er, pasty white. His hands clawed
ineffectively at the bar.

"Sold you my _outfit_?" he quavered, with an awful break in his voice.
"_Sold it_, Mike? Why, how do you figure that?"

"Is that your name?" barked Mike in answer. He thrust the paper out at
arm's length and shook it under Cassidy's nose with astonishing
ferocity. "Just you say one little short word, friend. Is that your
name, or isn't it?"

Cassidy wavered. It was unquestionably his name; whether _he_ had
written it there or not was yet to be decided.

If psychological moments come to the Cassidys, this one felt such a
thing near him. _Now_ was the time for him to leap in the air and
pound wrathfully upon the bar. _Now_ was the instant for him to rush
into the open and call vociferously on his friends. _Now_ was the
fraction of a second left for him to reach out his hard knuckles and
pin Mike to the wall and tear the paper from his hands. But instead,
and with a queer feeling of aloofness from it all, much as if he were
the helpless spectator of activities proceeding in some fantastic
dream, he felt the moment thrilling up to him; felt it stand
obediently waiting; felt himself slowly gathering in response to its
mute query; then felt himself drop helplessly back into a stupid coma
of whisky fumes and sodden inertia.

When he came to, Mike had put the paper back in his till and was
assiduously cleaning up his bar. It was all over.

Cassidy shifted irresolutely from one foot to the other. A sickening
feeling of hollowness within him was crying aloud to be appeased by
either food or drink, and his shaking body begged for a place to rest
itself into tranquillity; but still for a while he stood there,
fighting off these yearnings while he gathered his far-strayed wits.
Now and then he weakly attempted to catch the other's eye, but as Mike
studiously refused to be caught, Cassidy could only blink owlishly and
fumble again with the tangled ends of the skein. Finally, abandoning
it all as useless, he turned toward the door, yet arrested his dazed
shambling to ask one last question.

"How's that?" Mike responded vaguely over his shoulder. "Still harping
on that, are you?"

"Did I really sell you them blacks?" ventured Cassidy quaveringly,
controlling his voice only with a tremendous effort. "Reelly,
truly--did I sell 'em?"

Mike rolled a cigar over in his mouth, with a complacent lick of his
tongue. "That's what," he replied laconically.

Cassidy gulped