ng finished the picking of his teeth, would take the stand and
divulge anew to these underfed immortals the secrets of the Book of
Life.

Then their poor dupes would cheer with a desperate attempt at courage,
but it was to me like the bleating of sheep that are led to the
slaughter. Wearily they sought their once happy homes, to find empty
larders and broken-hearted wives, their wondering children crying for
the necessities they had never lacked before, their clothes in tatters,
and the roses departed from their cheeks.

Many a sick wife and ailing child did I visit then, pining for the
little delicacies their breadwinner could not afford to buy--all of this
at the behest of two bespangled gentlemen, who even then were writing to
their distant wives, enclosing substantial checks, and descanting
eloquently upon the sumptuous fare at the aforesaid Imperial Hotel.

Two sights there are in this panoramic world which greatly madden me,
and they are twins.

The first is the spectacle of a pot-bellied landlord, his wife and
family sated with every luxury, as he smilingly takes across the
bar--have you ever seen a snake swallow its prey, an equally slimy
sight?--the five-cent piece of some poor fellow whose child hath neither
toy nor bread, and whose broken wife, struggling in God's name to shield
her children from indecency and want, will tremblingly explore his
pocketbook at midnight, only to find every farthing of his wages gone.
For the aforesaid smiling landlord hath poured it into the satin lap of
the equally smiling wife at the Travellers' Rest.

And the other sight is the spectacle of a complacent gentleman, organ
for the Trades and Labour Union, who alighteth from his Pullman car to
ply his incendiary trade, living in the lap of luxury, while weeping
wives stroke the famished faces of their hungry bairns and dumbly plead
with God that this cruel strike may soon be over.

It was at such a time as this that Angus first impressed us with his
real power. We had seen much of him in the years that had passed since
he spent his first New Jedboro night beneath our roof. Often and often
he would spend the evening with us, chatting on pleasant topics or
teaching our Margaret the high things of chess, at which he was
well-nigh a master. But I little dreamed then what fateful moves there
may be even in a game of chess, what mating and checkmating and sundry
other operations may be sublimely mingled in that so interesting
st