An Exile from London. A novel

Front matter

AN EXILE FROM LONDON A NOVEL BV COL. RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE AUTHOR OF ]*■ "MY OFFICIAL WIFE," "HER FOREIGN CONQUEST," etc., etc. COPYRIGHT LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, Limited BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL l897 (All Rights Reserved.) By RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE Uniform with this Volume. MY OFFICIAL WIFE. THE LITTLE LADY OF LAGUNITAS. A Franco-Californian Romance. PEINCE SCHAMYL'S WOOING. A Story of the Caucasus— Russo-Turkish War. THE MASKED VENUS. A Story of Many Lands. DELILAH OF HAELEM. A Story of the New York City of To-Day. FOE LIFE AND LOVE. A Story of the Rio Grande. THE ANAECHIST. A Story of To-Day. THE PRINCESS OF ALASKA. A Tale of Two Countries. THE FLYING HALCYON. THE PASSING SHOW. A DAUGHTER OF JUDAS. IN THE OLD CHATEAU. A Story of Russian Poland. MISS DEVEREUX OF THE MAEIQUITA. HIS CUBAN SWEETHEART. By Col. R. H. Savage and Mrs. A. C. Gunter. CHECKED THROUGH. LOST COUNTESS FALKA. CONTENTS.

Book I. The Papers In The Case

Chapter I. — Luncheon at the Lawyers' Club, 5 II. — A Dead-broke Broker, - 24 III.— Yakey's Morning Call, - - 43 IV.— "The Handsomest Woman I Ever Saw!" - - - 63 " V. — "I Will Send Cyril!" - - 82

Book II. Personally Conducted

Chapter VI. — The Coachman's Warning — At El Paso, - - 104 VII.— Mr. Robert Ross, British Tourist, ... - 126 " VIIL — Over the Arid Zone, - - 149 " TY "Wo Will sir. rinmn 41™ol" r », T IX.— "We Will Go Down Alone!" 171 " X.— "Trust to Pepita! " - - CONTENTS.

Book III

"WHERE IS THE PROMISE OF MY YOUTH, ONCE WRITTEN ON MY BROW?" Chapter XL— "Save Juan! Ride! Ride!" Tom Guilfoyle's Troopers, 225 XII.— The Talking Wire, - - 246 XIII. — Arizona Jack Trumps Moses Dalman's Last Trick, - 269 XIV.— "Why Will He Not Come?" 292 XV.— "You Must Speak the Word!"

Book I

The Papers in the Case. chapter I. LUNCHEON AT THE LAWYERS' CLUB. Three men were gazing contentedly at each other over the debris of an "up-to-date " luncheon, in a cosy room of the Lawyers' Club, when the senior, hastily consulting his watch, settled himself down in his leath ern armchair, and then, lighting a cigar, said: "We have just half an hour. I've a directors' meeting at 40 Wall, at 2 o'clock. Go ahead, now, Isidor." The person addressed, promptly produced a pocket book, and then drew forth a letter. "Reed id your selb, quied, first," he said, "und we hab Moses's obinion, lader. " Isidor Blum strolled to the window of the room and silently contemplated the superb water vistas surrounding the irregular pinnacles of lower New York City. That great fortress of Mammon, known as the Equitable Building, never sheltered three more devoted worshippers of the Golden Calf than the trinity called together now by Isidor Blum to "dalk over a little drubble!

" And No. 120 Broadway never knew a sharper trio. There was no doubt of the financial solidity and physical well being of Isidor Blum, Esq., senior partner of Blum Brothers, of New York, New Orleans, Fort Worth, El Paso, and Tucson. A shining exemplar of the American evolution of the Hebrew trader; at fifty five, Isidor Blum's robust form, superb dark eyes, and luxuriant blue-black hair and beard still attested the oriental splendor of his picturesque youthful comeliness. The easy bearing of the man, his natty attire of richest commercial smartness, the selected diamonds, his jing ling chatelaine of Masonic emblems, Pythian badges, Odd Fellow's charms, and Mystic Shrine tokens, all attested the fact that Isidor Blum had "arrived." More than all these external hints, the firmness of Isidor's financial pied ci terre, was shown in his doting familiarity with the gray old "coyote of finance" now closely studying the letter, and his lofty domination of Moses Dalman, the listening lawyer, who was leaning his head on his hands, and while concealing hisface be hind the blue smoke of a Perfecto, was mentally making a new entry in his fee book.

