unusual Irishman
with never a hint of the torture. A wild longing to be gone from this
kindly prison--to get away from the thought of the girl.

"All right," said Ryan. "Now toddle back t' bed."

"Bed?"

"Yep. Goin' t' give you a rub that'll start all your machinery workin'."

Docilely Hawksley obeyed. He wasn't going to let them know, but that bed
was going to be tolerably welcome.

"Well!" said Miss Frances. "I don't see how he did it."

"I do," said the ex-pugilist. "I told him to. Either he was a false
alarm, or he'd attempt the job even if he fell down. The hull thing
is this: Make a guy wanta get well an' he'll get well. If he's got any
pride, dig it up. Go after 'em. He hasn't lost any blood. No serious
body wound. A crack on the conk. It mighta killed him. It didn't. He
didn't wabble an' fall down. So my dope is right. Drop in in a few days
an' I'll show yuh."

Miss Frances held out her hand. "You've handled men," she said, with
reluctant admiration.

"Oh, boy!--millions of 'em, an' each guy different. Believe me! Make 'em
wanta."

Cutty attended his conferences. He learned immediately that he was
booked to sail the first week in May. His itinerary began at Piraeus,
in Greece, and might end in Vladivostok. But they detained him
in Washington overtime because he was a fount of information the
departments found it necessary to draw upon constantly. The political
and commercial aspects of the polyglot peoples, what they wanted, what
they expected, what they needed; racial enmities. The bugaboo of the
undesirable alien was no longer bothering official heads in Washington.
Stringent immigration laws were in the making. What they wanted to
know was an American's point of view, based upon long and intimate
associations.

Washington reminded him of nothing so much as a big sheep dog. The
hazardous day was over; the wolves had been driven off and the sheep
into the fold; and now the valiant guardian was turning round and round
and round preparatory to lying down to sleep. For Washington would go to
sleep again, naturally.

Often it occurred to him what a remarkable piece of machinery the human
brain was. He could dig up all this dry information with the precise
accuracy of an economist, all the while his actual thoughts upon Kitty.
His nights were nightmares. And all this unhappiness because he had been
touched with the lust for loot. Fundamentally, this catastrophe could be
laid to the drums of jeopardy.