curse! The blood boiled in me. The old Nance never stood that;

she used to sneer at other women who did.
"Get out of here!" I cried. "Go--go, Tom Dorgan. I'll send

every cent I've got to you to Mother Douty's within two hours,
but don't you dare--"

"Don't YOU dare, you she-devil! Just make up your mind to drop
these newfangled airs, and mighty quick. I tell you you'll come

with me 'cause I need you and I want you, and I want you now. And
I'll keep you when once I get you again. We'll hang together. No

more o' this one-sided lay-out for me, where you get all the soft
and it's me for the hard. You belong to me. Yes, you do. Just

think back a bit, Nance Olden, and remember the kind of customer
I am. If you've forgot, just let me remind you that what I know

would put you behind bars, my lady, and it shall, I swear, if
I've got to go to the Chair for it!"

Tom! It was Tom talking that way to me. I couldn't bear it.
I made a rush for the door.

He got there, too, and catching me by the shoulder, he lifted his
fist.

But it never fell, Mag. I think I could kill a man who struck me.
But just as I shut my eyes and shivered away from him, while I

waited for the blow, a knock came at the door and Fred Obermuller
walked in.

"Eh? Oh! Excuse me. I didn't know there was anybody else. Nance,
your face is ghastly. What's up?" he said sharply.

He looked from me to Tom--Tom, standing off there ready to spring
on him, to dart past him, to fly out of the window--ready for

anything; only waiting to know what the thing was to be.
My senses came back to me then. The sight of Obermuller, with

those keen, quick eyes behind his glasses, his strong, square
chin, and the whole poise of his head and body that makes men

wait to hear what he has to say; the knowledge that that man was
my friend, mine--Nancy Olden's--lifted me out of the mud I'd sunk

back in, and put my feet again on a level with his.
"Tom," I said slowly, "Mr. Obermuller is a friend of mine.

No--listen! What we've been talking about is settled. Don't bring
it up again. It doesn't interest him and it can't change me; I

swear to you, it can't; nothing can. I'm going to ask Mr.
Obermuller to help you without telling him just what the scrape

is, and--and I'm going to be sure that he'll do it just because
he--"

"Because you've taken up with him, have you?" Tom shouted
savagely. "Because she's your--"

"Tom!" I cried.
"Tom--oh, yes, now I remember." Obermuller got between us as he

spoke. "Your friend up--in the country that you went to see and
couldn't. Not a very good-looker, your friend, Nance.

But--farming, I suppose, Mr.--Tom?--plays the deuce with one's
looks. And another thing it does: it makes a man forget sometimes

just how to behave in town. I'll be charmed, Mr. Tom, to oblige a
friend of Miss Olden's; but I must insist that he does not talk

like a--farmer."
He was quite close to Tom when he finished, and Tom was glaring

up at him. And, Mag, I didn't know which one I was most afraid
for. Don't you look at me that way, Mag Monahan, and don't you

dare to guess anything!
"If you think," growled Tom, "that I'm going to let you get

off with the girl, you're mighty--"
"Now, I've told you not to say that. The reason I'll do the

thing she's going to ask of me--if it's what I think it is--is
because this girl's a plucky little creature with a soul big

enough to lift her out of the muck you probably helped her into.
It's because she's got brains, talent, and a heart. It's

because--well, it's because I feel like it, and she deserves a
friend."

"You don't know what she is." It was a snarl from Tom. "You
don't--"

"Oh, yes, I do; you cur! I know what she was, too. And I even
know what she will be; but that doesn't concern you."

"The hell it don't!"
Obermuller turned his back on him. I was dumb and still. Tom

Dorgan had struck me after all.
"What is it you want me to do, Nance?" Obermuller asked.

"Get him away on a steamer--quick," I murmured--I couldn't look
him in the face--"without asking why, or what his name is."

He turned to Tom. "Well?"
"I won't go--not without her."

"Because you're so fond of her, eh? So fond, your first thought
on quitting the--country was to come here to get her in trouble.

If you've been traced--"
"Ah! You wouldn't like that, eh?" sneered Tom. "Would you?"

"Well, I've had my share of it. And she ain't. Still--I . . .
Just what would it be worth to you to have me out of the way?"