"I must go do Garlsbad soon!" thickly muttered Blum, turning from the window whence he had caught a suggestive glimpse of the Fuerst Bismarck. , "June dwendieth! Nod so much dime to lose. " "This matter looks serious," slowly said William Bent, gazing at the letter of " Brother Morris," from Tucson, Arizona. "We've held on to that property for a long ten years. Here it is, ninety-two, and we bought in eighty-two. Now the railroad comes right up to us, and — when, by Jove, the mine turns out to be a mine, we can't afford to lose it. I've got to take a look over the Northern Pacific, and you're going to Europe, you say. Better let Dalman take it in hand." " I must be in London on July fifteenth," resolutely said the lawyer. " So, don't count on me being here after July eighth." "Dat'sjusdin our hand!" chuckled Isidor Blum, "and you, too, gan see de Senador in San Francisco, Bend, on your vay home.

Now, vad do you say, shall we bud the whole in Dalman's hands on choint agound ? You see, you and the Senador are von halls und Blum Broders, de oder ! " Old William Bent tossed the letter over to the lawyer, "See what you make out of that, Dalman," he said in a rasping voice. "It looks to me like a mighty bad business, and, I think that we should act at once." Tall, lean, and erect at sixty-two, with a cold gray eye and a smooth shaven parchment face, William Bent was a priceless recent gift from California to the Imperial City of America. For forty years, William Bent had been judiciously engaged in "discovering good things for other people, " and suavely distributing these same "good things " among the trustful investors of two hemispheres. He had early learned the golden rule that the whole secret of success in life lies in refraining.

He always "refrained" from losing his own money in the vast operations which had gained for him a majestic toga of directorships, trusteeships, and fiduciary offices of great profit to himself. A frozen calm, a ministerial manner, a hard-headed "horse sense," and a callous heartlessness, habitually preserved his equanimity. Lost to all human emotion, save a few carefully nursed private vices, and an undying rancor toward his enemies, he allowed the hopeful to quietly drift within the reach of his tentacles, then, with tightening grip, extracting the last drop of their golden circulation. Even his hat, broad brimmed and sober, had a sacerdotal air, his sober attire befitting either a modest poverty or untaxed millions. His favorite boast that a gripsack, an overcoat, a check book, and an umbrella were a financier's complete out fit, proved that if he cast an eye on the good things of this world it was only a cursory, oblique glance, and, probably, veiled from the observation of the madding crowd.

Dim tradition assigned him the rudiments of a family in prehistoric days, but they had drifted slowly out of public sight. His later incursions into family life were only silently veiled approaches upon the do mains of others! This particular capitalist belonged to the mysterious guild who " arrive at the Fifth Avenue," and, after registering, are never heard of above Canal Street, save when some unhappy accident brings their names into the headlines of the "modern journals," and their "counterfeit presentments "before the gaping multitude. The veil when drawn aside, usually by the deft hand of the lawyer, frequently presents the old, old tableau — " Trustful womanhood, and the hard hearted veteran admirer! " Nice, quiet, old gentlemen these ! "Who did you say your partner was, Mr. Bent?" briskly snapped out the lawyer, as he smoothed out the letter with his lean, nervous fingers.

"Mr. Blum called him 'the Senator,' I think," concluded the ad vocate. The old man gazed for a moment at the audacious lawyer. "You may as well call him, Mr. Cash! That will do just as well. I have his power of attorney, and, I will act for him in this little deal," replied Bent, frowning slightly at the indiscreet Isidor Blum, who was complacently finishing his cafe noir, and smacking his lips over a pousse cafe". Isidor Blum delightedly contemplated his own suc cessive rise from a vicarious cotton-grabber in the Se mitic camp following of Banks's army , to a New Orleans trader, then, a New York wholesaler, and now, he was the proud head ef a chain of aggregated Blums, with their tentacles firmly axed on the effluent and refluent trade of New York, New Orleans, Fort Worth, Texas; El Paso, and that pearl of country cities, Tucson, Arizona.

Isidor Blum, ignorant of the imprudence of dragging in a Senatorial name, was proud of the hungry tribe of cousins and brothers who had gathered since the pip ing times of the war, from Frankfort, Breslau, Vienna, and Budapest, yea, even from Warsaw and Cracow, to aid in distributing all profitably sold articles of use or ornament over that broad zone of the United States, now tributary to the Blums and their international tribesmen. Nothing too great for the ready enterprise of the prosperous Blums ! Cotton presses, country stores, cattle ranches, army contracts, mail-routes, mines and freight and post-routes, were under their direction, and, at Tucson, Arizona, Morris Blum, the crystallization of their family keenness, towered over the whole lower strata of Blums. He was the very Benjamin of these sagacious invaders, and he gleamed "Like a diamond in the sky."

