most amiable expression. "So far as any
immediate decision is concerned."

"Less ged oud," said Mr. Mintz to his colleagues. They got out. Mintz
was last to go. He came over to Hal.

"I lyg your story," he said. "I lyg to see a feller stand up for his
bizniz against the vorlt. I'm a Jew. I hope you lose--but--goot luck!"

He held out his hand. Hal took it. "Mr. Mintz, I'm glad to know you,"
said he earnestly.

Nothing now remained for the committee to do but to expend their
allotted fund to the best purpose. Their notion of the proper method was
typically commercial. They thought to buy off an epidemic. Many times
this has been tried. Never yet has it succeeded. It embodies one of the
most dangerous of popular hygienic fallacies, that the dollar can
overtake and swallow the germ.

CHAPTER XXIII

CREEPING FLAME

For sheer uncertainty an epidemic is comparable only to fire on
shipboard. The wisest expert can but guess at the time or place of its
catastrophic explosion. It may thrust forth here and there a tongue of
threat, only to subside and smoulder again. Sometimes it "sulks" for so
protracted a period that danger seems to be over. Then, without warning,
comes swift disaster with panic in its train.

But one man in all Worthington knew, early, the true nature of the
disease which quietly crept among the Rookeries licking up human life,
and he was well trained in keeping his own counsel. In this crisis,
whatever Dr. Surtaine may have lacked in scrupulosity of method, his
intentions were good. He honestly believed that he was doing well by his
city in veiling the nature of the contagion. Scientifically he knew
little about it save in the most general way; and his happy optimism
bolstered the belief that if only secrecy could be preserved and the
fair repute of the city for sound health saved, the trouble would
presently die out of itself. He looked to his committee to manage the
secrecy. Unfortunately this particular form of trouble hasn't the habit
of dying out quietly and of itself. It has to be fought and slain in the
open.

As Dr. Surtaine's committee hadn't the faintest notion of how to handle
their five-thousand-dollar appropriation, they naturally consulted the
Honorable Tip O'Farrell, agent for and boss of the Rookeries. And as the
Honorable Tip had a very definite and even eager notion of what might be
done with that amount of ready cash, he naturally volunteered to handle
the fund to the be