look on Jim Hosley's face that night would have won the
pardon of a cannibal chief; it would have halted a Spanish inquisition,
stayed the commune of Paris and wrung unadulterated, anonymous pity from
the heart of an Irish landlord or a monopolist. A minute before I was
for hanging Jim Hosley (provided my connection with the case was not
revealed). Now, when I saw him and felt his hand once more in the grasp
of comradeship, I was with him heart and soul, and scoundrel though he
might be, a lineal descendant of old Bluebeard, perhaps, I stood ready
to sharpen and pass his knives to him and assist in any humble way a
willing and obliging servant could to make the business a success.

"Ben, I have searched for you for three hours. Thank Heaven, I am near
you at last! I lay in the next room at the hospital, but Gabrielle would
not let me see you," were his first words.

"In the hospital? With me in the next room? And Gabrielle--"

"Yes, Ben; we can talk all night, and then we shan't understand. How did
those letters written to the girl--"

He flung himself into a chair. He was exhausted and ten years older.
Pain in his leg prompted him to ask me to remove his shoe. I helped him
into my dressing-gown, gave him a pipe, plenty of pillows in an easy
chair and fondled him like a prodigal son. I was never so glad to see a
mortal since I peeped into the world. The fatted calf's substitute, a
dish of pork and beans, was put to heat in a pan of water on the gas
stove. The coffee-pot was "rastled" under the tap to remove the early
morning aroma which clung to the grounds always left to await my
attention the following morning. The egg poacher, the toaster, the slab
of bacon, and a mince pie, bought an hour before to produce sleep, were
brought out and displayed to make a scene like the old days when joy was
unconfined, when women were mere theories and courtship a pastime.

Jim in his despair warmed up and actually smiled. That heart-ache which
had overwhelmed him and made life so unbearable when he entered, gave
way, and hope, with the smell of bacon and fried eggs, mounted higher.
Grief, powerful dynamo though it be, may be tickled by a smaller one--a
square meal often brings its victim into line.

"Jim, we'll take the night to talk this thing over. It will take all
that time for me to tell you that I am so mighty glad to see you again,
and besides, it will take time to eat as well, for you look to me as if
food was the one su