breeding blooded dogs--that is,
if you get a man of experience to go in with you."

"Dogs, dogs," drivelled old Horace Talbot, "Beachfield 's always talking
about dogs. I remember the night we were all discussing that Hamilton
nigger's arrest, Beachfield said it was a sign of total depravity
because his man hunted 'possums with his hound." The old man laughed
inanely. The hotel whiskey was getting on his nerves.

The reporter opened his eyes and his ears. He had stumbled upon
something, at any rate.

"What was it about some nigger's arrest, sir?" he asked respectfully.

"Oh, it was n't anything much. Only an old and trusted servant robbed
his master, and my theory----"

"But you will remember, Mr. Talbot," broke in Davis, "that I proved your
theory to be wrong and cited a conclusive instance."

"Yes, a 'possum-hunting dog."

"I am really anxious to hear about the robbery, though. It seems such an
unusual thing for a negro to steal a great amount."

"Just so, and that was part of my theory. Now----"

"It 's an old story and a long one, Mr. Skaggs, and one of merely local
repute," interjected Colonel Saunders. "I don't think it could possibly
interest you, who are familiar with the records of the really great
crimes that take place in a city such as New York."

"Those things do interest me very much, though. I am something of a
psychologist, and I often find the smallest and most
insignificant-appearing details pregnant with suggestion. Won't you let
me hear the story, Colonel?"

"Why, yes, though there 's little in it save that I am one of the few
men who have come to believe that the negro, Berry Hamilton, is not the
guilty party."

"Nonsense! nonsense!" said Talbot; "of course Berry was guilty, but, as
I said before, I don't blame him. The negroes----"

"Total depravity," said Davis. "Now look at my dog----"

"If you will retire with me to the further table I will give you
whatever of the facts I can call to mind."

As unobtrusively as they could, they drew apart from the others and
seated themselves at a more secluded table, leaving Talbot and Davis
wrangling, as of old, over their theories. When the glasses were filled
and the pipes going, the Colonel began his story, interlarding it
frequently with comments of his own.

"Now, in the first place, Mr. Skaggs," he said when the tale was done,
"I am lawyer enough to see for myself how weak the evidence was upon
which the negro was convicted, and late