Astonished even more than he had been when she first questioned the propriety of Consuello's living alone in the city, John hurried into the house after his mother and found her in a chair beside a table in the living room, her head buried in her arms.

"Mother!" he exclaimed, anxiously. "What is wrong? Are you ill? Don't, mother, don't cry. Speak to me, speak to me."

She did not answer. He stepped forward quickly and lifted her face between his hands, tenderly. He saw that her eyes were filled with tears.

"Please," she said, drawing back her head. He dropped his arms to his sides. "Please, I must be alone," she said.

"Tell me, tell me, what is it?" he begged.

Rising a trifle unsteadily to her feet she walked past him to the door. He wheeled as she was about to step out of the room and caught her in his arms.

"Mother, dearest," he pleaded, "what is it? Is it because you do not approve? Is it so terrible that she must work to live and that she plays in pictures? Surely, you can't think wrong of her?"

Slowly she nodded her head. He stepped back in amazement. How could she possibly think such things?

"I had hoped, because she was a friend of yours, that she would be what you thought her," Mrs. Gallant said, tremulously.

"Why, mother, what are you talking about?" he gasped. "She is my friend and there is nothing to make me think that she is anything but what I believed her to be, a dear, kind friend."

Mrs. Gallant clasped her hands at her waist and straightened her shoulders.

"She dared—dared to receive you alone in her dressing room," she said. "John, don't you understand what that means? Don't you know how wrong it was? Do decent girls do such things? An actress! I've heard enough about them. An actress who allows herself to be kissed and held in men's arms! An associate of—"

He raised his hand quickly.

"Mother!" he expostulated, "you can't say that. You can't, you can't."

For a moment they stood facing each other and an expression of despair crossed her features as she whirled around and left the room. John stood stunned until he heard the door of her bedroom close. With a heavy sigh he threw himself into a chair and bowed his head in his hands, staring distractedly at the design in the rug under his feet.

Until far into the night he sat there, thinking, thinking, thinking. Mingled exasperation and perplexity racked his brain and finally he attempted to collect his thoughts and reason it all out. It was ridiculous, he thought, and yet so serious. Gradually he came to study the entire situation from the viewpoint of his mother and by doing so he came to a solution of the difficulty. His heart softened toward her and he found an excuse for her antipathy for Consuello.

Primarily, he understood his mother's great love for him, her desire to protect him, guard his happiness and assure his success in life was the cause for the unreasonable attitude she had taken toward the girl who had been so kind to him. Perhaps his mother still clung to her hastily-formed idea that he was in love and that his "undisciplined heart"—the descriptive words were fresh in his mind from his reading again of "David Copperfield"—would lead him into trouble.

And then he easily comprehended her aversion to motion pictures and those who played in them, insupportable by facts as it was. The strict, narrow training she had received as a girl had nurtured in her an abhorrence of public performers, particularly actors and actresses, whom she regarded without exception as libertines. This misconception had been increased by the scandalous and equally slanderous stories that had reached her ears concerning motion pictures and the life led by those engaged in the producing of photoplays in Hollywood.

The faults of one or two who became involved in scandal of some sort she gave to all. Because a motion picture actress, as human as any other woman and as liable to imperfection, sought a divorce in the courts she instantly, in Mrs. Gallant's mind, became an immoral character. A motion picture actor attacked by a blackmailer because of his wealth and prominence, was adjudged guilty of whatever wrong of which he was accused. It was an unfair and unjust attitude common to thousands of women as wholesome in character, as kindly and merciful in disposition and as saintly to those who loved them and were loved by them, as Mrs. Gallant.

In his unsuspecting delight in being able to explain to his mother why Consuello lived apart from her parents, he had completely overlooked her foible in disliking motion picture players simply because they were members of that profession. Likewise he had forgotten precaution by telling her that Consuello had received him in her dressing room. He had been unable to tell her that Consuello, although she enjoyed work and had a pride in it, had entered the pictures to provide for her aging parents. The confidence, as he regarded it, that Consuello had placed in him in informing him that she and Gibson were engaged to be married, he could not, he felt, reveal.

