inence of infamy. "I bet they did something with you!"
he said.

The girl waved it aside with a gesture of repugnance, as if some things
were too loathsome for telling. He perceived that she had, like so many
raconteurs, allowed her cigar to go out.

"Here's a match," he said, and courteously cupped his hands about its
flame. The pennygrab seemed to have become incombustible, and the match
died futilely. "That's my last match," he said.

"Maybe I better keep this till I get to the great city."

But he would not have it so.

"You can light it from mine," and he brought the ends of the two penny
grabs together.

"First thing you know you'll be dizzy," warned the moralist, Merle.

"Ho, I will not!"

She laughed in scorn, and valiantly puffed on the noisome thing. Thus
stood Ben Blunt and the Wilbur twin, their faces together about this
business of lighting up; and thus stood the absorbed Merle, the moral
perfectionist, earnestly hoping his words of warning would presently
become justified. It did not seem right to him that others should smoke
when it made him sick.

At last smoke issued from the contorted face of Ben Blunt, and some of
this being swallowed, strangulation ensued. When the paroxysm of
coughing was past the hero revealed running eyes, but the tears were of
triumph, as was the stoic smile that accompanied them.

And then, while the reformer Merle awaited the calamity he had
predicted, while Wilbur surrendered anew to infatuation for this
intrepid soul that would dare any crime, while Ben Blunt rocked on
spread feet, the glowing pennygrab cocked at a rakish angle, while, in
short, vice was crowned and virtue abased, there rang upon the still air
the other name of Ben Blunt in cold and fateful emphasis. The group
stiffened with terror. Again the name sounded along those quiet aisles
of the happy dead. The voice was one of authority--cool, relentless,
awful.

"Patricia Whipple!" said the voice.

The twins knew it for the voice of Miss Juliana Whipple, who had
remotely been a figure of terror to them even when voiceless. Juliana
was thirty, tall, straight, with capable shoulders, above which rose her
capable face on a straight neck. She wore a gray skirt and a waist of
white, with a severely starched collar about her throat, and a black bow
tie. Her straw hat was narrow of brim, banded with a black ribbon. Her
steely eyes flashed from beneath the hat. Once before the twins had
encountered her and h