od guilty! Blood guilty!'

"The men went away stricken into silence and awe. The new prisoner
attempted neither denial nor plea. When they were gone I would have
helped Ben carry his brother in, but he waved me away fiercely, 'You
he'ped murder my brothah, you dat was _his_ frien', go 'way, go 'way!
I'll tek him home myse'f' I could only respect his wish, and he and his
comrade took up the dead man and between them bore him up the street on
which the sun was now shining full.

"I saw the few men who had not skulked indoors uncover as they passed,
and I--I--stood there between the two murdered ones, while all the while
something in my ears kept crying, 'Blood guilty! Blood guilty!'"

The doctor's head dropped into his hands and he sat for some time in
silence, which was broken by neither of the men, then he rose, saying,
"Gentlemen, that was my last lynching."

_Thirteen_

SCHWALLIGER'S PHILANTHROPY

There is no adequate reason why Schwalliger's name should appear upon
the pages of history. He was decidedly not in good society. He was not
even respectable as respectability goes. But certain men liked him and
certain women loved him. He is dead. That is all that will be said of
the most of us after a while. He was but a weak member of the community,
but those who loved him did not condemn him, and they shut their eyes to
his shortcomings because they were a part of him. Without his follies he
would not have been himself.

Schwalliger was only a race-horse "tout." Ah, don't hold up your hands,
good friends, for circumstances of birth make most of us what we are,
whether poets or pickpockets, and if this thick-set, bow-legged black
man became a "tout" it was because he had to. Old horsemen will tell you
that Schwalliger--no one knew where he got the name--was rolling and
tumbling about the track at Bennings when he was still so short in
stature that he got the name of the "tadpole." Naturally, he came to
know much of horses, grew up with them, in fact, and having no wealthy
father or mother to indulge him in his taste or help him use his
knowledge, he did the next best thing and used his special education for
himself in the humble capacity of voluntary adviser to aspiring
gamesters. He prospered and blossomed out into good clothes of a highly
ornate pattern. Naturally, like a man in any other business, he had his
ups and downs, and there were times when the good clothes disappeared
and he was temporarily for