He pondered for a time over a disconcerting thought that possibly it had not been proper after all, for Consuello to have allowed him to see her in her dressing room, alone, without having previously mentioned to Gibson her intention of doing such a thing. It had been obvious that Gibson was genuinely surprised when he found John with her. He finally dismissed any apprehension created by this thought by recalling Consuello's apparent guilelessness.

He fatigued his brain in a vain endeavor to decide upon some means of overcoming his mother's prejudice. Setting aside the fact that he wanted them to be friends, to know and find in each other the things he admired in them, the principle of the whole affair concerned him. He remembered how different his father had been, how tolerant, how ready to withhold adverse judgment of a person until both sides of the story had been heard.

Weary, unhappy, disconcerted, he went to his bedroom and puzzled over his problem until he fell asleep. Mrs. Gallant had composed herself, somewhat severely, when he saw her in the morning at breakfast. There was a trace of haggardness in her face that told him she, too, had spent a restless night.

"Mother, dear," he said, holding her in his arms before he left for work, "you know how much I love you." She seemed to yield a little in response to his tenderness.

"I know, my boy," she said, "and you must realize how much I care for you."

"Oh, I do, I do," he said, "you have always been a wonderful, wonderful mother to me. Remember, nothing must come between us."

Her severe aspect, which, he knew, she assumed to compose herself, disappeared and the love that she bore him as her first and only son shone in her eyes as she kissed him when he left. It was like the kisses she had given him when he was a grammar school boy.

Later in the day John met an old friend whom he had almost forgotten. It was the scrawny youth with the twisted nose and the husky voice who had been a second in his corner the night he fought Battling Rodriguez to get money to pay for his father's funeral. He remembered the youth as Murphy when he met him lounging at the counter of a cigar stand at the entrance to one of Spring street's most celebrated saloons, which now was converted into a soft drink and lunch establishment and which was frequented by men who loitered in and around it for the associations it held for them and the memory of other days.

Murphy, a brown paper cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth, hailed him as he passed.

"If it ain't da Gallant kid!" he said, speaking from beneath the visor of his cloth cap, pulled tightly around his ears. They shook hands.

"Hello, Murphy, what have you been doing since the night that Mexican nearly killed me?" asked John, feeling somehow that he owed the second something for the care he had taken of him after he had staggered from the ring, bruised and battered.

"Oh, da same old stuff, da same old stuff," Murphy replied. "Haven't been doin' any more fightin', have ya?"

"No," said John, with a laugh, "the beating the Battler gave me was enough. You know, it's a good man who knows when he has had enough."

"Ya didn't seem to know when ya had enough da night ya mixed it with da Battler," said Murphy. "Ya took a beltin' that night and came up for more as long as ya could."

"Let's step inside; I'll buy you a drink of whatever they have," John invited.

Over steins of near-beer which Murphy drank with a wry face John learned that Battling Rodriguez had fought himself to the top and was now boxing main events at Vernon, at the American Legion stadium in Hollywood and occasionally in San Francisco and San Diego. He told Murphy that he was working on the newspaper, endeavoring to develop himself into a reporter.

They were about to leave and had turned away from the bar when there was a scuffle of feet at the front door. John was startled to see a number of men rush in and form a line across the front of the long room.

It flashed into his head that the men were bandits. One of them, he saw, had a gun in his hand. But this suspicion was quickly routed from his mind when one of the men, apparently the leader, stepped forward and shouted a command:

"Get in the corner, there, you birds, you're pinched," he ordered.

John recognized the men as deputy sheriffs and for a moment he was nonplussed. Then he stepped forward to explain there was no cause for them to arrest them.

"In the corner, I said, in the corner," shouted the foremost of the deputies, pushing John back. "Get over there or I'll put you there, see!"

John "saw." He stepped back into the corner of the room which the deputy indicated, joining a group of a dozen men herded there by the other deputies who swept through the "saloon." Murphy, beside him, whispered in his ear:

"Don't get excited, kid, it's nuttin'; just another phoney pinch, dat's all."

