But to revert to the morning when I made Miss Leigh's fire for her. I hunted for Dix all day, but without success, and was so busy about it that I did not have time to begin my search for Jeams. That evening, as it was raining hard, I treated myself to the unwonted luxury of a ride home on a street-car. The streets were greasy with a thick, black paste of mud, and the smoke was down on our heads in a dark slop. Like Petrarch, my thoughts were on Laura, and I was repining at the rain mainly because it prevented the possibility of a glimpse of Miss Leigh on the street: a chance I was ever on the watch for.

I boarded an open car just after it started and just before it ran through a short subway. The next moment a man who had run after the car sprang on the step beside me, and, losing his footing, he would probably have fallen and might have been crushed between the car and the edge of the tunnel, which we at that moment were entering, had I not had the good fortune, being on the outer seat, to catch him and hold him up. Even as it was, his coat was torn and my elbow was badly bruised against the pillar at the entrance. I, however, pulled him over across my knees and held him until we had gone through the subway, when I made room for him on the seat beside me.

"That was a close call, my friend," I said. "Don't try that sort of thing too often."

"It was, indeed—the closest I ever had, and I have had some pretty close ones before. If you had not caught me, I would have been in the morgue to-morrow morning."

This I rather repudiated, but as the sequel showed, the idea appeared to have become fixed in his mind. We had some little talk together and I discovered that, like myself, he had come out West to better his fortune, and as he was dressed very plainly, I assumed that, like myself, he had fallen on rather hard times, and I expressed sympathy. "Where have I seen you before?" I asked him.

"On the train once coming from the East."

"Oh! yes." I remembered now. He was the man who knew things.

"You know Mr. McSheen?" he asked irrelevantly.

"Yes—slightly. I have an office in the same building."

I wondered how he knew that I knew him.

"Yes. Well, you want to look out for him. Don't let him fool you. He's deep. What's that running down your sleeve? Why, it's blood! Where did it come from?" He looked much concerned.

"From my arm, I reckon. I hurt it a little back there, but it is nothing."

He refused to be satisfied with my explanation and insisted strongly on my getting off and going with him to see a doctor. I laughed at the idea.

"Why, I haven't any money to pay a doctor," I said.

"It won't cost you a cent. He is a friend of mine and as good a surgeon as any in the city. He's straight—knows his business. You come along."

So, finding that my sleeve was quite soaked with blood, I yielded and went with him to the office of his friend, a young doctor named Traumer, who lived in a part of the town bordering on the working people's section, which, fortunately, was not far from where we got off the car. Also, fortunately, we found him at home. He was a slim young fellow with a quiet, self-assured manner and a clean-cut face, lighted by a pair of frank, blue eyes.

"Doc," said my conductor, "here's a friend of mine who wants a little patching up."

"That's the way with most friends of yours, Bill," said the doctor, who had given me a single keen look. "What's the matter with him? Shot? Or have the pickets been after him?"

"No, he's got his arm smashed saving a man's life."

"What! Well, let's have a look at it. He doesn't look very bad." He helped me off with my coat and, as he glanced at the sleeve, gave a little exclamation.

"Hello!"

"Whose life did he save?" he asked, as he was binding up the arm. "That's partly a mash."

"Mine."

"Oh! I see." He went to work and soon had me bandaged up. "Well, he's all right now. What were you doing?" he asked as he put on the last touches.

"Jumping on a car."

"Ah!" The doctor was manifestly amused. "You observe that our friend is laconic?" he said to me.

"What's that?" asked the other. "Don't prejudice him against me. He don't know anything against me yet—and that's more than some folks can say."

"Who was on that car that you were following?" asked the doctor, with a side glance at my friend. The latter did not change his expression a particle.

"Doc, did you ever hear what the parrot said to herself after she had sicked the dog on, and the dog not seeing anything but her, jumped on her?"

"No—what?"

"'Polly, you talk too d——d much.'"

The doctor chuckled and changed the subject. "What's your labor-friend, Wringman, doing now? What did he come back here for?"

