ts
were going on. And every now and then a very beautiful and imposing
court-officer angel would come outside the door and call another
case.

While I was considering my own worldly sins and wondering whether
there would be any use of my trying to prove an alibi by claiming
that I lived in New Jersey, the bailiff angel came to the door and
sang out:

"Case No. 99,852,743."

Up stepped a plain-clothes man--there were lots of 'em there,
dressed exactly like preachers and hustling us spirits around just
like cops do on earth--and by the arm he dragged--whom, do you
think? Why, Liz!

The court officer took her inside and closed the door. I went up to
Mr. Fly-Cop and inquired about the case.

"A very sad one," says he, laying the points of his manicured
fingers together. "An utterly incorrigible girl. I am Special
Terrestrial Officer the Reverend Jones. The case was assigned to
me. The girl murdered her fiance and committed suicide. She had no
defense. My report to the court relates the facts in detail, all of
which are substantiated by reliable witnesses. The wages of sin is
death. Praise the Lord."

The court officer opened the door and stepped out.

"Poor girl," said Special Terrestrial Officer the Reverend Jones,
with a tear in his eye. "It was one of the saddest cases that I ever
met with. Of course she was"--

"Discharged," said the court officer. "Come here, Jonesy. First
thing you know you'll be switched to the pot-pie squad. How
would you like to be on the missionary force in the South Sea
Islands--hey? Now, you quit making these false arrests, or you'll
be transferred--see? The guilty party you've not to look for in
this case is a red-haired, unshaven, untidy man, sitting by the
window reading, in his stocking feet, while his children play in
the streets. Get a move on you."

Now, wasn't that a silly dream?

ACCORDING TO THEIR LIGHTS

Somewhere in the depths of the big city, where the unquiet dregs are
forever being shaken together, young Murray and the Captain had met
and become friends. Both were at the lowest ebb possible to their
fortunes; both had fallen from at least an intermediate Heaven of
respectability and importance, and both were typical products of the
monstrous and peculiar social curriculum of their overweening and
bumptious civic alma mater.

The captain was no longer a captain. One of those sudden moral
cataclysms that sometimes sweep the city had hurled him from a high