him. He looked at his clothes, took out his handkerchief, and
wiped his face before he entered the barroom. It contained the usual
number of loungers, who stared at him as he entered. One of them looked
at him so fixedly and with such a strange expression that the master
stopped and looked again, and then saw it was only his own reflection in
a large mirror. This made the master think that perhaps he was a little
excited, and so he took up a copy of the RED MOUNTAIN BANNER from one of
the tables, and tried to recover his composure by reading the column of
advertisements.

He then walked through the barroom, through the restaurant, and into the
billiard room. The child was not there. In the latter apartment a person
was standing by one of the tables with a broad-brimmed glazed hat on his
head. The master recognized him as the agent of the dramatic company;
he had taken a dislike to him at their first meeting, from the peculiar
fashion of wearing his beard and hair. Satisfied that the object of his
search was not there, he turned to the man with a glazed hat. He had
noticed the master, but tried that common trick of unconsciousness in
which vulgar natures always fail. Balancing a billiard cue in his hand,
he pretended to play with a ball in the center of the table. The master
stood opposite to him until he raised his eyes; when their glances met,
the master walked up to him.

He had intended to avoid a scene or quarrel, but when he began to speak,
something kept rising in his throat and retarded his utterance, and his
own voice frightened him, it sounded so distant, low, and resonant. "I
understand," he began, "that Melissa Smith, an orphan, and one of my
scholars, has talked with you about adopting your profession. Is that
so?"

The man with the glazed hat leaned over the table and made an imaginary
shot that sent the ball spinning round the cushions. Then, walking round
the table, he recovered the ball and placed it upon the spot. This duty
discharged, getting ready for another shot, he said:

"S'pose she has?"

The master choked up again, but, squeezing the cushion of the table in
his gloved hand, he went on:

"If you are a gentleman, I have only to tell you that I am her guardian,
and responsible for her career. You know as well as I do the kind of
life you offer her. As you may learn of anyone here, I have already
brought her out of an existence worse than death--out of the streets and
the contamination of vi