. Not
a very good-looker, your friend, Nance. But--farming, I suppose,
Mr.--Tom?--plays the deuce with one's looks. And another thing it
does: it makes a man forget sometimes just how to behave in town. I'll
be charmed, Mr. Tom, to oblige a friend of Miss Olden's; but I must
insist that he does not talk like a--farmer."

He was quite close to Tom when he finished, and Tom was glaring up at
him. And, Mag, I didn't know which one I was most afraid for. Don't
you look at me that way, Mag Monahan, and don't you dare to guess
anything!

"If you think," growled Tom, "that I'm going to let you get off with
the girl, you're mighty--"

"Now, I've told you not to say that. The reason I'll do the thing
she's going to ask of me--if it's what I think it is--is because this
girl's a plucky little creature with a soul big enough to lift her out
of the muck you probably helped her into. It's because she's got
brains, talent, and a heart. It's because--well, it's because I feel
like it, and she deserves a friend."

"You don't know what she is." It was a snarl from Tom. "You don't--"

"Oh, yes, I do; you cur! I know what she was, too. And I even know
what she will be; but that doesn't concern you."

"The hell it don't!"

Obermuller turned his back on him. I was dumb and still. Tom Dorgan
had struck me after all.

"What is it you want me to do, Nance?" Obermuller asked.

"Get him away on a steamer--quick," I murmured--I couldn't look him in
the face--"without asking why, or what his name is."

He turned to Tom. "Well?"

"I won't go--not without her."

"Because you're so fond of her, eh? So fond, your first thought on
quitting the--country was to come here to get her in trouble. If you've
been traced--"

"Ah! You wouldn't like that, eh?" sneered Tom. "Would you?"

"Well, I've had my share of it. And she ain't. Still--I ... Just what
would it be worth to you to have me out of the way?"

"Oh, Tom--Tom--" I cried.

But Obermuller got in front of me.

"It would be worth exactly one dollar and seventy-five cents. I think
it will amount to about that for cab-hire. I guess the cars aren't any
too safe for you, or it might be less. It may amount to something more
before I get you shipped before the mast on the first foreign-bound
boat. But what's more important," he added, bringing his fist down
with a mighty thump on the table, "you have just ten seconds to make up
your mind. At the end of that time I