arried the morning paper like a club in his
hand.

"What sort of a newspaper lie would you call this?" he demanded
irritably. "It makes me crazy; everybody with a mental image of me
leaning over the parapet of the roof, waving a board, with the rest of
you sitting on my legs to keep me from overbalancing!"

"Maybe there's a picture!" Anne said hopefully.

Jim looked.

"No picture," he announced. "I wonder why they restrained themselves!
I wish Bella would keep off the roof," he added, with fresh access
of rage, "or wear a mask or veil. One of those fellows is going to
recognize her, and there'll be the deuce to pay."

"When you are all through discussing this thing, perhaps you will tell
me what is the matter," I remarked from my couch. "Why did you lean over
the parapet, Jim, and who sat on your legs?"

"I didn't; nobody did," he retorted, waving the newspaper. "It's a
lie out of the whole cloth, that's what it is. I asked you girls to
be decent to those reporters; it never pays to offend a newspaper man.
Listen to this, Kit."

He read the article rapidly, furiously, pausing every now and then to
make an exasperated comment.

ATTEMPT AT ESCAPE FRUSTRATED MEMBERS OF THE FOUR HUNDRED DEFY THE LAW

"Special Officer McCloud, on duty at the quarantined house of James
Wilson, artist and clubman, on Ninety-fifth Street, reported this
morning a daring attempt at escape, made at 3 A.M. It is in this house
that some eight or nine members of the smart set were imprisoned
during the course of a dinner party, when the Japanese butler developed
smallpox. The party shut in the house includes Miss Katherine McNair,
the daughter of Theodore McNair, of the Inter-Ocean system; Mr. and Mrs.
Dallas Brown; the Misses Mercer; Maxwell Reed, the well-known clubman
and whip; and a Mr. Thomas Harbison, guest of the Dallas Browns and a
South American.

"Officer McCloud's story, told to a Chronicle reporter this morning, is
as follows: The occupants of the house had been uneasy all day. From the
air of subdued bustle, and from a careful inspection of the roof,
made by the entire party during the afternoon, his suspicion had been
aroused. Nothing unusual, however, occurred during the early part of the
night. From eight o'clock to twelve, McCloud was relieved from duty, his
place being taken by Michael Shane, of the Eighty-sixth Street Station.

"When McCloud came on duty at midnight, Shane reported that about eleven
o'clock the search