e in?" he wailed. "But no, all I get is another wad
o' woe."

"What do you say, Mr. Chillingworth?" St. George asked eagerly.

"I don't know," said Chillingworth, meditatively turning his glass.
"St. George is rested and fresh, and he feels the story. And
Amory--here, touch glasses with me."

Amory obeyed. His chief's hand was steady, but the two glasses
jingled together until, with a smile, Amory dropped his arm.

"I _am_ about all in, I fancy," he admitted apologetically.

"A week's rest on the water," said Chillingworth, "would set you on
your feet for the convention. All right, St. George," he nodded.

St. George leaped to his feet.

"Hooray!" he shouted like a boy. "Jove, won't it be good to get
back?"

He smiled as he set down his glass, remembering the day at his desk
when he had seen the white-and-brass craft slip to the river's
mouth.

Rollo, discreet and without wonder, footed softly about the table,
keeping the glasses filled and betraying no other sign of life. For
more than four hours he was in attendance, until, last of the
guests, Little Cawthorne and Bennietod departed together, trying to
remember the dates of the English kings. Finally Chillingworth and
Amory, having turned outdoors the dramatic critic who had arrived
at midnight and was disposed to stay, stood for a moment by the fire
and talked it over.

"Remember, St. George," Chillingworth said, "I'll have no
monkey-work. You'll report to me at the old hour, you won't be late;
and you'll take orders--"

"As usual, sir," St. George rejoined quietly.

"I beg your pardon," Chillingworth said quickly, "but you see this
is such a deuced unnatural arrangement."

"I understand," St. George assented, "and I'll do my best not to get
thrown down. Amory has told me all he knows about it--by the way,
where is the mulatto woman now?"

"Why," said Chillingworth, "some physician got interested in the
case, and he's managed to hurry her up to the Bitley Reformatory in
Westchester for the present. She's there; and that means, we need
not disguise, that nobody can see her. Those Bitley people are like
a rabble of wild eagles."

"Right," said St. George. "I'll report at eight o'clock. Amory can
board _The Aloha_ when he gets ready and take down whom he likes."

"On my life, old chap, it's a private view of Kedar's tents to me,"
said Amory, his eyes shining behind his pince-nez. "I'll probably
win wide disrespect by my inability to tell a mainsail