before he drowns, persisted. Footsore and half-frozen, I tramped the
dozen squares to the great hotel in the business district. The night
clerk sized me up for precisely what I was, listening with only half an
ear to my stammering question. But he deigned to answer it,
nevertheless. Yes; Mr. Jewett was the gentleman who had Number 706,
but he was not in. His key was still in the box.

There were writing-desks in the lobby, a number of them, and I went to
the first that offered. Some guest had left a few sheets of the hotel
paper and an envelope. Without a written word to go with it, I slipped
the unbroken bribe into the envelope, sealed the flap hurriedly and
went back to the clerk.

"Put this in Mr. Jewett's key-box, if you please," I requested; and
when I had seen the thing done, and had verified the number of the box
with my own eyes, I headed once more for the inhospitable streets.

It was on the icy sidewalk, directly in front of the revolving doors of
the big hotel, that my miracle was wrought. While I hesitated, not
knowing which way to turn for shelter for the remainder of the night, a
cab drove up and a man, muffled to the ears in a fur-lined overcoat,
got out. He was apparently an arrival from one of the night trains;
while he was slamming the cab door a bell-hop from the Marlborough
skated across the sidewalk, snatched a couple of grips from the front
seat of the cab and disappeared with them.

Humped and shivering, I was almost at the traveler's elbow when he
turned and felt in his pockets for the money to pay the cab driver. I
was so busy envying him the possession of that warm, fur-lined coat
that I didn't pay much attention to what he was doing, but it was
evident that he had forgotten in which pocket he carried his change,
since he was feeling first in one and then in another.

Suddenly my heart skipped a beat and then fell to hammering a fierce
tattoo as a gust of the highwayman's madness swept over me. The man
had taken out a huge pocket roll of bank-notes and was running the
bills over to see if there were one small enough to serve the
cab-paying purpose. Obviously there was not, and with a grunt of
impatience he searched again, this time unearthing a handful of silver.
Dropping the proper coin into the cabman's outstretched hand, he turned
and disappeared through the revolving doors, and at the same instant
the cabby whipped up his horse and drove away. Then I saw it lying
almost a