I've got this on him. You will really have to let me tell Travers."

Miss Cuyler looked puzzled and said "Certainly," though she failed to
see why Mr. Travers should want his head broken, and then she thanked
Van Bibber again and nodded to the officer and went in-doors.

The policeman, who had listened to the closing speeches, looked at Van
Bibber with dawning admiration.

"Now then, officer," said Van Bibber, briskly, "which of the saloons
around here break the law by keeping open after one? You probably
know, and if you don't I'll have to take your number." And peace being
in this way restored, the two disappeared together into the darkness
to break the law.

Van Bibber told Travers about it the next morning, and Travers forgot
he was not to mention it, and told the next man he met. By one o'clock
the story had grown in his telling, and Van Bibber's reputation had
grown with it.

Travers found three men breakfasting together at the club, and drew up
a chair. "Have you heard the joke Van Bibber's got on me?" he asked,
sadly, by way of introduction.

Wainwright was sitting at the next table with his back to them. He had
just left the customs officers, and his wonder at the dirtiness of the
streets and height of the buildings had given way to the pleasure of
being home again, and before the knowledge that "old friends are
best." He had meant to return again immediately as soon as he had
arranged for the production of his play in New York; his second play
was to be brought out in London in a month. But the heartiness of his
friends' greetings, and the anxiety of men to be recognized who had
been mere acquaintances hitherto, had touched and amused him. He was
too young to be cynical over it, and he was glad, on the whole, that
he had come back.

His mind was wide awake, and shifting from one pleasant thought to
another, when he heard Travers's voice behind him raised impressively.
"And they both went at Van hammer and tongs," he heard Travers say,
"one in front and the other behind, kicking and striking all over the
shop. And," continued Travers, interrupting himself suddenly with a
shrill and anxious tone of interrogation, "where was I while this was
going on? That's the pathetic part of it--where was I?" His voice rose
to almost a shriek of disappointment. "_I_ was sitting in a red-silk
box listening to a red-silk opera with a lot of _girls_--that's what
_I_ was doing. I wasn't in it; I wasn't. I--"

"Well, ne