ough,"
says I.

"Yes," said he, speakin' sad and regretful, "once in awhile. There was
one came up from Las Vegas last Spring, a low fellow that they called
Santa Fe Bill. He tried to start a penny ante game, but we discouraged
him."

"Run him off the reservation, eh?" says I.

"No," says Bentley, "we made him give up his ticket to our annual
Sunday school picnic. He was never the same after that."

Well, say, I had it on the card to blow Bentley to a Welsh rabbit after
the show, at some place where he could get a squint at a bunch of our
night bloomin' summer girls, but I changed the program. I took him
away durin' intermission, in time to dodge the new dancer that Broadway
was tryin' hard to be shocked by, and after we'd had a plate of ice
cream in one of them celluloid papered all-nights, I led Bentley back
to the hotel and tipped a bell hop a quarter to tuck him in bed.

Somehow, I didn't feel just right about the way I'd been stringin'
Bentley. I hadn't started out to do it, either; but he took things in
so easy, and was so willin' to stand for anything, that I couldn't keep
from it. And it did seem a shame that he must go back without any tall
yarns to spring. Honest, I was so twisted up in my mind, thinkin'
about Bentley, that I couldn't go to sleep, so I sat out on the front
steps of the boardin' house for a couple of hours, chewin' it all over.
I was just thinkin' of telephonin' to the hotel chaplain to call on
Bentley in the mornin', when me friend Barney, the rounds, comes along.

"Say, Shorty," says he, "didn't I see you driftin' around town earlier
in the evenin' with a young sport in mornin' glory clothes?"

"He was no sport," says I. "That was Bentley. He's a Y. M. C. A. lad
in disguise."

"It's a grand disguise," says Barney. "Your quiet friend is sure
livin' up to them clothes."

"You're kiddin'," says I. "It would take a live one to do credit to
that harness. When I left Bentley at half-past ten he was in the
elevator on his way up to bed."

"I don't want to meet any that's more alive than your Bentley," says
he. "There must have been a hole in the roof. Anyway, he shows up on
my beat about eleven, picks out a swell cafe, butts into a party of
soubrettes, flashes a thousand dollar bill, and begins to buy wine for
everyone in sight. Inside of half an hour he has one of his new made
lady friends doin' a high kickin' act on the table, and when the
manager interferes Bentley lic