the roof almost before she knew it.

The _interne_ was there in fresh white ducks, smoking. At first they
talked of skin grafting and the powder that had not done what was
expected of it. After a time, when the autumn twilight had fallen on
them like a benediction, she took her courage in her hands and told
of her visit to the house on the Avenue, and about the parrot and
the plot.

The _interne_ stood very still. He was young and intolerant. Some
day he would mellow and accept life as it is--not as he would have
it. When she had finished he seemed to have drawn himself into a
shell, turtle fashion, and huddled himself together. The shell was
pride and old prejudice and the intolerance of youth. "She had to
have an alibi!" said the Probationer.

"Oh, of course," very stiffly.

"I cannot see why you disapprove. Something had to be done."

"I cannot see that you had to do it; but it's your own affair, of
course. Only----"

"Please go on."

"Well, one cannot touch dirt without being soiled."

"I think you will be sorry you said that," said the Probationer
stiffly. And she went down the staircase, leaving him alone. He was
sorry, of course; but he would not say so even to himself. He
thought of the Probationer, with her eager eyes and shining hair and
her warm little heart, ringing the bell of the Avenue house and
making her plea--and his blood ran hot in him. It was just then
that the parrot spoke on the other side of the chimney.

"Gimme a bottle of beer!" it said. "Nice cold beer! Cold beer!"

The _interne_ walked furiously toward the sound. Must this girl of
the streets and her wretched associates follow him everywhere? She
had ruined his life already. He felt that it was ruined. Probably
the Probationer would never speak to him again.

The Dummy was sitting on a bench, with the parrot on his knee
looking rather queer from being smuggled about under a coat and fed
the curious things that the Dummy thought a bird should eat. It had
a piece of apple pie in its claw now.

"Cold beer!" said the parrot, and eyed the _interne_ crookedly.

The Dummy had not heard him, of course. He sat looking over the
parapet toward the river, with one knotted hand smoothing the bird's
ruffled plumage and such a look of wretchedness in his eyes that it
hurt to see it. God's fools, who cannot reason, can feel. Some
instinct of despair had seized him for its own--some conception,
perhaps, of what life would never mean to him. B