out
of the game?"

"I--oh, I lost my job," said Vallance.

"It's undiluted Hades, this city," went on the other. "One day you're
eating from china; the next you are eating in China--a chop-suey
joint. I've had more than my share of hard luck. For five years
I've been little better than a panhandler. I was raised up to live
expensively and do nothing. Say--I don't mind telling you--I've
got to talk to somebody, you see, because I'm afraid--I'm afraid.
My name's Ide. You wouldn't think that old Paulding, one of the
millionaires on Riverside Drive, was my uncle, would you? Well, he
is. I lived in his house once, and had all the money I wanted. Say,
haven't you got the price of a couple of drinks about you--er--what's
your name--"

"Dawson," said Vallance. "No; I'm sorry to say that I'm all in,
financially."

"I've been living for a week in a coal cellar on Division Street,"
went on Ide, "with a crook they called 'Blinky' Morris. I didn't have
anywhere else to go. While I was out to-day a chap with some papers
in his pocket was there, asking for me. I didn't know but what he was
a fly cop, so I didn't go around again till after dark. There was
a letter there he had left for me. Say--Dawson, it was from a big
downtown lawyer, Mead. I've seen his sign on Ann Street. Paulding
wants me to play the prodigal nephew--wants me to come back and be
his heir again and blow in his money. I'm to call at the lawyer's
office at ten to-morrow and step into my old shoes again--heir to
three million, Dawson, and $10,000 a year pocket money. And--I'm
afraid--I'm afraid."

The vagrant leaped to his feet and raised both trembling arms above
his head. He caught his breath and moaned hysterically.

Vallance seized his arm and forced him back to the bench.

"Be quiet!" he commanded, with something like disgust in his tones.
"One would think you had lost a fortune, instead of being about to
acquire one. Of what are you afraid?"

Ide cowered and shivered on the bench. He clung to Vallance's
sleeve, and even in the dim glow of the Broadway lights the latest
disinherited one could see drops on the other's brow wrung out by
some strange terror.

"Why, I'm afraid something will happen to me before morning. I don't
know what--something to keep me from coming into that money. I'm
afraid a tree will fall on me--I'm afraid a cab will run over me, or
a stone drop on me from a housetop, or something. I never was afraid
before. I've sat in this