Chouteau
in t'ree shakes av a dead lamb's tail."

The little cabman was better than his word, but on the short drive to
the hotel he found time to work out a small problem, not entirely to his
satisfaction, but to at least a partial conclusion.

"'Tis the divil's own self he is, and there's nothing left av him but
thim eyes and that scar on his forrud, and his manner of spakin'. But
thim I'd swear to if I'd live to be as old as Father M'Guinness--rest
his sowl."

XIV

PHILISTIA

All things considered, it was the Griswold of the college-graduate
days--the days of the slender patrimony which had capitalized the
literary beginning--who presented himself at the counter of the Hotel
Chouteau at half-past nine o'clock on the evening of the _Belle Julie's_
arrival at St. Louis, wrote his name in the guest-book, and permitted an
attentive bell-boy to relieve him of his two suit-cases.

The clerk, a rotund little man with a promising bald spot and a
permanent smile, had appraised his latest guest in the moment of
book-signing, and the result was a small triumph for the Olive Street
furnishing house. Next to the genuinely tailor-made stands the quality
of verisimilitude; and the keynote of the clerk's greeting was
respectful affability.

"Glad to have you with us, Mr. Griswold. Would you like a room, or a
suite?"

Griswold was sufficiently human to roll the long-submerged courtesy
prefix as a sweet morsel under his tongue. With a day to spare he might
have clinched the clerk's respect by taking a suite; the more luxurious,
the better. But St. Louis, with at least two men in it who would sweep
the corners in their search for him, was only a place to put behind
him. So he said: "Neither; if I have time to get my supper and catch a
train. Have you a railway guide?"

"There is one in the writing-room. But possibly I can tell you what you
wish to know. Which way are you going?"

Without stopping to think of the critical happenings which had
intervened since the forming of the impulsive resolution fixing his
destination, Griswold named the chosen field for the hazard of fresh
fortunes, and its direction.

"North; to a town in Minnesota called Wahaska. Do you happen to know the
place?"

"I know it very well, indeed; southern Minnesota is my old
stamping-ground. Are you acquainted in Wahaska?--but I know you are not,
or you wouldn't pronounce it 'Wayhaska'."

"You are quite right; I know next to nothing about t