ed himself out and walked directly to a little room
just off the hall which he used as a private office. A timid young man
was waiting for him.

"Well, sir?" said Mr. Maddledock.

"I am an orderly, sir, if you please, at the Bellevue Hospital. A man
was brought there, this evening, sir, pretty well done up by a runaway.
After he'd been fixed a bit he asked me for his coat, and when I fetched
it he took out this bundle of papers and put them under his pillow. The
doctors didn't bother him much, for they saw he was a goner, and when
he asked if he could live they told him no. He didn't say no more, but
when we was alone he asked me to take out the papers from under his
pillow. I did it, and he asked me if he died to fetch them here and give
them to you in your own hands, and said you'd give me ten dollars for my
trouble. So as soon as I was off duty I fetched 'em, and here they are,
sir."

"Yes," said Mr. Maddledock, adjusting his eyeglasses and examining them
slowly one by one. "Yes. They appear to be all here. Ten dollars, did he
say? Well, here it is. Good-night."

"Good-night, sir."

"And the man? Wait a bit. What became of him?"

"Oh, he's dead, sir. The horse done him up. He's dead and in the Morgue
by this time. Good-night."

The orderly went out, and Mr. Maddledock stood quietly with the bundle
of papers in his hands until he heard the click of the vestibule door.
Then he struck a match and fired them one by one, watching each until it
was entirely consumed.

"In the Morgue," he said, as the last pale flame flickered and died
away. "Well, that's the best place for him. There's no doubt in my
mind, not the least, but that that amiable horse saved me from being the
central figure in a murder trial. What an odd world it is, to be sure!"

XI.

MR. WRANGLER.

On your way to the Cortlandt Street Ferry, which is on everybody's way
to everywhere, and on the left-hand side of the street when you turn out
of Broadway, and not very far from the ferry-house itself, there is a
little old, low brick building which has stood there a good many years
and is going to stand a good many more if Billy Warlock knows himself,
and he thinks he does. You may talk about progress all you please, but
Billy will soon give you to understand that the only kind of progress
which will take that house from him, or him from it, is the progress
toward the stars, and that, while he hopes to take it in the Lord's good
time, he i