ood-night.

By tacit consent Beresteyn and Stoutenburg drew back further into the
shadow of the houses opposite. There appeared to be some understanding
between these two men, an understanding anent a matter of supremely
grave import, which caused them to stand here on the watch with feet
buried in the snow that lay thick in the doorways, silently taking note
of every word spoken and of every act that occurred on the other side of
this evil-smelling street.

There seemed to be no need for speech between them; for the nonce each
knew that the other's thoughts were running in the same groove as his
own; and momentarily these thoughts were centred into a desire to
ascertain definitely if it was the tallest and youngest of those three
knaves over there who lodged in that particular house.

It was only when the fat man and the lean one had finally turned away
and left their comrade on the doorstep that the watchers appeared
satisfied and nodding silently to one another made ready to go home.
They had turned their steps once more toward the more salubrious and
elegant quarter of the city, and had gone but a few steps in that
direction when something occurred behind them which arrested their
attention and caused them to look back once more.

The Something was a woman's cry, pitiful in the extreme: not an unusual
sound in the streets of a prosperous city surely, and one which under
ordinary circumstances would certainly not have aroused Stoutenburg's or
Beresteyn's interest. But the circumstances were not ordinary; the cry
came from the very spot where the two men had last seen the young
stranger standing in the doorway of his lodgings and the appeal was
obviously directed toward him.

"Kind sir," the woman was saying in a quavering voice, "half a guilder I
entreat you for the love of Christ."

"Half a guilder, my good woman," Diogenes said in response, "'Tis a
fortune to such as I. I have not a kreutzer left in my wallet, 'pon my
honour!"

Whereupon the two men who watched this scene from the opposite side of
the street saw that the woman fell on her knees, and that beside her
there stood an old man who made ready to follow her example.

"It's no use wearing out your stockings on this snow-covered ground, my
good girl," said Diogenes good-humouredly. "All the kneeling in the
world will not put half a guilder into my pocket nor apparently into
yours."

"And father and I must sleep under the canal bridge and it is so