For Brother Morris was the head and front of the "dollar-snatching movement" in southern Arizona, and the spacious halls over Blum Brothers' "Palatial Golden Rule Bazaar " were the headquarters of all the various local societies of Tucson. While Isidor Blum had cheerfully in the war days exchanged ammunition and quinine for the priceless cotton with confederate generals, and tobacco and cotton with his champagne subsidized Union friends engaged in "putting down the rebellion" in return for "right of way " between the lines — so, the Benjamin of the tribe in Arizona judiciously dealt with all the Mexican rebel generals and Apache chiefs — " on the sly " — as well as the " consti tuted authorities " of Uncle Sam. A dashing American-bred Blum, young Morris was " in it, with both feet," to use the words of a Tucson frontier admirer.

His lucky speculation in laying out and improving a cemetery, afterward sold en bloc to the lethargic Christians at a great profit, was only equaled by his aplomb in joining the Episcopal Church "in order to grow up with the country," and advance the moral interests of Blum Brothers. Holding up the family flag at Tucson, he was always ready to contract for any salable goods, from a fifty-stamp mill down to a baby's sock, and equally prepared to sell a hundred horse-power compound engine, or a personally selected " corset cover." The adroit Morris Blum was justly uneasy now about the future of the Condor Mining Company, and had sent on a warning note of alarm to the great Isidor. The lion of the tribe of Blums had received a few private words in a mixture of Yiddish and patois German, which, so far, he had not divulged to the old money-seeker who was his " pardner," with the judiciously veiled " Senador."

"It's chust as well do see how de old man agds, first," mused Isidor. " I mighd buy him oud ! Und we has de whole mine." "I think this whole thing should be put in one man's hands — at once ! " said Moses Dalman. ' ' Of course, professionally, I 'm willing to give you an opinion," crisply said the lawyer. "I am ready to act for you — but you arelSoon to go one way, and Mr. Bent another, therefore, I think that Morris Blum, at Tucson, is the man to handle the whole affair ! " The Christian and the Hebrew money sharks were now gazing silently at the oracularly immobile face of Moses Dalman, counselor, of the New York Bar. "Veil ! Do mage a beginning, I redain you for Blum Broders, " heavily said Isidor, closing his eyes, dreamily, and stealing a furtive glance at William Bent's ashen face. "That's all right!

" curtly broke in Bent. "One lawyer will do — of course. Charge the whole thing to the Condor Mine ! Now, Isidor, I will telegraph out to San Francisco, after we have had a private talk, but, if we can agree better, let Morris run the whole thing, under Dalman's direction. There's got to be some pretty fine work done! What do you do to-night ? " "Ball — at the Progress Club — do-morrow, annual dinner at the Bnai Brith, but, Vednesday night I gom up to you at the Fifth avenue, Bent." "All right," said the American. "And, Dalman, you had better come up there, too. We will settle on a plan. Morris Blum would suit our side." "Den dat's all righd," sighed Isidor, warily. " Chust dell us now, Boses, your firsd idea." Dalman had finished reading the letter for the third time, and, conscious of his "fat take" to come, alertly faced the problem.

His eye-glasses gleamed over a hawk-like nose and a pair of steady, merciless eyes. Slim, compact, yet vigorous in figure, with a lean, hardened face, a cold, ringing voice, and a watchful manner; the student's brow was wrinkled far too deeply for a man of thirty-eight. An ingraft of Jewish blood upon the Americanized German, Moses Dalman was a type of "Younger New York up to date!" An el'eve of the public schools, gliding, eel-like, through Columbia College, and then fastening, leech-like, upon a "confidential practice," Moses Dalman was already a rich man, while yet on the sunny side of forty. Bold and aspiring, confident of his pull with the courts, and his power over a jury, secure in his thorough knowledge of both law and practice, he was down town, an abso lute economist of time and speech; Spartan in his business habits, never making a needless enemy, wary and close-mouthed, his vigor and unscrupulous pro fessional skill had made him invaluable to his clients.