"Same old thing—dodging work."

"He seems to me to work other people pretty well."

The other nodded acquiescingly.

"He's on a new line now. McSheen's got him. Yes, he has," as the doctor looked incredulous.

"What's he after? Who's he working for?"

"Same person—Coll McSheen. Pretty busy, too. Mr. Glave there knows him already."

"Glave!—Glave!" repeated the doctor. "Where did I hear your name? Oh, yes! Do you know a preacher named John Marvel!"

"John Marvel! Why, yes. I went to college with him. I knew him well."

"You knew a good man then."

"He is that," said the other promptly. "If there were more like him I'd be out of a job."

"You know Miss Leigh, too?"

"What Miss Leigh?" My heart warmed at the name and I forgot all about Marvel. How did he know that I knew her?

"'The Angel of the Lost Children.'"

"'The Angel—'? Miss Eleanor Leigh?" Then as he nodded—"Slightly." My heart was now quite warm. "Who called her so?"

"She said she knew you. I look after some of her friends for her."

"Who called her the 'Angel of the Lost Children'?"

"A friend of mine—Leo Wolffert, who works in the slums—a writer. She's always finding and helping some one who is lost, body or soul."

"Leo Wolffert! Do you know him?"

"I guess we all know him, don't we, Doc?" put in the other man. "And so do some of the big ones."

"Rather."

"And the lady, too—she's a good one, too," he added.

I was so much interested in this part of the conversation that I forgot at the moment to ask the doctor where he had known John Marvel and Wolffert.

I, however, asked him what I owed him, and he replied,

"Not a cent. Any of Langton's friends here or John Marvel's friends, or (after a pause) Miss Leigh's friends may command me. I am only too glad to be able to serve them. It's the only way I can help."

"That's what I told him," said my friend, whose name I heard for the first time. "I told him you weren't one of these Jew doctors that appraise a man as soon as he puts his nose in the door and skin him clean."

"I am a Jew, but I hope I am not one of that kind."

"No; but there are plenty of 'em."

I came away feeling that I had made two friends well worth making. They were real men.

When I parted from my friend he took out of his pocket-book a card. "For my friends," he said, as he handed it to me. When I got to the light I read:

"Wm. Langton, Private Detective."

It was not until long afterward that I knew that the man he was following when he sprang on the car and I saved him was myself, and that I owed the attention to my kinsman and to Mr. Leigh, to whom Peck had given a rather sad account of me. My kinsman had asked him to ascertain how I lived.

I called on my new friend, Langton, earlier than he had expected. In my distress about Dix I consulted him the very next day and he undertook to get him back. I told him I had not a cent to pay him with at present, but some day I should have it and then——

"You'll never owe me a cent as long as you live," he said. "Besides, I'd like to find that dog. I remember him. He's a good one. You say you used the back stairway at times, opening on the alley near Mick Raffity's?"

"Yes."

He looked away out of the window with a placid expression.

"I wouldn't go down that way too often at night," he said presently.

"Why?"

"Oh! I don't know. You might stumble and break your neck. One or two men have done it."

"Oh! I'll be careful," I laughed. "I'm pretty sure-footed."

"You need to be—there. You say your dog's a good fighter?"

"He's a paladin. Can whip any dog I ever saw. I never fought him, but I had a negro boy who used to take him off till I stopped him."

"Well, I'll find him—that is, I'll find where he went."

I thanked him and strolled over across town to try to get a glimpse of the "Angel of the Lost Children." I saw her in a carriage with another young girl, and as I gazed at her she suddenly turned her eyes and looked straight at me, quite as if she had expected to see me, and the smile she gave me, though only that which a pleasant thought wings, lighted my heart for a week.

A day or two later my detective friend dropped into my office.

