waiter glared at
him when he brought the demi-tasse. Prale did not care. He glared back
at the man, drank the coffee, and touched the match to a cigar. Then he
signed the check and went from the dining room, an angry and disgusted
man.

"Another thing like that, and I look for the manager," he told himself.

He supposed that he was a victim of circumstances--that the waiter was a
new man and that it happened that the portions he served were poor
portions. His happiness at being home again prevented Sidney Prale from
feeling anger for any length of time. He got his hat and coat and went
out upon the street again.

He had an hour before time to go to the theater. He walked over to
Broadway and went toward the north, looking at the bright lights and the
crowds. He passed through two or three hotel lobbies, satisfied for the
time merely to be in the midst of the throngs.

At the proper time, he hurried to the theater and claimed his seat. The
performance was a mediocre one, but it pleased Sidney Prale. He had seen
a better show in Honduras a month before, had seen better dancing and
heard better singing and comedy, but this was New York!

The show at an end, Prale claimed his hat and coat at the check room and
walked down the street toward a cabaret restaurant. He reached into his
overcoat pocket for his gloves, and his hand encountered a slip of
paper. He took it out.

There was the same rough handwriting on the same kind of paper, and
evidently with the same blunt pencil.

"Remember--retribution is sure!"

"This thing ceases to be a joke!" Prale told himself.

His face flushed with anger, and he turned back toward the theater. But
he had been among the last to leave, and already the lights of the
playhouse were being turned out. The boy in charge of the check room
would be gone, Prale knew.

He thought of Kate Gilbert again, and the bit of paper she had dropped
as she got into the limousine down on the water front. Surely she could
have no hand in this, he thought. What interest could Kate Gilbert, a
casual acquaintance and reputed daughter of a wealthy house, have in him
and his affairs?

"Somebody is making a mistake," he declared to himself, "or else it is
some sort of a new advertising dodge. If I ever catch the jokesmith who
is responsible for these dainty little messages, I'll tell him a thing
or two."

Prale turned into the restaurant and found a seat at a little table at
one side of the room. The