peasant-bred Sohmer in a
series of compounded loans.

It was not long until all the employees recognized in the alert
"August Meyer" the mainstay of the decaying fortunes of the half
bankrupt Sohmer.

Every evening, without fail, the sharp commands of Fritz Braun
were now conveyed to the responsible underlings! Sohmer, staggering
homeward with his greedy Aspasias from the Waterloo conflicts of
the race-track, sullenly assented at last to the chattel mortgages
and bills of sale which placed the "Valkyrie" and the whole building
under August Meyer's name. Then, taking the downward road, Sohmer
tried to drown himself in drink, and succeeded.

When Sohmer was found dead in his bed, the millionaire brewer who
backed the "Valkyrie," and the owner of the ground on which the
building erected by Sohmer stood, gladly took on the active August
Meyer in loco the departed Sohmer.

The solidity of the new tenant's finances was vouched for by the
agents of the old estate from whom Fritz Braun had already leased
192 Layte Street, in his Brooklyn name of "August Meyer."

Strange to say, the keen-eyed officials of the German Consulate-General
had issued to the acute pharmacist a regular passport, upon the
military and family papers of Braun's poor soldier drudge at the
Magdal Pharmacy.

It had been an exchange acceptable to both parties: an ocean
of drink, a weekly pittance of food and raiment, for the valuable
attested documents which gave the disguised Viennese fugitive the
right to boldly claim the Kaiser's official protection as "August
Meyer." It was the very citadel of Braun's rising fortunes!

And so, with Sohmer soundly sleeping, whether well or illy, "after
life's fitful fever," the foxy Viennese rejoiced in his assigned
ground-lease, Sohmer's business, and the gold mine of the hidden
pool-room, gambling den and disguised harem of No. 192 Layte Street.

Fritz Braun had allowed a few months to pass before he secretly
opened the party walls between the two buildings to allow his
choicest patrons to enter No. 192 Layte Street all unobserved; but,
for reasons of his own, he had made one or two private alterations
in the two buildings which enabled him to enter the different floors
by his own judiciously veiled private entrances.

The cellar of No. 192 Layte Street had been piped for cold-storage
of the wines and beer of the "Valkyrie" under Fritz Braun's own
supervision when he gave up the basement of the "Valkyrie" to