that they had picked up a man on the North River docks
in an epileptic fit and the only name they could find on him was my New
York address. They thought he was going to die, he was cold and stiff
for hours, and they had undertaken to reach me in order to identify him.
But he did not die. He was up this morning and she would bring him in."

Barclay paused again.

"She brought in Charlie Tavor!... And I nearly screamed when I saw the
man. He was dressed in one of those cheap hand-me-downs that the Germans
used to sell in the tropics for a pound, three and six, his eyes looked
as dead as glass and he was as white as plaster. How the man managed to
keep on his feet I don't know.

"I didn't stop for any explanation. I got Tavor into a taxi, and over to
my apartment."

Barclay moved in his position before the fire.

"But on the way over a thing happened that some little god played in
for a joke. There was a block just where Thirty-third crosses into Fifth
Avenue, and our taxi pulled up by a limousine."

Barclay suddenly thrust out his big pock-marked face.

"The thing couldn't have happened by itself. Some burlesque angel put
it over when the Old Man wasn't looking. Spread out on the tapestry
cushions of that limousine was Nute Hardman!

"There they were side by side. Not six feet apart; Old Nute in a
sable-lined coat and Charlie in his hand-me-down, at a pound, three and
six."

The muscles in Barclay's big jaw tightened.

"Maybe there is a joker that runs the world, and maybe the devil runs
it. Anyhow it's a queer system. Here was Charlie Tavor, straight as a
string, down and out. And here was Nute Hardman, so crooked that a fly
couldn't light on him and stand level, with everything that money could
buy.

"I cast it up while the taxi stood there beside the car. Nute was consul
in a South American port that you couldn't spell and couldn't find on
the map. He didn't have two dollars to rub together, until Charlie Tavor
turned up. There he sat, out of the world, forgotten, growing moss and
getting ready to rot; and God Almighty, or the devil, or whatever it is,
steered Charlie Tavor in to him with the bar silver.

"He picked Charlie to the bone and cut for the States. And this damned
crooked luck went right along with him. He was in a big apartment, now,
up on Fifth Avenue and four-flushing toward every point of the
compass. His last stunt was 'patron of science.' He'd gotten into the
Geographical Society, and h