it wasn't anything--I could explain in five seconds if I
saw her--it was all a misunderstanding--I called the policeman a boob
but I didn't mean it--I don't see yet why he took offence--it was
just--"

He was stifling inside the airless booth--he trickled all over. This was
worse than being court-martialled. And still the voice did not speak.

"Can't you understand?" he yelled at last with more strength of lung
than politeness.

"I quite understand, Mr. Crowe. You were in jail. No doubt we shall read
all about it in tomorrow's papers."

"No you won't--I gave somebody else's name."

"Oh." Mrs. Ellicott was ticking off the data gathered so far on
her fingers. The brutal quarrel with Nancy. The rush to the nearest
blind-tiger. The debauch. The insult to Law. The drunken struggle.
The prison. The alias. And now the attempt to pretend that nothing had
happened--when the criminal in question was doubtless swigging from a
pocket-flask at this very moment for the courage to support his flagrant
impudence in trying to see Nancy again. All this passed through Mrs.
Ellicott's mind like a series of colored pictures in a Prohibition
_brochure_.

"But I can explain that too. I can explain everything. Please, Mrs.
Ellicott--"

"Mr. Crowe, this conversation has become a very painful one. Would it
not be wiser to close it?"

Oliver felt as if Mrs. Ellicott had told him to open his bag and when he
did so had pointed sternly at a complete set of burglar's tools on top
of his dress-shirts.

"Can-I-see-Nancy?" he ended desperately, the words all run together:

But the voice that answered was very firm with rectitude.

"Nancy has not the slightest desire to see you, Mr. Crowe. Now or
ever." Mrs. Ellicott asked pardon inwardly for the lie with a false
humility--if Nancy will not save herself from this young man whom she
has always disliked and who has just admitted to being a jailbird in
fact and a drunkard by implication, she will.

"I should think you would find it easier hearing this from me than you
would from her. She has found it easier to say." "But, Mrs. Ellicott--"

"There are things that take a little too much explaining to explain, Mr.
Crowe." The meaning seemed vague but the tone was doomlike enough. "And
in any case" the voice ended with a note of flat triumph, "Nancy will
not be home until dinnertime so you could not possibly telephone her
before the departure of your train."

"Oh."

"Good-by, Mr. Crowe," an