A Private Chivalry by Francis Lynde

IT was quite dark when the reporter left the Langford gate and set out at a rapid walk toward the nearest street-car corner. As he was turning out of Altamont Terrace a four-wheeler with two men on the box swung into the curving street of the suburb from the boulevard. Jarvis gave a shrill whistle, and the carriage drew up at the curb.

"Is that you, Jarvis? " said Antrim, from his seat beside the driver.

"Yes. You're 'way too early; they haven't been to dinner yet."

"Did you see her?"

"Sure."

"Can she do it?"

"She knows she's got to do it."

"Good enough; I'll go on up to the house and help her."

Jarvis reached up, felt in Antrim's vest pocket, found a cigar, and coolly purloined it. "Begging your pardon, you will do nothing of the kind, _savez vous_? That little battle is one she will have to fight for herself. You go away and kill time for an hour and then come back."

Antrim held his watch down so that the flare of Jarvis's match lighted the face of it.

"Six-thirty -- seven-thirty. The train Hobart is coming on is late, and I'll time things so we can go by the station and pick him up. That gives me a clear hour to spare. Get in, and we'll take you back to town."

The reporter took his place in the empty four-wheeler and rode cityward in solitary state, rode as far as the Union Depot, and then got out to walk uptown. Recalling the incidents of that eventful night, he could never quite account for the impulse which led him to drift aside from the straight course to the Plainsman building, to turn the corner at Blake Street, and finally to stroll aimlessly into Draco's. At that early hour the place was all but deserted, and Tom Deverney was glad enough to have some one to talk to. As a matter of course, he reverted to the impending fate of the one known to both.

"Poor old George! " he said in rough sympathy. "To-morrow morning winds him up, doesn't it? By cripes, if the old town was what it used to be, they'd have to call out the soldiers before they could hang him!"

But Jarvis would not speak of Brant.

"Tell me once more, Tom, about that fellow who was running with the Professor -- about how he looked, I mean."

"Still a-twanging on that old string? " laughed the bartender. "I have told you till I can't remember how he looked myself."

"Never mind; dig it over once more," begged Jarvis "It's the last time I'll ever bother you about him. " And thus besought, Deverney racked his memory and described the unknown man for the twentieth time.

"Old clothes -- always the same old clothes," Jarvis groaned in despair. "Didn't he ever change them, I wonder?"

"Not that anybody ever saw or heard of. I -- " The bartender stopped short and knitted his brows till they met above his eyes. "Say, I told you he was in here to get a drink the night of the killing, didn't I?"

"Yes."