ill wind swept across the city and penetrated to the marrow. From
the summit of the hill, three blocks above me, my car was sliding down,
but I clung to the curb to postpone until the last moment a plunge into
the flowing street.

Since I was five-and-twenty, in tip-top health, and Irish by descent, I
whistled while the windswept drops splashed the shine from my shoes.
Rain or sun, 'twas a good little old world, though, faith! I could have
wished it a less humdrum one.

For every morning I waited at that same time and place for the same car
to take me to my desk in the offices of Kester & Wilcox, and every day I
did the same sort of routine grubbing in preparation of cases for more
experienced lawyers to handle.

Sometimes it flashed across me that I was a misfit. Nature had cast me
for the part of a soldier of fortune, and instead I was giving my
services to help a big corporation escape the payment of damages for
accidents caused by its cars. I had turned my back on the romance of
life. Well, it was the penalty one must pay to win success.

And while I stood on the curb there fluttered down to me from the dun
heavens an invitation to the great adventure my soul longed for. It came
on a gust of wind and lay on the sidewalk at my feet, a torn sheet of
paper yellowed with age.

I had no premonition of what that faded bit of parchment meant, no
picture of men in deadly battle, of the flash of knives or the gleam of
revolvers, of lusty seamen lying curled on the deck where they had
fallen at the call of sudden death. The only feeling that stirred in me
was a faint curiosity at the odd markings on the sheet.

My foot moved forward and pinned the paper to the cement walk. Should I
pick it up? Of what use? It would turn out to be only some Chinese
laundry bill. Already the gong of the street-car was not more than a
block away as it swept down the hill.

Was it some faint sound that drew my eyes up? Or was I answering the
call of my destiny when my lifted gaze met the figure of a young woman
framed in a second-story window? She was leaning far out, with arm
stretched down and fingers opened wide.

Behind her stood a man, also out of the window to his waist. One of his
hands clutched her wrist, the other reached toward hers. That he had
been trying to take from her the paper she had flung away was an easy
guess.

I had but the fraction of a second before my car was slowing for the
crossing, but it was long enough to