The House of a Thousand Candles

me aside, ignored my hand and otherwise threw into our meeting a casual qualit

h il

ert and heard the camel-drivers cursing and our Suda

h exclaimed in

se. I had seen him stand thus once on a time when we had eaten nothing in four days-it was in Abyssi

go. He's been at it for several months; hence my presence on these shores of the brave and the free. He's probably still looking, as he's a persiste

e to-night,

too many

e. I'm about to go into exile, and I want t

ell. Where are you off

the sovereign American sta

dia

ranted a

automobile-camels,-h

the getting there; it's the not dyi

ur did you say

k. Meet me at

ede you through the door, and don'

m, lounged out upon Broadway and turned toward the Batter

oe out of commission. I learned later that it was a way he had. The Englishman meant well enough, but he could not, of course, know the intensity of Larry's feeling about the unhappy lot of Ireland. In the beginning of my own acquaintanc

British subject and that the American consul had no right to give him asylum,-a point that was, I understand, thoroughly well-grounded in law and fact. Larry maintained, on the other hand, that he was not English but Irish, and that, as his cou

his university days with the most radical and turbulent advocates of a separate national existence for Ireland, and occasionally spent a month in jail for rioting. But Larry's instincts were scholarly; he made a brilliant record at the University; then, at twenty-two, he came forth to look at the world, and liked it exceedingly well. His father was a busy man, and he had other sons; he granted Larry an allowance and told him to keep away from home until he got rea

his disposition to breed discord and indulge in riot. When we sat down for a leisurely dinner at Sherry's we were not, I modestly maintain, a forbidding pair. We-if I may drag myself into the matter-

he handsomest and best put-up people in the world, and I believe he was persuaded of it that night as we gazed with eyes long unaccustomed to splendor upon the great company assembled in the restaurant. Th

aid. "Have you done murder?

y, from the row they kicked up in the newspapers. I lay low for a couple of weeks, caught a boat

ay in America. There's more room here than anywhere else, and

pompano with his fork. "Kindly note the florid gentleman at your right -at the table with

important. You don't

ning while I was talking to you in the bank. Later on I had the pleasure of trailing him for an hour or so until he finally brought up at the British consul's office.

glass dreamily, holding it up

our own immediate prese

m's legacy as brief as possible, for brev

our hands and wait. It doesn't sound awfully at

it to my grandfather's memory to ma

ou, Glenarm," he said mocking

not twenty feet away. A party of half a dozen or more had risen, a

her women of the party, who were arrayed with a degree of splendor. She had dropped her fan, and Pickering stooped to pick it up. In the second that she waited she turned carelessly toward me, and our eyes met for an instant. Very likely she was Pickering's sister, and I tri

r seen, and even in that brilliant, crowded room I felt their spell. They were fixed

vantage," he observed qu

friend Pickering," I answered; a

en," he observed dryly. "I'm sorry I couldn't s

nful eyes, the glint of gold in her hair. Pickering was certainly finding the pleasant places in this vale of tears,

the acquaintance of a few representative Am

nd for another he wouldn't go bail for you

iled qui

he sight of the lady has shaken

ke sorrows of

any 'drew swords and died,' and calamity followed in her t

me. But what became of that Irish colleen you used to moon over? Her distinguishing feature, as I remembe

lin I found that she had marri

t upper lip! Her face never i

t reached you at Naples in October. Has it occurred to you that there was quite an interim there? What, may I ask, was the executor doing all that time? You may be sure he

my stupidity which I have nev

h, I was thinking of other

Well, if that person with the fat neck was your friend Pickering, I'd have a care of what's coming to me. I'd be quite sure

fine old gentleman, and I treated him like a dog. I'm going to do wha

known to exist, it must be buried pretty deep. Your grandfather was a trifle eccentric, I judge, but not a fool by any manner of means. The situation appeals to

ng of people and places we

vening, at my hotel, he criticized my effect

ated the rifles and several revolvers which I brought from the clo

y rifle I had used last on a le

use on the landlords. I say, Jack, are we never to seek our fortunes together again?

th unnecessary care, but there was a quaver

!" I exclaimed, w

ck it out there alone. It's part of the game the old gentleman set up for you, as I understand it. Go ahead, collect your fortune, and then, if I haven

t again, for Larry was one of the few men I had ever called frie

ry if I were you. Now, I've been kicking around here for a couple of weeks, dodging the detectives, and incidentally readin

een able to instruct me about most matters; it was wholly

nd the mysterious disappearance of the property have been duly discussed. You're evidently an object of

summer, arrived on the Maxinkuckee from Naples yesterday. Under the terms of his grandfather's will, Glenarm is

he has, since his graduation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology five years ago, distributed a

certainly beheld, and if I spent the m

s. As I looked back at the lights of the city, something beyond the sorrow at parting from a comrade touched me. A sense of foreboding, of coming danger, crept into my heart. But I was going upon the tamest possible excursion; for the first

men!" ejac

anded, giving my

igns,-mooning, silence, sudden inexplicable laughte

me if they hold you for

of future meetings, during t

ale, Wabana County, Indiana," on a card. "Now if you need me at any time

have my address, though this last

my sleeper. Turning, with my foot on the step, I wave

s moving slowly out into the n