t they ever spring a new
one here?"

Mr. Blackie Daw only laughed.

"I'm afraid they don't," he confessed. "They take the old ones that
have got the money for years, and work in new props and scenery on
them, just like they do in the theaters; and that goes for Broadway."

"It don't go for me," declared Wallingford. "If they come after mine
again I'll get real peevish and take their flash rolls away from
them."

"Go to it," invited Blackie. "They need a trimming."

"I think I'll hand it to them," said Wallingford savagely, and started
to walk out.

"Where are you going?" asked the other.

"I don't know," said Wallingford, "but I am going to scare up some
excitement in the only way possible for a stranger, and that is go out
and hunt for it by myself. No New Yorker knows where to go."

In the bar Wallingford found a convivial gentleman from Georgia,
lonesome like himself, with whom he became firm friends in an hour,
and it was after midnight when, their friendship still further fixed
by plenty of liquid cement, he left the Georgian at one of the broad,
bright entrances in charge of a door-man. It being but a few blocks to
his own hotel, he walked, carrying with complacent satisfaction a
burden of assorted beverages that would have staggered most men.

It was while he was pausing upon his own corner for a moment to
consider the past evening in smiling retrospection, that a big-boned
policeman tapped him on the shoulder. He was startled for a moment,
but a hearty voice reassured him with:

"Why, hello, Wix, my boy! When did you come to town?"

A smile broke over Wallingford's face as he shook hands with the
bluecoat.

"Hello, Harvey," he returned. "I never would have looked for you in
this make-up. It's a funny job for the ex-secretary of the Filmore
Coal Company."

"Forget it," returned Harvey complacently. "There's three squares a
day in this and pickings. Where are you stopping?"

Wallingford told him, and then looked at him speculatively.

"Come up and see me when you go off watch," he invited. "But don't ask
for me under the name of Wix. It's Wallingford now, J. Rufus
Wallingford."

"No!" said Harvey. "What did you do at home?"

"Not a thing," protested Wallingford. "I can go right back to Filmore
and play hop-scotch around the county jail if I want to. I just didn't
like the name, that's all. But I want to talk with you, Harvey. I
think I can throw about a hundred or so in your way."

"Not me