"Well, I have found him." His face showed that placid expression which, with him, meant deep satisfaction. "The police have him—are holding him in a case, but you can identify and get him. He was in the hands of a negro dog-stealer and they got him in a raid. They pulled one of the toughest joints in town when there was a fight going on and pinched a full load. The nigger was among them. He put up a pretty stiff fight and they had to hammer him good before they quieted him. He'll go down for ninety days sure. He was a fighter, they said—butted men right and left."

"I'm glad they hammered him—you're sure it's Dix?"

"Sure; he claimed the dog; said he'd raised him. But it didn't go. I knew he'd stolen him because he said he knew you."

"Knew me—a negro? What did he say his name was?"

"They told me—let me see—Professor Jeams—something."

"Not Woodson?"

"Yes, that's it."

"Well, for once in his life he told the truth. He sold me the dog. You say he's in jail? I must go and get him out."

"You'll find it hard work. Fighting the police is a serious crime in this city. A man had better steal, rob, or kill anybody else than fight an officer."

"Who has most pull down there?"

"Well, Coll McSheen has considerable. He runs the police. He may be next Mayor."

I determined, of course, to go at once and see what I could do to get Jeams out of his trouble. I found him in the common ward among the toughest criminals in the jail—a massive and forbidding looking structure—to get into which appeared for a time almost as difficult as to get out. But on expressing my wish to be accorded an interview with him, I was referred from one official to another, until, with my back to the wall, I came to a heavy, bloated, ill-looking creature who went by the name of Sergeant Byle. I preferred my request to him. I might as well have undertaken to argue with the stone images which were rudely carved as Caryatides beside the entrance. He simply puffed his big black cigar in silence, shook his head, and looked away from me; and my urging had no other effect than to bring a snicker of amusement from a couple of dog-faced shysters who had entered and, with a nod to him, had sunk into greasy chairs.

"Who do you know here?"

A name suddenly occurred to me, and I used it.

"Among others, I know Mr. McSheen," and as I saw his countenance fall, I added, "and he is enough for the present." I looked him sternly in the eye.

He got up out of his seat and actually walked across the room, opened a cupboard and took out a key, then rang a bell.

"Why didn't you say you were a friend of his?" he asked surlily. "A friend of Mr. McSheen can see any one he wants here."

I have discovered that civility will answer with nine-tenths or even nineteen-twentieths of the world, but there is a class of intractable brutes who yield only to force and who are influenced only by fear, and of them was this sodden ruffian. He led the way now subserviently enough, growling from time to time some explanation, which I took to be his method of apologizing. When, after going through a number of corridors, which were fairly clean and well ventilated, we came at length to the ward where my unfortunate client was confined, the atmosphere was wholly different: hot and fetid and intolerable. The air struck me like a blast from some infernal region, and behind the grating which shut off the miscreants within from even the modified freedom of the outer court was a mass of humanity of all ages, foul enough in appearance to have come from hell.

At the call of the turnkey, there was some interest manifested in their evil faces and some of them shouted back, repeating the name of Jim Woodson; some half derisively, others with more kindliness. At length, out of the mob emerged poor Jeams, but, like Lucifer, Oh, how changed! His head was bandaged with an old cloth, soiled and stained; his mien was dejected, and his face was swollen and bruised. At sight of me, however, he suddenly gave a cry, and springing forward tried to thrust his hands through the bars of the grating to grasp mine. "Lord, God!" he exclaimed. "If it ain't de Captain. Glory be to God! Marse Hen, I knowed you'd come, if you jes' heard 'bout me. Git me out of dis, fur de Lord's sake. Dis is de wuss place I ever has been in in my life. Dey done beat me up and put handcuffs on me, and chain me, and fling me in de patrol-wagon, and lock me up and sweat me, and put me through the third degree, till I thought if de Lord didn't take mercy 'pon me, I would be gone for sho. Can't you git me out o' dis right away?"

I explained the impossibility of doing this immediately, but assured him that he would soon be gotten out and that I would look after his case and see that he got justice.

"Yes, sir, that is what I want—jestice—I don't ax nothin' but jestice."

"How did you get here?" I demanded. And even in his misery, I could not help being amused to see his countenance fall.

