et! Hell, that's Brooklyn, and you claimed New York,"
says Ben, shaking the hat loose again.

"Greater New York," says the lad pathetically, and pulls his hat firmly
down over his ears.

Ben looked at the imposter with horror in his eyes. "Brooklyn!" he
muttered--"the city of the unburied dead! So that was the secret of your
strange behaviour? And me warming you in my bosom, you viper!"

But the crook couldn't hear him again, haying lapsed into his trance and
become entirely rigid and foolish. In the cold light of day his face now
looked like a plaster cast of itself. Ben turned to us with a hunted
look. "Blow after blow has fallen upon me to-night," he says tearfully,
"but this is the most cruel of all. I can't believe in anything after
this. I can't even believe them street-car rails are the originals.
Probably they were put down last week."

"Then let's get out of this quick," I says to him. "We been exposing
ourselves to arrest here long enough for a bit of false sentiment on
your part."

"I gladly go," says Ben, "but wait one second." He stealthily approaches
the Greater New Yorker and shivers him to wakefulness with another
hearty wallop on the back. "Listen carefully," says Ben as the lad
struggles out of the dense fog. "Do you see those workmen tearing up
that car-track?"

"Yes, I see it," says the lad distinctly. "I've often seen it."

"Very well. Listen to me and remember your life may hang on it. You go
over there and stand right by them till they get that track up and don't
you let any one stop them. Do you hear? Stand right there and make them
work, and if a policeman or any one tries to make trouble you soak him.
Remember! I'm leaving those men in your charge. I shall hold you
personally responsible for them."

The lad doesn't say a word but begins to walk in a brittle manner toward
the labourers. We saw him stop and point a threatening finger at them,
then instantly freeze once more. It was our last look at him. We got
everybody on a north-bound car with some trouble. Lon Price had gone to
sleep standing up and Jeff Tuttle, who was now looking like the society
burglar after a tough night's work at his trade, was getting turbulent
and thirsty. He didn't want to ride on a common street car. "I want a
tashicrab," he says, "and I want to go back to that Louis Chateau room
and dance the tangle." But we persuaded him and got safe up to a
restaurant on Sixth Avenue where breakfast was had by all without