er one over the nut with
his toothpick. Step one side. Next!"

I sat down on a bench. The dear Colonel locked up in a cell like a
common criminal. What would Chad say; what would Aunt Nancy say; what
would Fitz say; what would everybody say? And then the mortification
to him; the wounding of his pride; the disgrace of it all.

Men and women came and went; some with bruised heads, some with
blackened eyes, one wearing a pair of handcuffs--a sneak thief,
caught, with two overcoats. Was the Colonel sharing a cell with such
people as these? The thought gave me a shiver.

A straightening-up of half a dozen policemen; a simultaneous touching
of caps, and the Captain, a red-faced, black-moustached, blue-coated
chunk of a man, held together at the waist by a leather belt and
be-decked and be-striped with gilt buttons and gold braid, climbed
into the pulpit of justice and faced the room.

I stepped up.

He listened to my story, nodded his head to a doorman and I followed
along the iron corridor and stood in front of a row of cells. The
Turnkey looked over a hoop of keys, turned one in a door, threw it
wide and said, waving his finger:

"Inside!" These men use few words.

The Colonel from the gloom of the cell saw me first.

"Why, you dear Major!" he cried. "You are certainly a good Sama'itan.
In prison and you visited me. I am sorry that I can't offer you a
chair, suh, but you see that my quarters are limited. Fortunately so
far I have been able to occupy it alone. Tell me of Fitz----"

"But Colonel!" I gasped. "I want to know how this happened? How was it
possible that you----"

"My dear Major, that can wait. Tell me of _Fitz_. He has not been out
of my thoughts a moment. Will he get through the day? I did eve'ything
I could, suh, and exhausted eve'y means in my power."

"Fitz is all right. They've got out an injunction and the market is
steadier----"

"And will he weather the gale?"

"I think so."

"Thank God for that, suh!" he answered, his lips quivering. "When you
see him give him my dea'est love and tell him that I left no stone
unturned."

"Why you'll see him in an hour yourself. You don't suppose we are
going to let you stay here, do you?"

"I don't know, suh. I am not p'epared to say. I have violated the laws
of the State, suh, and I did it purposely, and I'm willin' to abide
the consequences and take my punishment. I should have struck Mr.
Klutchem after what he said to me if I had been hanged for