ks two waiters to a standstill and does
up the house detective with a chair. Why, I has to get two of my men
to help me gather him in. You can find him restin' around to the
station house now."

"Barney," says I, "you must be gettin' colour blind. That can't be
Bentley."

"You go around and take a look at him," says he.

Well, just to satisfy Barney, I did. And say, it was Bentley, all
right! He was some mussed, but calm and contented.

"Bentley," says I, reprovin' like, "you're a bird, you are! How did it
happen? Did some one drug you?"

"Guess that ice cream must have gone to my head," says he, grinnin'.

"Come off!" says I. "I've had a report on you, and from what you've
got aboard you ought to be as full as a goat."

He wa'n't, though. He was as sober as me, and that after absorbin' a
quart or so of French foam.

"If I can fix it so's to get you out on bail," says I, "will you quit
this red paint business and be good?"

"G'wan!" says he. "I'd rather stay here than go around with you any
more. You put me asleep, you do, and I can get all the sleep I want
without a guide. Chase yourself!"

I was some sore on Bentley by that time; but I went to court the next
mornin', when he paid his fine and was turned adrift. I starts in with
some good advice, but Bentley shuts me off quick.

"Cut it out!" says he. "New York may seem like a hot place to Rubes
like you; but you can take it from me that, for a pure joy producer,
Palopinto has got it burned to a blister. Why, there's more doing on
some of our back streets than you can show up on the whole length of
Broadway. No more for me! I'm goin' back where I can spend my money
and have my fun without bein' stopped and asked to settle before I've
hardly got started."

He was dead in earnest, too. He'd got on a train headed West before I
comes out of my dream. Then I begins to see a light. It was a good
deal of a shock to me when it did come, but I has to own up that
Bentley was a ringer. All that talk about mornin' prayers and Sunday
school picnics was just dope, and while I was so busy dealin' out josh,
to him, he was handin' me the lemon.

My mouth was still puckered and my teeth on edge, when Mr. Gordon gets
me on the 'phone and wants to know how about Bentley.

"He's come and gone," says I.

"So soon?" says he. "I hope New York wasn't too much for him."

"Not at all," says I; "he was too much for New York. But while you was
givin' him