man who was one of the four occupants of the
little end-room, smoking compartment, the outlook was anything but
cheerful.

As far as the eye could reach long rows of shriveled husks, from which
the season's crop of yellow ears had been torn, flapped dejectedly
against their dried and broken stalks. Here and there a square of rich,
black loam, freshly turned, bespoke the forehanded farmer; while in the
fields of his neighbors straggling groups of cattle and hogs gleaned
half-heartedly in the standing roughage.

"Not much for scenery, is it?" The offensively garrulous passenger
directed his remarks to the young man, who abstractedly surveyed the
landscape. "No, sir," he continued, "you've got to go West for Scenery.
Ever been West?"

The young man nodded without removing his gaze from the window.

"I live in Colo_ray_do," the other persisted. "Went out there for my
health--and I stayed. Johnson's my name. I'm in the mining business."

His eyes swept the compartment to include the others in the too evident
geniality of their glance.

"Now that we're all acquainted," he ventured--"how about a little game
of seven-up, just to pass away the time? How about you, dad?"

Thus flippantly he addressed the ruddy-faced, middle-aged gentleman in
gray tweeds, whose attention was apparently concentrated upon the
lengthening ash of his cigar.

With enthusiasm undampened by the curtness of the latter's refusal, he
turned to the remaining passenger--a youth upon whose lip sprouted a
tenderly pruned mustache, so obviously new that it looked itchy.

"How about you, captain?" The top-heavy youth closed his magazine and
unlocked a brain-cell.

"I don't mind." He ostentatiously consulted a very gold watch. "Must be
in Chicago this evening," he muttered quite audibly, pulling a ten,
twent, thirt frown that caused his labial foliage to rustle with
importance.

He drew from his pocket a card upon which the ink was scarcely dry and
handed it to the effervescent Johnson, who read aloud:

Mr. LINCOLN S. TARBEL
Municipal Investigator

"You see," explained its owner, "it has reached the ears of the
managing editor of my paper in South Bend that vice in various forms
flourishes in Chicago! Thereupon he immediately sent for me and ordered
a sweeping investigation."

Further information was forestalled by the entrance of a suave-mannered
individual who introduced himself as a cigar salesman, and who was
readily