Moving in the open — between the lines of religious antipathy — he mingled in the best non-sectarian soci ety, his club memberships being judiciously regulated as to both party and creed ; with a businesslike system, he "showed up" after dark, as an all-round "good fellow," sitting behind a bottle or a poker hand, with "as firm a nerve" as any man in Gotham. Two things, as luxuries, he as yet abjured — they were the Scylla and Charybdis, which he had so far warily avoided. " Love and politics only pay on the higher levels — as a supreme dissipation for those who can afford them" — he sententiously observed, "what is easily obtainable is always valueless ! " Which mixture of cynicism and practical sense veiled the Sybaritic luxury of his sensuous nature. "Time enough for all that, by and by," mused Moses Dalman, with a complacent glance over his fee books.

He was grinding out the golden grist. " This matter may grow into a very ugly one," said Dalman, slowly commenting upon Morris Blum's letter. " But, there's only one thing to do, and that is, to find this missing fellow, Walter Ryley, at once ! If he is in New York, then I can get at him, that is, if you authorize me to go ahead. It will cost a little money." "Neber mind about de money," broke in Isidor Blum, "I bay all de disbursemends out of mine own pogid." "Here is the whole thing in a nutshell," calmly con tinued the impressive lawyer. "You are in control of the 'Condor Mining Company' now covering the old Live Oak and Magnolia claims, in the Tombstone District. You are all right for the ownership of an undivided half in each of these claims. You've also had the two claims properly recorded in the name of Walter Ryley and Hugh Dalton in eighty-two.

"Ryley sells to you his undivided half, and the bill of sale is properly recorded, and you have had the two claims properly surveyed and patented, and kept up the assessment work. "The mine is surely going to be very valuable! But, there is this to observe: Hugh Dalton's title to an undivided half of the two claims, and the conditions of your bill of sale, force you to keep up all assessment work, free of charge, on Hugh Dalton's half interest. That's a clear contract, and you dare not legally incor porate this mine, as you are only trustees for Hugh Dalton's interest. "Moreover, Morris Blum writes now that Hugh Dal ton killed a Deputy Sheriff in the row with the Earp gang — then, skipped out to Texas — and was, himself, killed later, at El Paso, in a gambling saloon ! We could easily fix up a title to that interest, that is, Morris Blum and I, could, in time," mused the lawyer with his eyes fixed full upon Isidor Blum.

" They do these things pretty easily down there in Tucson. I had some business there last year. But," and Dalman's voice hardened, "now, comes in this Walter Ryley's devilment. He drifted over to London, in the mine selling fever after the great Tombstone discoveries, and there sold, or pretended to sell, a lot of Arizona ' wild cat ' mines. He is supposed to be knocking around New York, now, a mere human wreck. Was a high roller in San Francisco, New York and London, once upon a time, the old story. An English firm of solicitors, 'Carstairs, Lyon & Carstairs,' of Shef field, England, write to the Postmaster of Tucson for information of Walter Ryley, who sold an interest in the Live Oak and Magnolia mines to one Chandos Bran don, mining broker of London, in eighty-three. Ryley never returned to Tucson, after going over to El Paso to find Hugh Dalton."

"Now," said Dalman, " Morris Blum writes to your London agent and finds that this man, Chandos Bran don, is dead, an insolvent debtor. There is but one thing to do, gentlemen. These English fellows must never find out Mr. Walter Ryley ! ' ' All three around the table nodded their heads. "It was a judicious move on Morris Blum's part to have his chum, the Postmaster, write these people that Wal ter Ryley was dead ! " "Killed by the Apaches during Geronimo's raid! That will throw them off the track. " "What do you advise us to do?" asked the wary partners. "Let me first try to trace out this fellow Ryley, if still alive. Turn the whole thing over to Morris Blum and myself, for the present. The English lawyers may drop the whole affair. They will probably call it 'quits' on a bad job." " Here, you are wrong !

" vigorously protested wary old Bent with a reminiscent flush of anger. ' ' An Ameri can will go into a thing on a margin, make a deal, and then soon forget the mine and even its name, sometimes in a week. But I've found that the Englishman buys out and out, and always some blamed fool or another will turn up at the last and sipt the whole thing. If there's a mine there he'll have that; if it is only a ledge op trap rock, he'll build a mill and then pound away at it for awhile. Yes! I've had trouble with them. You'll surely hear of these chaps again. Now, I've got to go ! Go ahead, Isidor! Give Dalman your orders, I'll write to-night to the other chap, my friend! Don't spare money. If it's a good mine, as Morris says, we can stand a few thousand. Shut them out, beat them at all costs, only keep our name out of it.

