. They weren't paying any more attention to him than they
were to the inanimate sticks of furniture in the room.

"Well, what did yez send fer me fer?" he broke out again, hurling the
words at Travers Gladwin's back.

"I thought you might like a drink," replied that young man, turning
slowly and smiling upon the enraged bluecoat.

"I never touch it," shot back Phelan, "an' that's no answer to me
question."

Gladwin stared at Phelan steadily a moment, his smile vanishing. As he
measured the officer's height and build an idea came to him. His face
lighted as he exclaimed:

"I've got a great idea! Officer, I want you to do me a little favor.
How would you like to make five hundred dollars?"

If he had said four hundred dollars, or even four hundred and fifty,
the effect would not have been half so great upon Michael Phelan. The
mention of an even five hundred dollars, though, was the open sesame
to the very depths of his emotions. Five hundred dollars represented
the talisman that would lead him safe through Purgatory into the land
of sweet enchantments. The fires of his wrath were instantly cooled
and he said feebly:

"Are yez tryin' to bribe me?"

"Not at all, sergeant," said the young man gravely.

"I ain't no sergeant," Phelan retorted.

"All right, lieutenant," laughed Gladwin, his good humor increasing as
his sudden idea took shape in his mind.

"Don't call me lieutenant," said Phelan, with a return of temper.

"Well, it's this way, captain."

"Nix on the promotion stuff," shot back Phelan, the consciousness
returning that he was being kidded. "I'm patrolman and me name is
Michael Phelan, and I'm onto me job--mind that!"

"No offense, officer," Gladwin hurried on. "I'm sure you're onto your
job. No one could look at you and doubt that--but I'll give you five
hundred dollars if you'll lend me your uniform for awhile."

"Fi--fi--uni--say, what kind of a game are youse up to?"

Two big events in Phelan's life had blazed their films upon his memory
in a blinding flash. First there was Rose, and then there was that
nightmare of a Coroner's case, when he had fled hatless and coatless
down the stairs of a reeking east side tenement, pursued by the yells
of a shrieking "corpse."

"It's no game--it's a joke," replied Gladwin.

Whitney Barnes, who had been listening eagerly and had sensed
Gladwin's inspiration, chimed in:

"Yes, officer; it's a joke."

"Yez are offering me five hundred dollars for a j