare
head to-morrow and a drop of ten points in the market." Bulger's shift
to a slight levity was premeditated; he was taking guard against
overplaying his part.

"No, never mind," said Norcross, "it just recalls something." He paused
the fraction of a second, and his eye grew dull. "Wonder if
they're--anywhere--those people down under the tombstones?"

"I suppose we all believe in immortality."

"Seeing and hearing is believing. I believe what I see. Born that way."
Norcross was speaking with a slight, agitated jerk in his voice. He
rose now, and paced the floor, throwing out his feet in quick thrusts.
"I'm getting along, Bulger, and I'd like to know." More pacing. Coming
to the end of his route, he peered shrewdly into the face of the
younger man. "Have you read the Psychical Society's report on Mrs.
Fife?"

Bulger's mind said, "Good God no!" His lips said, "Only some newspaper
stuff about them. Seemed rather remarkable if true. Something in that
stuff, I suppose."

"I've read them," resumed Norcross. "Got the full set. We ought to
inform ourselves on such things, Bulger. Especially when we get older.
That gravestone now. There's one like it--that I know about." Norcross,
with another jerky motion, which seemed to propel him against his will,
cross