trouble
down our way you take this," bluntly he handed her a small, dark metal
whistle, "and blow her good. I knows the note, and if my ears is on the
job, you gets help. You gets it sudden. You gets it good. And here,
without fear or comment, I leaves you."

He signalled to the driver to stop. They had reached the southern
boundary of Washington Square. Barbara held out her hand. She was
greatly taken with her escort.

"And whom," she said, "am I thanking for the whistle?"

"Kid Shannon."

"Don't tell me," said Barbara, "that _you're_ the man who put Hook
Hammersley out in the third!"

"A right to the solar plexus," said Kid Shannon simply, "to bring him in
range and a left to the jaw. Even his friends admits that he begun to
take his gloves off while he was still in the air. But I'm in the saloon
business now, if it's all the same to you, having been light-weight
champion, and spoke a monologue over three circuits--nice-behaved ladies
and gentlemen o' both sexes always welcome, pay as you consume; but
for you or any friends o' yours the drinks will be on the house."

[Illustration: Wilmot Allen took her into dinner, and looked much love
at her, and talked much nonsense.]

He turned with one foot on the sidewalk, and one in the cab.

"Lady," he said, "what I've poured in jest, drink in earnest. All that's
yellow isn't butter. But if anybody was to ask you--say, a man who shall
be as nameless as he is legless--what I says to you during our
discursive promenaid, you answer back and say, 'Kid Shannon, whenever I
speaks to him, merely says, "Ha! Hum!"--_or words to that effect_.' Here
I wishes you salutations, and may your life contain nothing but times
when you looks and feels your best."

Barbara shook hands with him again. "Come to 17 McBurney Place," she
said, "some morning. Ask for Miss Ferris, and see what you think of the
bust she's making of Mr. Blizzard." She smiled mischievously. "He's
supposed to represent the devil just after falling into hell."

Shannon nodded with complete understanding. "Then," said he, "I bet he
looks a ringer for Hook Hammersley that time he hit the resin."

"Thank you for protecting me," said Barbara, "and for the whistle. Will
you tell the man to hurry, please? Thank you! Good-by."

She was very late to her dinner, but much too amused with recent events
to care. And nobody could have made her believe that her going to
Blizzard's place had been fraught with terrible peril.