en, still smiling though he were pleased
and relieved to be the victim of a theft. "But let him go."

"Let him go! Oh no," said Cobb. "I'll hand him over to the police and
we'll get the watch out of him."

"The watch is nothing," said Savinien. "Let him go before there
arrives an agent, or it will be too late."

He came a pace nearer as he spoke, and nodded at Cobb confidentially,
as though there were reasons for his request which he could not
explain before the on-lookers.

"But----" began Cobb.

"Let him go," urged Savinien. "It is necessary. Afterwards, I will
explain to you." He put his shapeless soft hand on Cobb's arm which
held the thief.

"Let him go."

"You are serious?" demanded Cobb. "He's to go, is he? With your
watch? All right!"

He let go the scraggy neck which he held in the fork of his hand.
They were, by this time, ringed about by spectators, but the thief
was not less expert with crowds than with pockets. He was no sooner
loose than he seemed to merge into the folk about, to pass through
and beyond them like a vapor. Heads turned, feet shuffled. Savinien
came about ponderously like a battleship in narrow waters, but the
thief was gone.

"Tiens!" ejaculated someone, and there was laughter.

Savinien's arm insinuated itself through Cobb's elbow.

"Let us go where we can sit down," said the poet. "You are puzzled--
not? But I will explain you all that."

"It wasn't a bet, was it?" asked Cobb.

The poet laughed gently. "That possibility alarms you?" he suggested.
"But it was not a bet; it is more vital than that. I will tell you
when we sit down."

At Savinien's slow pace they came at last to small marble-topped
tables under a striped awning. Savinien, with loud gasps, let himself
down upon an exiguous chair, rested both fat hands upon the head of
his stick, and smiled ruefully across the table at Cobb. A tinge of
blue had come out around his lips.

"Even to walk," he gasped, "that discomposes me, as you see. It is
terrible."

"Take it easy," counseled Cobb.

An aproned waiter served them, Cobb with beer, Savinien with a
treacly liqueur in a glass the size of a thimble. When he was a
little restored from his exertions, he laid his arm on the table,
with the little glass held between his thumb and forefinger, and
remained in this attitude.

"Go ahead," said Cobb. "Tell me why you are distributing watches to
the deserving poor in this manner."

"It is not benevolence," replied Sa