rds, "This girl is mine!"--scornfully
indicate to the impostor the door through which the latter, crestfallen,
must inevitably depart. For about a half-minute that seemed a
half-century, he didn't know what to do. And then, upsetting all ethics
and standards of the melodrama and the movies, he did just what anyone
else would have done in like circumstances; stalked majestically toward
the hat pirate in the outer hall, fumbled for his hat slip, presented it
with humble fingers, got his head covering and his overcoat, and
shuffled out into the street dejectedly to ponder over the exigencies of
this calamity, this tragedy, that threatened to end the world. How dared
the Judge to look like him! What a dirty trick to take advantage of
their unfortunate resemblance and impose himself into such a situation!
It was incredible, and base. He didn't know what to do about it, because
she was involved. He felt himself in a peculiarly helpless position. He
could but pray that the Judge's intentions were honorable.

CHAPTER XV

After a rather disturbed night in which he slept by fits and starts,
mostly starts, and occupied the intervening wakeful hours in considering
the Judge's unparalleled effrontery, Jim dawdled over a breakfast for
which he had no appetite, reflecting meanwhile what he could do.
Ordinarily his nerves were equal to any strain; but now he found himself
fidgety, which but added to his general perturbation. For her sake, as
much as his own, he was indignant over the deception practiced upon Mary
Allen, and resolved to punish the impostor if ever opportunity offered.
He decided that his first move must be to warn her. That, too, presented
its difficulty, as his one certain chance of finding her was at her
studio, and he doubted if she would be there before the late forenoon.
He scanned the list of hotel arrivals and learned that the Judge was a
guest at the Van Astor.

"That," he soliloquized, "is worth knowing; because after I have had a
talk with Mary, I'll call upon that human airship or write him a note
telling him what one James Gollop thinks about him!"

He was still perplexed and absent-minded when he somewhat listlessly
walked out into the morning sunlight and started rather aimlessly down
town; nor was he aware that he was passing the Van Astor until disturbed
by a sharp "Harrup! Ahem!" snorted out as if by a hippopotamus that had
just emerged from deep water, and looking around saw the object of hi