Morris can meet them down there if they turn up, and either bluff them, or fix the thing. Put up a 'cold deck' on them! Dalman, you had better trace the whole thing while you are over in London. I'll stand in. Now, remember, to-day is Monday, we meet Wednesday night at the Fifth Avenue." Grasping his hat, the old shylock hurried away to the elevator, anxious to escape a ten-dollar fine at his meeting. Then Isidor Blum sprang up and locked the door. "Read dad! Boses!" he tremblingly said, giving his fellow Israelite the few reserved lines of " Broder Morris." The lawyer whistled sharply in his surprise when he deciphered the confidential scrawl. "By Jove ! a million in sight! We must find this Ryley, Isidor." "Yes, und blay a fine game vid dis old Bent und de Senador, Boses. I'll dell you all.

Ve must have de Condor Mine, de gontrolling inderesd for Blum Broders, und, if you gan work old Bend und de Senador oud, I give you a good share, und dey vood the bill when we buy dem oud." "Isidor, I'll get away and find this poor, ruined loafer, if he's alive. Don't you ever let old Bent see that letter ! " excitedly cried the hawk-nosed lawyer. " I'll stand by you, thick and thin. I'll post you on the sly." He whispered a few words, and Isidor Blum roared : "Oh! dad vas a good choke. Arresd dis fellow, Ryley, und lock him up. Keep him quied ! Led me give you a check now. You spege to me alone ven you find him. I don't give noding avay to Bend. He's got blendy of money now, und de Senador has stole himself rich. It is ■ -" He leaned over and whis pered a few words, whereat Moses Dalman laughed, as he pocketed Morris Blum's letter.

"Go on, righd away out. Moses, find dad fellow. I bay for the lunch." Isidor chuckled over his "good choke," gayly. And, with the sly gliding of a wolf, Moses Dalman darted away to the elevator, and betook himself to the haunt of a friendly legal luminary on Centre Street. " If I can only get this fellow Ryley, then there's a for tune in this for me!" mused Dalman. He had coolly taken away the semi-Yiddish scrawl that told Isidor Blum of what Morris Blum had discovered in the mine, "We have covered up the drifts, plugged up the dia mond-drill holes, and cut down the whole working force. We only keep Bill Murfee and the four men who cross cut the ledge and worked the drills. They are all now at the mine, and Bill lets ?wne of them leave, even fora moment! Their letters are slyly stolen, and no outsiders can see them.

They are sape !" As Moses Dalman sped away to begin his search for a needle in a haystack, he furtively dallied with the tempter, now whispering, "If I find the title in this fellow Ryley, I might get hold of this half the mine por myselp. It's a good thing, anyhow ! If he had a power of attorney from Hugh Dalton, though this thing may be already gone forever, we must bluff them — fool them — or fight them!" And, in half an hour, twenty men were searching through the slums of New York for the ci-devant broker, Walter Ryley, while Moses Dalman sought out his mining and stock friends to gain any hint of the whereabouts of the once pros perous Californian speculator. This done, Dalman turned homeward. Moses Dalman was distraught as he slowly sought his office eyrie in a tall Cedar Street building.

The elevator boy noted his gleaning, gray eyes and the set lines of his vulpine face. " Putting up a job on some poor devil! That's what yere up to, Mr. Moses Dal man! " mused Fergus O'Connor, a great expert in dime novels, cigarettes, and cheap Bowery theaters. There was a nervous lifting of heads in Dalman's office as he entered. Two saucy-looking, drab-colored typewriter girls redoubled the speed of their clicking instruments, and the office boys sprang to an attention. It was le ' ' reveil du lion" ! "Tell Mr. Levy I want to see him at once," sternly said Dalman, as he clashed his office door. His face was clouded with anxiety. "Beg pardon, sir! Here's a telephone message from Mr. Isidor Blum. Wants you to dine with him to-night at his house — to talk over some business. I was to call him up and answer."

"Say that I'll come!" shortly answered Dalman, dropping his head on his hands, at his table. The Condor mine had, for the present, driven all other matters out of his head. He looked up sharply, as Abram Levy, heavy, rotund, and of an overhanging head, sullenly entered. Levy, legal assistant, and re sponsible office drudge, had early resigned himself to beer and cheap dissipation. An encyclopedia of practice, a "hustler " in the lower courts, a walking direc tory of New York, he kept barely even with life on Dalman's fifty dollars a week, knowing full well that his name never would ornament the ground-glass doors where "Moses Dalman," in ominous black letters, in dicated the shark's lurking place. Blunt, burly, and devoid of scruple, he butted away daily as the office battering-ram at the brunt of Dalman's detail of drud gery.

