flannel sleeve. And his words were an echo
of those which Stephen O'Mara had heard before that night from other
lips.

"Then you--are you," he framed the words laboriously. "I wasn't
sure--even when I knew it must be."

And Garry Devereau tried to smile--his slow smile of sophistry.

"Greetings, Sir Galahad!" he faltered. "And how are you, Steve--and
who might your--fat friend be?"

CHAPTER IX

A MATTER OF ORNITHOLOGY

Of all the fragmentary pictures which those crowded twelve hours left
registered upon Stephen O'Mara's brain, none proved more enduring than
did the change which Garry Devereau's first haltingly weak but very sane
greeting wrought in the expression on Fat Joe's pink visage that morning.
The banter in Garry's labored words was so characteristic of the mocking
spirit of the man who had come back the same inexplicably intimate friend
which the boy had been, that it left Steve's dry throat speechless for
the moment. The visible effect upon Fat Joe was even more positive.

Almost before he had finished his facetious query as to the identity of
the one who had dragged him through that bad night Gary fell asleep; he
slipped off into slumber, the very calmness of which guaranteed that the
crisis had passed. But the lugubrious astonishment which the question
had evoked consumed more time in fading from Joe's face. The latter's
jaw had sagged open; he dragged a sleeve across his damp forehead while
he stood and gazed in a sort of dumb dismay down at those pale and
handsome features. Then he chuckled suddenly; his whole squat body shook
with comprehensive mirth.

"Now what do you think of that!" he gurgled in admiration. "What do you
think of that? A-hangin' on all night, alive once in a while, maybe, but
the best you could say for him the rest of the time was a hope that he
wasn't dead. And now coming at us with the airy persiflage, the first
regular breath he's drawed. Fat! It was me he meant to indicate, wasn't
it? He was joshin' me! Say, Steve, ain't he the merry little joker?
_Me--fat_! Now that's real funny--I'll leave it to you if it ain't."

Fat Joe leaned over and drew a blanket a little higher across the
sleeping man's shoulder, while Steve continued silently to study Garry's
face. Even in unconsciousness a faintly crooked smile of skepticism
still clung to the lips.

"It was like him," Steve remarked at last, very soberly. "Somehow, the
minute he began to speak I knew i