into the summer dusk
down in the busy city for young Hildegarde whom he loved; the days
before that when he sat smoking far into the night in the gloomy old
Button house on Monroe Street with his grandfather-all these had faded
like unsubstantial dreams from his mind as though they had never been.
He did not remember.

He did not remember clearly whether the milk was warm or cool at his
last feeding or how the days passed--there was only his crib and
Nana's familiar presence. And then he remembered nothing. When he was
hungry he cried--that was all. Through the noons and nights he
breathed and over him there were soft mumblings and murmurings that he
scarcely heard, and faintly differentiated smells, and light and
darkness.

Then it was all dark, and his white crib and the dim faces that moved
above him, and the warm sweet aroma of the milk, faded out altogether
from his mind.

TARQUIN OF CHEAPSIDE

Running footsteps--light, soft-soled shoes made of curious leathery
cloth brought from Ceylon setting the pace; thick flowing boots, two
pairs, dark blue and gilt, reflecting the moonlight in blunt gleams
and splotches, following a stone's throw behind.

Soft Shoes flashes through a patch of moonlight, then darts into a
blind labyrinth of alleys and becomes only an intermittent scuffle
ahead somewhere in the enfolding darkness. In go Flowing Boots, with
short swords lurching and long plumes awry, finding a breath to curse
God and the black lanes of London.

Soft Shoes leaps a shadowy gate and crackles through a hedgerow.
Flowing Boots leap the gate and crackles through the hedgerow--and
there, startlingly, is the watch ahead--two murderous pikemen of
ferocious cast of mouth acquired in Holland and the Spanish marches.

But there is no cry for help. The pursued does not fall panting at the
feet of the watch, clutching a purse; neither do the pursuers raise a
hue and cry. Soft Shoes goes by in a rush of swift air. The watch
curse and hesitate, glance after the fugitive, and then spread their
pikes grimly across the road and wait for Flowing Boots. Darkness,
like a great hand, cuts off the even flow the moon.

The hand moves off the moon whose pale caress finds again the eaves
and lintels, and the watch, wounded and tumbled in the dust. Up the
street one of Flowing Boots leaves a black trail of spots until he
binds himself, clumsily as he runs, with fine lace caught from his
throat.

It was no affair for t