admired him more than--good God, he's a
_friend_ of mine!"

The man smiled faintly.

"Oh, Jimmy has fine friends," he said almost complacently, "he's
always gone with the best. He's very particular."

Lindsay's forehead was a network of pain and doubt.

"But Jimmy has plenty of money," he insisted, "he always had
the--his things--oh, it's idiotic! You're crazy, that's all."

"Oh, yes, he always had plenty," the man said simply.

In the pause that followed they heard the soft chink of silver
through the wall; Caroline was evidently busy.

Lindsay twisted his face into an ugly smile.

"And I thought he was the squarest of the lot," he said slowly,
"I've said so often. We all did. Pretty easy, weren't we?"

"He is!" The man half rose, but fell back with a grunt of pain.

"Oh, _damn_ this heart!" he complained fretfully. "I don't know
what's the matter with me. That fortune woman, she knew. Last week
it was I went. 'You're making a plan to end up your business,' she
says to me, 'and so you will, mister, but not the way you think.
There's some trouble coming to you and a child's mixed up in it.
Look out for strange dogs,' she says, they all tell me that--'and
run no risks this month. I don't just like the looks of your hand,'
she says. And when I saw that child, it was all up with me, I
thought. I didn't think the machine would ever get started again.
And then that infernal dog...."

"We were speaking of--of--did you say that Jim--" Lindsay's voice
sounded strange, even to himself.

The man blinked a moment.

"What?" he said vaguely, "what about Jim? Oh--he don't know anything
about it, of course. I sh'd think you'd know enough for that. That's
what I'm telling you, if you'd keep still a minute."

He stared thoughtfully at the floor and Lindsay waited. Caroline ran
up the front stairs, and he had counted each step before the man
went on.

"So I sent the money regular every quarter," he muttered, as if
continuing some tale, "and I'd go to see him sometimes all dressed
up, and I tried to talk like he did. He thought I was traveling and
didn't want to be bothered. But I couldn't see him much--was I going
to drag him down, just as I'd got him started right? Not much. 'Go
and visit your friends, o' course,' I used to tell him, 'and you can
write to me.' The best schools I picked out, the very best. And they
came high. But I was good for it."

He shifted in his chair and rubbed his eyes.

"I had a hunch when