rdially. "You've something of his cue movement--something of
his infernal facility and touch. Hasn't he, Fleetwood?"

"I wish Siward were back here," said Fleetwood thoughtfully, returning
his cue to his own rack. "I wonder what he does with himself--where he
keeps himself all the while? What the devil is there for a man to do, if
he doesn't do anything? He's not going out anywhere since his mother's
death; he has no clubs to go to, I understand. What does he do--go to
his office and come back, and sit in that shabby old brick house all day
and blink at the bum portraits of his bum and distinguished ancestors?
Do you know what he does with himself?" to O'Hara.

"I don't even know where he lives," observed O'Hara, resuming his coat.
"He's given up his rooms, I understand."

"What? Don't know the old Siward house?"

"Oh! does he live there now? Of course; I forgot about his mother. He
had apartments last year, you remember. He gave dinners--corkers they
were. I went to one--like that last one you gave."

"I wish I'd never given it," said Fleetwood gloomily. "If I hadn't, he'd
be a member here still. ... What do you suppose induced him to take that
little gin-drinking cat to the Patroons? Why, man, it wasn't even an
undergraduate's trick! it was the act of a lunatic."

For a while they talked of Siward, and of his unfortunate story and the
pity of it; and when the two men ceased,

"Do you know," said Plank mildly, "I don't believe he ever did it."

O'Hara looked up surprised, then shrugged. "Unfortunately he doesn't
deny it, you see."

"I heard," said Fleetwood, lighting a cigarette, "that he did deny it;
that he said, no matter what his condition was, he couldn't have done
it. If he had been sober, the governors would have been bound to take
his word of honour. But he couldn't give that, you see. And after they
pointed out to him that he had been in no condition to know exactly what
he did do, he shut up. ... And they dropped him; and he's falling yet."

"I don't believe that sort of a man ever would do that sort of thing,"
repeated Plank obstinately, his Delft-blue eyes partly closing, so that
all the Dutch shrewdness and stubbornness in his face disturbed its
highly coloured placidity. And he walked away toward the wash-room to
cleanse his ponderous pink hands of chalk-dust.

"That's what's the matter with Plank," observed O'Hara to Fleetwood as
Plank disappeared. "It isn't that he's a bounder; but he doesn't