t then?" said Bojo, prying open his trunk.

"Oh, it's quite simple. Fred discovered the combination. All you have to
remember is that no matter what you ask for Sweeney always gets a taxi,
Patsy brings in the breakfast, Houlahan starts for the tailor, and
O'Rourke produces the scrubwoman. Just remember that and you'll have no
trouble. But for the Lord's sake don't get em mixed up." He broke off.
"What's the matter? You look serious."

"I'm wondering how I'll feel this time to-morrow," said Bojo with his
arms full of shirts and neckties. "I've got a pleasant little interview
with the Governor ahead." He filled a drawer of the bureau and returned
into the sitting-room, and as Granning, with his usual discretion,
ventured no question he added, looking out at the court where three
blazing windows of the restaurant were flinging pools of light across
the dark green plots: "He'll want me to chuck all this,--shoot up to a
hole in the mud; bury myself in a mill town for four or five years.
Pleasant prospect."

It did seem a bleak prospect, indeed, standing there in the commodious
bay window, seeing the flooded sky, hearing all the distant mingled
songs of the city. From the near-by wall the orchestra of the theater
sent the gay beats of a musical comedy march feebly out through open
windows, while from the adjoining wall of the Times Annex, beyond the
brilliant busy windows, the linotype machines were clicking out the news
of the world that came throbbing in. The theater, the press, that world
of imagination and hourly sensation, the half-opened restaurant with
glimpses of gay tables and the beginnings of the nightly cabaret, the
blazing court itself filled with ardent young men at the happy period
of the first great ventures, all were brought so close to his own eager
curiosity that he turned back rebelliously:

"By heavens, I won't do it, whatever happens! I won't be starved out for
the sake of more dollars. Well, would you in my place--now?"

He took a pair of shoes and flung them scudding across the floor into
the room and then stood looking down at the noncommittal figure of his
friend.

"Granning, you don't approve of us, do you? Stop looking like a sphinx.
Answer or I'll dump the tray over you. You don't approve, do you?
Besides, I watched your face to-night when Fred was spouting all that
ridiculous stuff."

"He meant it."

"Do you think so?" He sat down thoughtfully. "I wonder."

"What worried you?" said Gra