e and welcome."

"Do you know the man?"

"Oh, yes--he lives next door to me, and I'll have to face his wife and
lie to her, and then face my own; but I can't lie to her. I'll tell her
the truth and get roasted for letting Downs get away. I'll go to sleep
by the sound of her sobs and wake to find her crying in her
coffee--that's the kind of a Christmas I'll have. When he's drunk he's
disgusting, of course; but when he's sober he's sorry. And Charley Downs
is honest."

"Honest!" shouted the Superintendent.

"Yes, I know he took your coat, but that wasn't Charley Downs; it was
the tarantula-juice he'd been imbibing in Omaha. Left alone he's as
honest as I am; and here's a run that would trip up a missionary. For
instance, leaving Loneville the other night, a man came running
alongside the car and threw in a bundle of bills that looked like a bale
of hay. Not a scrap of paper or pencil-mark, just a wad o' winnings with
a wang around the middle. 'A Christmas gift for my wife,' he yelled.
'How much?' I shouted. 'Oh, I dunno--whole lot, but it's tied good'; and
then a cloud of steam from the cylinder-cocks came between us, and I
haven't seen him since.

"For the past six months Downs has tried hard to be decent, and has
succeeded some; and this was to be the supreme test. For six months his
wife has been saving up to send him to Omaha to buy things for
Christmas. If he could do that, she argued, and come back sober, he'd be
stronger to begin the New Year. Of course they looked to me to keep him
on the rail, and I did. I shadowed him from shop to shop until he
bought all the toys and some little trinkets for his wife. Always I
found he had paid and ordered the things to be sent to the express
office marked to me.

"Well, finally I followed him to a clothing store, where, according to a
promise made to his wife, he bought an overcoat, the first he had felt
on his back for years. This he put on, of course, for it is cold in
Omaha to-day; and I left him and slipped away to grab a few hours'
sleep.

"When I woke I went out to look for him, but could not find him, though
I tried hard, and came to my car without supper. I found his coat,
however, hung up in a saloon, and redeemed it, hoping still to find
Charley before train time. I watched for him until we were signalled
out, and then went back and looked through the train, but failed to find
him.

"Of course I am sorry for Charley," the messenger went on after a pause,