"Oh, Tom--Tom--" I cried.
But Obermuller got in front of me.

"It would be worth exactly one dollar and seventy-five cents.
I think it will amount to about that for cab-hire. I guess the cars

aren't any too safe for you, or it might be less. It may amount
to something more before I get you shipped before the mast on the

first foreign-bound boat. But what's more important," he added,
bringing his fist down with a mighty thump on the table, "you

have just ten seconds to make up your mind. At the end of that
time I'll ring for the police."

* * * * * * * * * * *
I went down to the boat to see it sail, Mag, at seven this

morning. No, not to say good-by to him. He didn't know I was
there. It was to say good-by to my old Tommy; the one I loved.

Truly I did love him, Mag, though he never cared for me. No, he
didn't. Men don't pull down the women they love; I know that now.

If Tom Dorgan had ever cared for me he wouldn't have made a thief
of me. If he'd cared, the last place on earth he'd have come to,

when he knew the detectives would be on his track, would have
been just the first place he made for. If he'd cared, he--

But it's done, Mag. It's all over. Cheap--that's what he is, this
Tom Dorgan. Cheaply bad--a cheap bully, cheap-brained. Remember

my wishing he'd have been a ventriloquist? Why, that man that
tried to sell me to Obermuller hasn't sense enough to be a good

scene-shifter. Oh--
The firm of Dorgan & Olden is dissolved, Mag. The retiring

partner has gone into the theatrical business. As for Dorgan--the
real one, poor fellow! jolly, handsome, big Tom Dorgan--he died.

Yes, he died, Maggie, and was buried up there in the prison
graveyard. A hard lot for a boy; but it's not the worst thing

that can happen to him. He might become a man; such a man as that
fellow that sailed away before the mast this morning.

X.
There I was seated in a box all alone--Miss Nancy Olden, by

courtesy of the management, come to listen to the leading lady
sing coon-songs, that I might add her to my collection of

take-offs.
She's a fat leading lady, very fair and nearly fifty, I guess.

But she's got a rollicking, husky voice in her fat throat that's
sung the dollars down deep into her pockets. They say she's

planted them deeper still--in the foundations of apartment
houses--and that now she's the richest roly-poly on the Rialto.

Do you know, Maggie darlin', what I was saying to myself there in
the box, while I watched the stage and waited for Obermuller? He

said he'd drop in later, perhaps.
"Nance," I said, "I kind of fancy that apartment sort of idea

myself. They tell you, Nancy, that when you've got the artistic
temperament, that that's all you'll ever have. But there's a

chance--one in a hundred--for a body to get that temperament
mixed with a business instinct. It doesn't often happen. But when

it does the result is--dollars. It may be, Nance--I shrewdly
suspect it is a fact that you've got that marvelousmixture. Your

early successes, Miss Olden, in another profession that I needn't
name, would encourage the idea that you're not all heart and no

head. I think, Nance, I shall have you mimic the artists during
working hours and the business men when you're at play. I fancy

apartment houses. They appeal to me. We'll call one `The Nancy'
and another `Olden Hall' and another . . . "

"What'll I call the third apartment house, Mr. O?" I asked
aloud, as I heard the rings on the portiere behind me click.

He didn't answer.
Without turning my head I repeated the question.

And yet--suddenly--before he could have answered, I knew
something was wrong.

I turned. And in that moment a man took the seat beside me and
another stood facing me, with his back against the portieres.

"Miss Olden?" the man beside me asked.
"Yes."

"Nance Olden, the mimic, who entertains at private houses?"
I nodded.

"You--you were at Mrs. Paul Gates' just a week ago, and you gave
your specialties there?"

"Yes--yes, what is it you want?"
He was a little man, but very muscular. I could note the play of

his muscles even in the slight motion he made as he turned his
body so as to get between me and the audience, while he leaned

toward me, watching me intently with his small, quick, blue eyes.
"We don't want to make any scene here," he said very low. "We

want to do it up as quietly as we can. There might be some
mistake, you know, and then you'd be sorry. So should we. I hope

you'll be reasonable and it'll be all the better for you
because--"

"What are you talk--what--" I looked from him to the other
fellow behind us.