Full well he knew that he never would escape the tenacious clutches of his stern-eyed employer, his junior by five years. His life had burned out early ! "Where do the Pacific Coast mining fellows hold out here, Abram ? " bluntly queried the successful lawyer. "Wall, Broad, Exchange Place, Pine, Cedar, and all the little holes around there," grunted Levy. " I'll not be back this afternoon. Look out por every thing!" said Dalman. "Telephone to me up at Blum's house, 968 Lexington avenue, if anything oc curs. / dine there!" answered Dalman, filling his cigar case, turning the knob of his private safe, and leaving without a \ d. As the "boss" appeared, Levy grunted: "You brute ! You woulu not even give me one of those cigars if I slaved fifty years for you! " and he lurched lazily back into his den, where a broad paper-littered table offered him a tempting field for "original re search."

Mr. Moses Dalman could time his drudges to the half-hour, and his bitter, aggressive domination was an ever present silent goad to the resentful toilers in his " mill of the gods," and so, the " office business" ran on. For three long hours, Moses Dalman "dropped in " here and there, wherever he could trace the broad shouldered, soft-hatted wanderers of the West, with their clothes of frontier cut and hugely overgrown golden watch chains. A word with a policeman — a cigar to a janitor — and a few tips at some third-rate drinking saloons, sufficed to give him a faint "view halloo " on the trail of Walter Ryley, the much desired. The janitor of the Consolidated Petroleum and Stock Exchange at last furnished the bustling lawyer with a sure pointer. The hospitable advocate had taken his man across Broadway, and loosened the guardian's tongue with the best of Bacchus's outpourings, the truth-compelling whisky!

"Ah, yes! I remember Walter Ryley very well. When we opened up in ' eighty-eight, 'in the new build ing, he was then in high feather! Back a few months from London, he still had a good deal of money. Had an office with old Colonel Harper, of Arizona. They did a good deal of stock business; firm name ' Harper & Ryley.' All busted up now ! They used to take their luncheon at Billy Mulholland's, over in South William Street. Like as not, old Harper is hanging around there now. He's gone off to rags, and Ryley became a regular 'bum,' poor fellow! Drink and women soon did the business por him ! All that gang of California and Western operators are 'on their uppers' now. You can buy a clothesbasketful of mining stock with a ten-dollar bill to-day. Th" jig is up, as far as they go." The janitor paused f< breath and another drink.

" What sort of a looking man is Ryley ? " carelessly asked the secretly delighted investigator. "Well, he is a tall, heavy-set fellow, with side whiskers, dark eyes and hair, smart and cunning enough, and used to be a heavy swell after he brought back some money from London. But, Good Lord! He may be in the Potter's Field now. I haven't seen him for some years. Find out old Harper. He will surely know about him, if any one does. Harper keeps a grade higher up. He strikes an old friend fora five dollar bill now and then, and, if Ryley is alive, he would surely nose it out, and get a half of it, for Har per's a good old soul." While the janitor recrossed Broadway, with a hand ful of good cigars, Moses Dalman soon sought out the headquarters of Billy Mulholland. Picking his way down South William Street, he pushed the swinging half doors, and ignoring the at tractions of the windows, with their museum of pictured dead prize fighters, passee actresses, and extinct Fenian heroes, he faced a burly, purple-mustasched boniface, whose yellow diamond shone truculently across the bar.

It was "the Mulholland," himself. C Billy Mulholland, recognizing the legal aspect of his visitor, cast a reassuring glance at his ice pick, and the revolver lying ready by the cash drawer, but he broke into a broad grin, as the acute Dalman judiciously ordered the best in the house, and bade his host join him. It was the first legal customer who had ever "blown off" the house! " Colonel Harper ? Oh, yes ! Lt' s about his regular time. Take a seat. He always comes in for an even ing toddy, and a game, in the back room." Mulhol land winked aimiably in the direction of the private room, whither a bare-armed young ganymede of ferocious aspect was bearing a tray of drinks. Pondering over the favorable situation, Moses Dal man now became anxious to strike while the iron was hot. A possible double cross lay threateningly before him.