nding under a lamp, studying a
time-table, with glasses set very far down his nose. Opposite, Lefferts
was leaning against the wall, his arms folded and the expression on his
face of one who has happened unexpectedly upon a very good moving
picture show.

Seeing Crane, Tucker folded up his time-table and removed his glasses.

"Your other guest has just arrived," he observed.

"Oh, is Reed here?"

"Yes," said Lefferts, "he's in your office taking off his coat."

"And you may be interested to know," added Tucker, with a biting
simplicity that had impressed many juries in its time, "you may be
interested to know that he is the man I found kissing Jane-Ellen last
week."

"What, Reed!" cried Crane, with a gesture that might have been
interpreted as ferocious.

Hearing his name called, Reed came hurrying out.

"Yes," he said, advancing with outstretched hand, "here I am. Sorry to
be late, but I was ready before--"

"We'll go in to dinner," said Crane shortly. Tucker and Reed moved first
toward the dining-room. Lefferts drew his host aside.

"Just one moment," he said. "You went off so quickly when that gong rang
that I did not have any chance to tell you how I feel about your
generosity. It makes--"

Crane grasped his hand.

"You have an opportunity this very moment," he replied, "to repay me for
anything I ever have done or may do for you. Talk, my dear fellow, talk
at dinner. Do nothing but talk. Otherwise, I shall knock those two men's
heads together."

Lefferts smiled.

"I doubt if you'd get much sense into them even if you did," he
murmured.

"No," answered Burton, "but I should have a great deal of enjoyment in
doing it."

XI

THEY sat down at table, and, as Crane looked at his guests, he had
little hope that even Lefferts' cheerful facility could save the
situation. Circumstances would be too much against him. Even the poet
himself could hardly be at his best, having just arrived in the hope of
dining with his lady-love to find she had been spirited away by an irate
mother. This in itself was enough to put a pall on most men; yet, of the
three guests, Lefferts seemed by far the most hopeful. Tucker was
already sullen and getting more sullen every moment. Crane knew the
signs of his lawyer's bearing--the irritable eye that would meet no
one's directly, the tapping fingers, the lips compressed but moving.
Tucker was one of those people cursed by anger aft