as quick as I
jumped awhile ago whin I awoke to the fact that me trousers was afire."

Noxon actually smiled at the recollection.

"You call yourself a scamp. Why, you are an angel compared with me--so is
everybody! Kit Woodford and Graff Miller are a thousand times better than
I."

CHAPTER XXVII

AN UNWELCOME CALLER

With rare wisdom Mike now gave an abrupt turn to the conversation.
Lowering his voice to a confidential tone, he asked:

"Does Mrs. McCaffry know anything of this?"

"If so, she hasn't given me any reason to suspect it," replied Noxon,
brightening up and seizing the straw held out to him. "I told her I had
met with an accident, and neither she nor her husband asked a question.
Their big hearts had no room for any feeling other than of pity for the
one who is not deserving of a particle of it."

"She told me her husband works in Beartown. He wint there airly this
morning; he'll hear of the throuble at the post office and the beefeater,
as ye call him, will let everybody know he winged the robber as he was
running off. Did ye spake any caution to the man before he lift this
morning?"

"By good luck I thought of that. I asked him to make no mention of my
being at his house and he promised me he would not."

"Arrah, now, but that's good, as me dad says whin he tips up the jug. All
that ye have to do is to sit here and let Mrs. McCaffry nurse that game
leg till ye're able to thravel."

"Ah, if that was _all_! But I have a father and mother whose hearts I am
breaking. I have two younger brothers and a sweet sister. What of
_them_!" demanded Noxon almost fiercely.

"Ye have read the blissed story of the Prodigal Son, haven't ye?"

"I am a thousandfold worse than that poor devil, who was simply foolish."

"Do yer dad and mither know where ye are?"

"No; the one decent thing I did when I turned rascal was to change my
name. Orestes Noxon is a _nom de plume_."

"I don't know the fellow, but that shows, me bye, ye ain't such a big
fool as ye look. I'm beginning to have hope for ye."

A strange impulse came to Mike. It was to sing in a low, inexpressibly
sweet voice a single stanza of a familiar hymn, just loud enough for the
one auditor to hear. But he restrained himself, fearing the effect upon
him. The "fountains of the deep" were already broken up, and the result
might be regrettable. At that moment a heavy tread sounded on the little
steps outside, the door was pushed inward, and the