ll in the only
world that mattered to her.

Having succeeded in backing his dented car out of the debris, Oldershaw
leaped out. His face had been cut by the glass of the broken
windshield. Blood was trickling down his fat, good-natured face. His
hat was smashed and looked like that of the tramp cyclist of the
vaudeville stage. "All my fault, old man," he said in his best
irrepressible manner, as a policeman bore down upon him. "Help me to
hike our prostrate friend into my car, and I'll whip him off to a
hospital. He's only had the stuffing knocked out of him. It's no worse
than that.... That's fine. Big chap, isn't he--weighs a ton. I'll get
off right away, and my friend there will give you all you want to know.
So long." And off he went, one of his front wheels wabbling foolishly.

The policeman was not Irish or German-American. He was therefore
neither loud nor browbeating. He was dry, quiet and accurate, and it
seemed to Martin that either he didn't enjoy being dressed in a little
brief authority or was a misanthrope, eager to return to his noiseless
and solitary tramp under the April stars. Martin gave him Oldershaw's
full name and address and his own; and the girl, still shrill and
shattered, gave hers, after protesting that all automobiles ought to be
put in a gigantic pile and scrapped, that all harum-scarum young men
should be clapped in bed at ten o'clock and that all policemen should
be locked up in their stations to play dominoes. "If it'll do you any
good to know it," she said finally, "it's Susie Capper, commonly called
'Tootles.' And I tell you what it is. If you come snooping round my
place to get me before the beak, I'll scream and kick, so help me Bob,
I will." There was an English cockney twang in her voice.

The policeman left her in the middle of a paean, with the wounded taxi
and Martin, and the light of a lamp-post throwing up the unnatural red
of her lips on a pretty little white face. He had probably gone to call
up the taxicab company.

Then she turned to Martin. "The decent thing for you to do, Mr. Nut, is
to see me home," she said. "I'm blowed if I'm going to face any more
attempts at murder alone. My word, what a life!"

"Come along, then," said Martin, and he put his hand under her elbow.
That amazing avenue, which had the appearance of a great, deep cut down
the middle of an uneven mountain, was almost deserted. From the long
line of street lamps intermittent patches of light were refl