always ready with
a joke or a helping hand, was sober and clean of speech without
appearing to notice any defect in others save on very rare occasions.
He had been known to fight and beat a bigger man than himself to save a
woman from a thrashing, and when Mrs. Bindle had poured down reproaches
upon his head on account of his battered appearance, he had silently
gone to bed and simulated sleep, although every inch of his body ached.

It was about nine o'clock in the evening that the foreman had seen in
Bindle the means of his obtaining some sleep and arriving at his
bean-feast refreshed. At eleven o'clock he left the hotel, after
having given to his deputy the most elaborate instructions. His
parting words filled Bindle with unholy joy.

"If anythin' goes wrong I'll lose my job, and don't you forget it."
Bindle promised himself that he would not.

"I'll not forget it, ole son," he murmured, with the light of joy in
his eyes. "I'll not forget it. It's your beano to-morrow, but it's
goin' to be mine to-night. Last week yer sacked poor ole Teddy Snell,
an' 'im wi' seven kids," and Bindle smiled as St. George might have
smiled on seeing the dragon.

For some time after the foreman's departure, Bindle cogitated as to how
to take full advantage of the situation which had thus providentially
presented itself. Plan after plan was put aside as unworthy of the
occasion.

There are great possibilities for "little jokes" in hotels. Bindle
remembered an early effort of his when a page-boy. The employment had
been short-lived, for on his first day the corridors were being
recarpeted. The sight of a large box of exceedingly long carpet nails
left by the workmen at night had given him an idea. He had crept from
his room and carefully lifted the carpet for the whole length of the
corridor, inserting beneath it scores of carpet nails points upwards;
later he had sounded the fire alarm and watched with glee the visitors
rush from their rooms only to dance about in anguish on the points of
the nails, uttering imprecations and blasphemies.

This effort had cost him his job and a thrashing from his father, but
it had been worth it.

It was, however, merely the crude attempt of a child.

It was one of the chambermaids, a rosy-cheeked girl recently up from
the country, who gave Bindle the idea he had been seeking. As he was
unscrewing the numbers with all the elaborate caution of a burglar, he
felt a hand upon his shoulde