nothing less than a murderous assault as soon as
he might be able to lay hands upon the hallboys--hoping to find them
together that he might batter their heads one against the other.

But he gained the ground-floor lobby to find it as empty as his own
astonishment--its doors wide to the cold air of dawn, its lights
dimmed to the likeness of smouldering embers by the stark refulgence
of day; but nowhere a sign of a hallboy or anything else in human
guise.

As he paused to make sure of the reality of this phenomenon, and
incidentally to regain his breath, there sounded from a distance down
the street a noise the like of which he had never before heard: a
noise resembling more than anything else the almost simultaneous
detonations of something like half a dozen firecrackers of sub-cannon
calibre.

Without understanding this or even being aware that he had willed his
limbs to action, P. Sybarite found himself in the street.

At the curb his hired car waited, its motor purring sweetly but its
chauffeur missing.

Subjectively he was aware that the sun was up and high enough to throw
a sanguinary glare upon the upper stories of the row of garages across
the street--those same from whose number he had chartered his touring
car. And momentarily he surmised that perhaps the chauffeur had
strolled over to the garage on some idle errand.

But no sooner had this thought enhanced his irritation than he had its
refutation in the discovery of the chauffeur affectionately embracing
a lamp-post three or four doors away, toward Sixth Avenue; and so
singular seemed this sight that P. Sybarite wondered if, by any
chance, the fellow had found time to get drunk during so brief a wait.

At once, blind to all else, and goaded intolerably by his knowledge
that the time was short if he were to forestall November at the asylum
in Oscahana, he pelted hot-foot after the delinquent; came up with him
in a trice; tapped him smartly on the shoulder.

"Here!" he cried indignantly--"what the deuce's the matter with you?"

The man showed him a face pale with excitement; recognised his
employer; but made no offer to stir.

"Come!" P. Sybarite insisted irascibly. "I've no time to waste. Get a
move on you, man!"

But as he spoke his accents were blotted out by a repetition of that
portentous noise which had saluted him in the lobby of the Monastery,
a moment since.

His eyes, veering inevitably toward the source of that uproar, found
it quickl