"Dey fetched me here in de patrol-wagon," he said evasively.

"I know that. I mean, for what?"

"Well, dey say, Captain, dat I wus desorderly an' drunk, but you know I don' drink nothin'."

"I know you do, you fool," I said, with some exasperation. "I have no doubt you were what they say, but what I mean is, where is Dix and how did you get hold of him?"

"Well, you see, Marse Hen, it's dthis way," said Jeams falteringly. "I come here huntin' fur you and I couldn' fin' you anywheres, so then I got a place, and while I wus lookin' 'roun' fur you one day, I come 'pon Dix, an' as he wus lost, jes' like you wus, an' he didn't know where you wus, an' you didn't know where he wus, I tuk him along to tek care of him till I could fin' you."

"And incidentally to fight him?" I said.

Again Jeams's countenance fell. "No, sir, that I didn't," he declared stoutly. "Does you think I'd fight dthat dog after what you tol' me?"

"Yes, I do. I know you did, so stop lying about it and tell me where he is, or I will leave you in here to rot till they send you down to the rockpile or the penitentiary."

"Yes, sir; yes, sir, I will. Fur God's sake, don' do dat, Marse Hen. Jes' git me out o' here an' I will tell you everything; but I'll swear I didn't fight him; he jes' got into a fight so, and then jist as he hed licked de stuffin out of dat Barkeep Gallagin's dog, them d——d policemen come in an' hammered me over the head because I didn't want them to rake in de skads and tek Dix 'way from me."

I could not help laughing at his contradictions.

"Well, where is he now?"

"I'll swear, Marse Hen, I don' know. You ax the police. I jes' know he ain't in here, but dey knows where he is. I prays night and day no harm won't happen to him, because dat dog can beat any dog in this sinful town. I jes' wish you had seen him."

As the turnkey was now showing signs of impatience, I cut Jeams short, thereby saving him the sin of more lies, and with a promise that I would get him bailed out if I could, I came away.

The turnkey had assured me on the way that he would find and return me my dog, and was so sincere in his declaration that nothing would give him more pleasure than to do this for any friend of Mr. McSheen's, that I made the concession of allowing him to use his efforts in this direction. But I heard nothing more of him.

With the aid of my friend, the detective, I soon learned the names of the police officers who had arrested Jeams, and was enabled to get from them the particulars of the trouble which caused his arrest.

It seemed that, by one of the strange and fortuitous circumstances which so often occur in life, Jeams had come across Dix just outside of the building in which was my law office, and being then in his glory, he had taken the dog into the bar-room of Mick Raffity, where he had on arrival in town secured a place, to see what chance there might be of making a match with Dix. The match was duly arranged and came off the following night in a resort not far from Raffity's saloon, and Dix won the fight. Just at this moment, however, the police made a raid, pulled the place and arrested as many of the crowd as could not escape, and held on to as many of those as were without requisite influence to secure their prompt discharge. In the course of the operation, Jeams got soundly hammered, though I could not tell whether it was for being drunk or for engaging in a scrimmage with the police. Jeams declared privately that it was to prevent his taking down the money.

When the trial came off, I had prepared myself fully, but I feel confident that nothing would have availed to secure Jeams's acquittal except for two circumstances: One was that I succeeded in enlisting the interest of Mr. McSheen, who for some reason of his own showed a disposition to be particularly civil and complacent toward me at that time—so civil indeed that I quite reproached myself for having conceived a dislike of him. Through his intervention, as I learned later, the most damaging witness against my client suddenly became exceedingly friendly to him and on the witness-stand failed to remember any circumstance of importance which could injure him, and finally declared his inability to identify him.

The result was that Jeams was acquitted, and when he was so informed, he arose and made a speech to the Court and the Jury which would certainly fix him in their memory forever. In the course of it, he declared that I was the greatest lawyer that had ever lived in the world, and I had to stop him for fear, in his ebullient enthusiasm, he might add also that Dix was the greatest dog that ever lived.