this treatment. He pushed back his
hat.

"Well, you boobs!" he drawled.

"What's the matter?"

"Matter? Why, this is a ruby! A whale of a ruby, an' pigeon blood at
that! I didn't work in the' appraiser's office for nothing. But for
a broken point--kids probably tried to crack it--it would stack up
somewhere between three and four thousand dollars!"

The sergeant and the policemen barked simultaneously: "What?"

"A pigeon blood. Where was it you found it?"

"Holy Moses! On Eightieth."

"Any chance of finding that bunch of kids?"

"Not a chance, not a chance! If I got the hull district here there
wouldn't be nothin' doin'. The kids'd be too scared t' remember
anything. A pigeon-blood ruby, an' I wasn't gonna pick it up at first!"

"Lock it up, sergeant," ordered the detective. "I'll pass the word
to headquarters. Too big for a ring. Probably fallen from a pin. But
there'll be a holler in a few hours. Lost or stolen, there'll be some
big noise. You two boobs!"

"Well, whadda yuh know about that?" whined the policeman. "An' me
thinkin' it was glass!"

But there was no big noise. No one had reported the loss or theft of a
pigeon-blood ruby of unusual size and quality.

CHAPTER XIX

Kitty came home at nine that night, dreadfully tired. She had that day
been rocked by so many emotions. She had viewed the parade from the
windows of a theatrical agency, and she had cheered and cried like
everybody else. Her eyes still smarted, and her throat betrayed her
every time she recalled what she had seen. Those boys!

Loneliness. She had dined downtown, and on the way home the shadow had
stalked beside her. Loneliness. Never before had these rooms seemed so
empty, empty. If God had only given her a brother and he had marched in
that glorious parade, what fun they two would be having at this moment!
Empty rooms; not even a pet.

Loneliness. She had been a silly little fool to stand so aloof, just
because she was poor and lived in a faded locality. She mocked herself.
Poor but proud, like the shopgirl in the movies. Denied herself
companionship because she was ashamed of her genteel poverty. And now
she was paying for it. Silly little fool! It wasn't as if she did not
know how to make and keep friends. She knew she had attractions. Just a
senseless false pride. The best friends in the world, after a series of
rebuffs, would drop away. Her mother's friends never called any more,
because of her aloofness. She had on