hand.
Jan-an knew how hard and cold it was, for she had held the other in
decent sympathy.

Among the tin cans and ash heaps the children of the Point were
playing. One inspired girl had decked a mound of wreckage and garbage
with some glittering goldenrod and was calling her mates to come and
see the "heaven" she had made.

Larry laughed at this and muttered: "Made it in hell, eh, kid?"

The child scowled at him.

Twombley was sitting in his doorway watching what was going on. He was
a gaunt, sharp-eyed, sharp-nosed, and sharp-tongued man. He was the
laziest man on the Point, but with all the earmarks of the cleverest.

"Well, Twombley, how are you?"

Twombley spat and took Larry out of the pigeonhole of his memory--labelled
and priced; Twombley had not thought of him in years, as a definite
individual. He was Mary-Clare's husband; a drifter; a tool of Maclin. As
such he was negligible.

"Feeling same as I look," he said at last. He was ready to appraise
the man before him.

"Bad nut," was what he thought, but diluted his sentiments because of
the relationship to the old doctor and Mary-Clare. Twombley, like
everyone else, had a shrine in his memory--rather a musty, shabby one,
to be sure, but it held its own sacredly. Doctor Rivers and all that
belonged to him were safely niched there--even this son, the husband
of Mary-Clare about whom the Forest held its tongue because he was the
son of the old doctor.

"Old Sniff's popped, I hear." Larry, now that he chose to be friendly,
endeavoured to fit his language to his hearer's level. "Have a cigar,
Twombley?"

"I'll keep to my pipe." The old man's face was expressionless. "If you
don't get a taste for what you can't afford you don't ruin it for what
you can. Yes, looks as if Sniff was dead. They've buried him, at any
rate."

"Who's got his place?"

"Peneluna Sniff."

"Was he married?" Floating in Rivers's mind was an old story, but it
floated too fast for him to catch it.

"She went through the marriage service. That fixes it, don't it?"
Twombley puffed loudly.

"I suppose it does, but I kind of recall that there was a quarrel
between them."

"Ain't that a proof that they was married?" Twombley's eyes twinkled
through the slits of lids--he always squinted his eyes close when he
wanted to go slow. Larry laughed.

"Didn't Peneluna Sniff, or whatever her name is, live in a house by
herself?" he asked. He was puzzled.

"She sure did. Your old man was