r,
to reappear an hour or two later stepping like three-year-olds,
serenely, virtuously joyous at the tale of the scales which indicated
a five-pound loss. And the Saturday and Sunday week-end out of town
which presently followed, with the astoundingly heavy dinners that
accompanied it, brought them back in a week, sadder even than before.

Monday morning was always a very busy morning in Hogarty's--but never
until along about noon. And because he knew how infallible were the
habits of his patrons, Hogarty did not so much as lift his eyes to the
practically empty gymnasium floor when a clock at the far side of the
room tinkled the hour of eleven. The two boys who were busily
scrubbing with waxing-mops the floor that already glistened like the
unruffled surface of some crystal pool were quite as unconcerned at
the lack of activity as was their employer. They merely paused long
enough to draw one shirt sleeve across the sweat-beaded foreheads--it
was a very early spring in Manhattan and the first heat was hard to
bear--and went at their task harder than ever.

Hogarty had one other reason that morning which accounted for his
absolute serenity. From Third Avenue to the waterfront any one who
was well-informed at all--and there was no one who had not at least
heard whispers of his fame--knew that the thin-faced, hard-eyed,
steel-sinewed ex-lightweight who dressed in almost funeral black and
white and talked in the hushed, measured syllables of a professor
of English, loved one thing even more than he loved to see his own
man put over the winning punch in--say the tenth. It was common
gossip that a set of ivory dominoes came first before all else.

No man had ever ventured to interrupt twice the breathless interest
with which Hogarty was accustomed to play his game. It did not promise
to be safe--a second interruption. And Hogarty was playing dominoes
this particular Monday morning, at a little round, green-topped table
against the wall opposite the door, peering stealthily at the
upturning face of each piece of a newly dealt hand, when the clock
struck off that hour. But if Hogarty was oblivious to everything but
the game, his opponent was far from being in that much to be envied
state. Bobby Ogden yawned--yawned from sheer ennui--although he tried
to hide that indication of his boredom behind a perfectly manicured
hand, while he scowled at the dial.

Ogden was one of the Monday morning regulars--one of the crowd which