ewly injected with the virus of
the Great White Way, clapped him on the back. "Bully for you, old son,"
he said. "I'm in the mood to paint the little old town. I left my car
round the corner in charge of a down-at-heel night-bird. Come on. Let's
go and see if he's pinched it."

It was one of those Italian semi-racing cars with a body which gave it
the naked appearance of a muscular Russian dancer dressed in a skin and
a pair of bangles. The night-bird, one of the large army of city
gypsies who hang on to life by the skin of their teeth, was sitting on
the running board with his arms folded across his shirtless chest,
smoking a salvaged cigar, dreaming, probably, of hot sausages and
coffee. He afforded a striking illustration of the under dog cringing
contentedly at the knees of wealth.

"Good man," said Oldershaw, paying him generously. "Slip aboard,
Martin, and I'll introduce you to one of the choicest dives I know."

But the introduction was not to be effected that night, at any rate.
Driving the car as though it were a monoplane in a clear sky, with an
open throttle that awoke the echoes, Oldershaw charged into Fifth
Avenue and caught the bonnet of a taxicab that was going uptown. There
was a crash, a scream, a rending of metal. And when Martin picked
himself up with a bruised elbow and a curious sensation of having
stopped a punching bag with his face, he saw Oldershaw bending over the
crumpled body of the taxi driver and heard a girl with red lips and a
small white hat calling on Heaven for retribution.

"Some men oughtn't to be trusted with machinery," said Oldershaw with
his inevitable grin. "If I can yank my little pet out of this
buckled-up lump of stuff, I'll drive that poor chap to the nearest
hospital. Look after the angel, Martin, and give my name and address to
the policeman. As this is my third attempt to kill myself this month,
things ought to settle down into humdrum monotony for a bit now."

Martin went over to the girl. "I hope you're not hurt?" he asked.

"Hurt?" she cried out hysterically, feeling herself all over. "Of
course I'm hurt. I'm crippled for life. My backbone's broken; I shall
have water on both knees, a glass eye and a mouth full of store teeth.
But you don't care, you Hun. You like it."

And on she went, at the top of her voice, in an endless flow of farce
and tragedy, crying and laughing, examining herself with eager hands,
disbelieving more and more in the fact that she was sti