He leaned a bit farther forward then, and pulling his coat partly
open, he showed me a detective's badge. And the other man quickly

did the same.
I sat back in my chair. The fat star on the stage, with her big

mouth and big baby-face, was doing a cake-walk up and down close
to the footlights, yelling the chorus of her song.

I'll never mimic that song, Mag, although I can see her and hear
it as plain as though I'd listened and watched her all my life.

But there's no fun in it for me. I hate the very bars the
orchestra plays before she begins to sing. I can't bear even to

think of the words. The whole of it is full of horrible
things--it smells of the jail--it looks like stripes--it . . .

"You're not going to faint?" asked the man, moving closer to me.
"Me? I never fainted in my life. . . Where is he now--Tom

Dorgan?"
"Tom Dorgan!"

"Yes. I was sure I saw him sail, but, of course, I was mistaken.
He has sent you after me, has he? I can hardly believe it of

Tom--even--even yet."
"I don't know anything that connects you with Dorgan. If he was

in with you on this, you'd better remember, before you say
anything more, that it'll all be used against you."

The curtain had gone down and gone up again. I was watching the
star. She has such a boyish way of nodding her head, instead of

bowing, after she waddles out to the center; and every time she
wipes her lips with her lace handkerchief, as though she'd just

taken one of the cocktails she makes in the play with all the
skill of a bartender. I found myself doing the same thing--wiping

my lips with that very same gesture, as though I had a fat, bare
forearm like a rolling-pin--when all at once the thought came to

me: "You needn't bother, Nancy. It's all up. You won't have any
use for it all."

"Just what is the charge?" I asked, turning to the man beside me.
"Stealing a purse containing three hundred dollars from Mrs.

• remind [ri´maind] vt.提醒；使记(想)起 (初中英语单词)
• standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
• waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
• behave [bi´heiv] v.举止；表现；举止端正 (初中英语单词)
• oblige [ə´blaidʒ] vt.责成；迫使；使感激 (初中英语单词)
• talent [´tælənt] n.天才；才干；天资 (初中英语单词)
• amount [ə´maunt] n.总数；数量 v.合计 (初中英语单词)
• management [´mænidʒmənt] n.管理；处理；经营 (初中英语单词)
• collection [kə´lekʃən] n.收集；征收；募捐 (初中英语单词)
• throat [θrəut] n.咽喉；嗓子；出入口 (初中英语单词)
• apartment [ə´pɑ:tmənt] n.一套房间 (初中英语单词)
• instinct [´instiŋkt] n.本能；直觉；天资 (初中英语单词)
• marvelous [´mɑ:viləs] (=marvellous) a.奇异的 (初中英语单词)
• mixture [´mikstʃə] n.混合；混合比；混合物 (初中英语单词)
• profession [prə´feʃən] n.职业；声明；表白 (初中英语单词)
• encourage [in´kʌridʒ] vt.鼓励；怂勇；促进 (初中英语单词)
• audience [´ɔ:diəns] n.听众；观众；接见 (初中英语单词)
• reasonable [´rizənəbəl] a.合理的；有理智的 (初中英语单词)
• chorus [´kɔ:rəs] n.合唱；齐声 v.合唱 (初中英语单词)
• handkerchief [´hæŋkətʃif] n.手帕，手绢 (初中英语单词)
• gesture [´dʒestʃə] n.手势 v.打手势 (初中英语单词)
• bother [´bɔðə] v.打扰 n.麻烦(事) (初中英语单词)
• mighty [´maiti] a.强有力的 ad.很 (高中英语单词)
• ghastly [´gɑ:stli] a.苍白的；可怕的 (高中英语单词)
• saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
• appeal [ə´pi:l] vi.&n.请求；呼吁；上诉 (高中英语单词)
• repeated [ri´pi:tid] a.反复的；重复的 (高中英语单词)
• muscular [´mʌskjulə] a.肌肉的；强有力的 (高中英语单词)
• motion [´məuʃən] n.手势 vt.打手势 (高中英语单词)
• theatrical [θi´ætrikəl] a.戏院的；戏剧(性)的 (英语四级单词)
• intently [in´tentli] ad.专心地 (英语四级单词)
• boyish [´bɔiiʃ] a.少年的；幼稚的 (英语四级单词)