slinking
about their work like men ashamed of it. The sunlight peered dimly
through the curtained windows; the air was heavy with the lees of liquor
and the dead smoke of tobacco.

The two men sat facing each other. A glass of whisky was cupped in
Anson's closed hand. His clothes, unbrushed and unpressed, flapped about
his huge figure. His throat bagged with flabby dewlaps. His head was
bullet-shaped, his eyes fierce, his mouth loose-lipped and brutal. He
made a strange contrast to his companion. Druce was lithe, well made and
gifted with a sort of Satanic handsomeness. He was immaculately dressed.

"It's fixed, I tell you," Druce was saying.

"Fixed, be damned," rumbled Anson. "I know Boland. Nothing's fixed with
him until the lease is drawn and delivered."

"I say the thing's fixed," insisted Druce. "All we've got to do now is
carry out our part of the agreement and I've completed all of the
arrangements. We've got a week."

"I know," said Anson, unconvinced. "It's fixed and you've completed the
arrangements. I'm from Missouri."

"Boland wants this girl, Patience Welcome, brought in here next Saturday
night," said Druce. "He has arranged that his pious pup of a son, Harry,
shall be here the same evening. We are to manage it so that he will get
the impression that the girl has been amusing herself with him, that she
has been kidding him along and playing this tenderloin game on the side.
He's not to be allowed to talk to her. He'll see her--that will be
enough. She's to come here to help her mother earn a little cash. I sent
a fellow to hire the old woman to start here on Saturday night as a scrub
woman. She's agreed to keep that part of it quiet. Then I'll drag the
other one in--mine, do you understand. We'll make young Boland think the
whole damned Welcome family belongs to us. We can see to it that the
Patience girl gets some glad rags and some dope when she gets here. She's
seen me in Millville, so it's up to you, Anson, to sign her up at good
pay as a singer--" He stopped significantly.

"Too complicated," was Anson's rejoinder. "Sounds good on paper, but it
won't work, I tell you, it won't work. I don't like the way things have
been going lately." He drained the whisky glass. "This vice commission
and this crazy yap of a Mary Randall--"

"O, hell!" interrupted Druce in disgust. "You've got it, too, have you?
Mary Randall! My God, you talk like an old woman!"

"I tell you--" Anson began.

"You can't t