sang on insolently, tauntingly.

The very inanity of the man disgusted her, and on a sudden impulse she
sprang up and struck him full in the face with the flat of her hand. He
was too weak to resist the blow, and, tumbling from the chair, fell
limply to the floor, where he lay at her feet, alternately weeping aloud
and quivering with drunken, hiccoughing sobs.

"Get up!" she cried; "get up and get out o' here. You sha'n't lay around
my house."

He had already begun to fall into a drunken sleep, but she shook him,
got him to his feet, and pushed him outside the door. "Now, go, you
drunken dog, and never put your foot inside this house again."

He stood outside, swaying dizzily upon his feet and looking back with
dazed eyes at the door, then he muttered: "Pu' me out, wi' you? Pu' me
out, damn you! Well, I ki' you. See 'f I don't;" and he half walked,
half fell down the street.

Sadness and Skaggsy were together at the club that night. Five years had
not changed the latter as to wealth or position or inclination, and he
was still a frequent visitor at the Banner. He always came in alone now,
for Maudie had gone the way of all the half-world, and reached depths to
which Mr. Skaggs's job prevented him from following her. However, he
mourned truly for his lost companion, and to-night he was in a
particularly pensive mood.

Some one was playing rag-time on the piano, and the dancers were
wheeling in time to the music. Skaggsy looked at them regretfully as he
sipped his liquor. It made him think of Maudie. He sighed and turned
away.

"I tell you, Sadness," he said impulsively, "dancing is the poetry of
motion."

"Yes," replied Sadness, "and dancing in rag-time is the dialect
poetry."

The reporter did not like this. It savoured of flippancy, and he was
about entering upon a discussion to prove that Sadness had no soul, when
Joe, with blood-shot eyes and dishevelled clothes, staggered in and
reeled towards them.

"Drunk again," said Sadness. "Really, it 's a waste of time for Joe to
sober up. Hullo there!" as the young man brought up against him; "take a
seat." He put him in a chair at the table. "Been lushin' a bit, eh?"

"Gi' me some'n' drink."

"Oh, a hair of the dog. Some men shave their dogs clean, and then have
hydrophobia. Here, Jack!"

They drank, and then, as if the whiskey had done him good, Joe sat up in
his chair.

"Ha'ie 's throwed me down."

"Lucky dog! You might have known it would have happe