tax me with how she got there. I'd quit trying to keep cases
on her. But there she was waiting for us. As we got in line she glued
her eyes on the Boss and tossed him a lip-thriller with a real
Juliet-Roxane movement. And the Boss blew one back. Well, that suited
me, all right, so far as it went. But as we made for a turn in the road
the Boss reached out for the lines and pulled in our pair of skates.
Then he turns and looks back. So did I. She was still there, for a fact,
and it kind of looked as if she was holding her arms out toward him.

"By God, Shorty," says the Boss, breathing quick and talking through his
teeth, "I'm going back."

"Sure," says I, "to New York," and I had a half-Nelson on him before he
knew it was coming. We went four miles that way, too, the horses
finding the road, before I dared let him up. I looked for trouble then.
But it had been all over in a breath, just an open-and-shut piece of
battiness, same as fellers have when they jump a bridge. He was meek
enough the rest of the way, but sore. I couldn't pry a word out of him
anyway. Not until we got settled down in the smoking-room of a
Mediterranean steamer headed for Sandy Hook did he shake his trance.

"Shorty," says he, givin' me the friendly palm, "I owe you a lot more
than apologies."

"Well, I ain't no collection agency," says I. "Sponge it off."

"I was looking for the Elixir," says he, "and--and I found it."

"I can get all the 'Lixir I want," says I, "between the East River and
the North, and I don't need no cork-puller, either."

That's me. I've been back a week now, and even the screech of the L
trains sounds good. Everything looks good, and smells good, and feels
good. You don't have to pinch yourself to find out whether or not you're
alive. You know all the time that you're in New York, where there's
somethin' doin' twenty hours in the day.

It'ly! Oh, yes, I want to go there again--when I get to be a mummy.

CHAPTER III

Say, you can't always tell, can you? Here a couple of weeks back I
thought I'd wiped It'ly off the map. We'd settled down in this little
old burg, me and the Boss and Mister 'Ankins, nice and comfortable, and
not too far from Broadway. And we was havin' our four o'clock teas with
the mitts, as reg'lar as if there was money comin' to us for each round,
when this here Sherlock proposition turns up.

Mister 'Ankins, he was the first to spot it, and he comes trottin' in
where we was prancin' around