t wasn't hard for you to remember what you were thinking about, was
it?" she said.

"It was not," said Blizzard, and his voice was cold as a well-curb.
"When I first saw you, I was thinking thoughts that can never be
forgotten."

"Lift your chin, please," she said, "just a fraction. So. Turn your head
a fraction more toward me. Good. And please don't think of anything
pleasant until I tell you. Anybody can make an exact copy of a head.
Expressions are the things that only lucky people can catch."

"I believe you are one of them," said Blizzard. "I believe you will
catch mine--if you keep on wanting to."

"I must," she said simply.

And then for half an hour there was no sound in the studio but the
long-drawn breathing of the legless man. Barbara worked in a kind of
grim, exalted silence.

Meanwhile Bubbles was climbing the back stair to his bedroom, where he
had left Harry, the secret-service agent, on guard over Barbara. The
boy, all out of breath with haste, opened his right fist and disclosed a
narrow slip of paper with writing on it.

"The minute _he_ came out of his burrow and started uptown," said
Bubbles, "and was out o' sight, I begun to spin my top up and down
Marrow Lane. Rose she's moved upstairs, like she said she would."

Harry's eyes sparkled with interest and approbation. "Good girl!" he
said.

"I seen her," Bubbles went on, "at an upper window, and when she seed
me, she winked both eyes, like as if the sun was too bright for 'em. I
winked the same way, and then she lets the paper drop."

Harry took the paper out of the boy's hand, and read: "Nothing done,
much doing."

"She's a grand one," said Bubbles. "If he ever gets wise to her, he'll
tear her to pieces."

"I'm not worrying about Rose--yet," said Harry. "She knows what she's up
against, and she can pull a gun quicker than I can. We used to play
getting the drop on each other by the hour."

"What for?" asked Bubbles, always interested in the smallest details of
sporting propositions.

"Poker-chips," said Harry, and Bubbles looked his disgust. There was a
minute's silence, then:

"Harry," said Bubbles, "what do _you_ think he's up to?"

"By George," said Harry, "I can't make out. What do _you_ think?"

Bubbles's sensitive mouth quivered eagerly. "You tell me," he said,
"what he's making hats for--he don't sell 'em--and I'll tell you what
he's up to."

"Some of the labor leaders in the West are mixed up in it," said Harry;
"we _