"But what for?" asked John.

"Loiterin' around a handbook joint. You'll be squared, kid, you'll be squared. Stick with me and you'll come out on top; ten bucks to the good."

One of the deputies marched up to the corner, pushing a young fellow before him.

"Tried to duck out the back door," the deputy explained to his brother officers. He shoved his prisoner into the group in the corner. "I guess that's all of them. Let's get them out of here. Come on, you birds, out the door; step lively and no funny business."

Murphy was at his side as they walked out into the street, guarded on each side by the deputies. A motor truck was backed up to the curb and in it were fifteen or twenty men, young and old, laughing and smoking. A crowd of men and women, spectators to the raid, thronged the sidewalk on either side.

John stepped to the side of one of the deputies.

"Listen, old man," he said. "I'm a reporter."

The deputy stepped back in mock surprise.

"You don't say so!" he exclaimed. "A reporter, eh? Well, you ain't nobody, see! Why, one of your pals we got in there told me he was the sheriff's nephew. Another one tried to bull me that he was one of Gibson's men."

"Gibson!" exclaimed John. Then it dawned on him; this was one of the police commissioner's "personally conducted" raids, his first attack on "Gink" Cummings, without a doubt.

"Yes, Gibson," said the deputy. "What about it?"

"Is this one of Gibson's raids?" he asked.

"You guessed it," snapped the deputy. "Now, get along there. Hop on that truck with the rest of the gents and see if you can't get consolation from the sheriff's nephew and the bird that tried to bull me he was working for Gibson."

"But I am a reporter," protested John. "You'll find out soon enough."

"Don't get gay!" threatened the deputy. "Don't get gay!"

John scrambled on the truck.

"Come right along, brother, join our party," said a red-faced man in a brown check suit and a greasy derby hat, who reached down to help John up.

The truck was now crowded with standing men. Three of the deputies swung themselves up on the back of it to act as a rear guard. Murphy squirmed through the tightly packed load until he reached John's side again.

"Listen, kid," he said in his husky voice. "If you want to find out something about dis game, just keep your trap shut and do what Tim Murphy tells you. Get me? I was tipped to dis raid but I didn't know it was coming so soon or I'd got ya out of it, see? It's a phoney, see. There's ten bucks in it for ya if ya go through with it like I tell ya, see?"

"What are you talking about, Murphy?" John demanded.

"I know what I'm talkin' about and don't you forget it," Murphy said. "Just do what I tell ya, will ya?"

"All right," he agreed.

The truck turned to the left at First and Spring streets and struggled up the grade at First west of Broadway, backing into the curb in front of the central police station. By the time they were leaving the truck John had decided to "go through with it," as Murphy had suggested. It would be an adventure, at least, and Murphy's repeated assertions that it was "a phoney" invited investigation. He knew that a word to Kenyon, the police reporter for his paper, would get him out of his trouble, but he concluded he had nothing to lose and perhaps something to gain by following Murphy's whispered instructions.

Herded into an alley-way leading back to the desk sergeant's room were, John estimated, more than 150 other men and boys, arrested like himself and evidently brought to headquarters in other trucks. In this crowd he learned that every place along Spring street where it was suspected that a handbook on the races at Tia Juana was being operated had been raided simultaneously by squads of deputy sheriffs detailed to the command of Police Commissioner Gibson by the sheriff. Over the heads of the crowd he caught a glimpse of Gibson himself surrounded by Kenyon and the other police reporters. He saw Gibson pose for a photograph with the crowd of men he had arrested as a background. Once, he thought, he had a glimpse of Brennan in conversation with Police Chief Sweeney.

"Have ya got ten bucks on ya?" asked Murphy.

"Why?" he asked.

"Dat's da bail," explained Murphy.

"I've got it," he said. "Have you yours?"

"Murphy's always got his bail money wid him," the twisted nose youth grinned. "Remember, now, stick wid me."

"Right-o," said John.

"Gwan!" Murphy made the word the acme of disgust. "If I hadn't seen ya mix it wid de Battler I'd bust ya for dat," he said. Evidently "right-o" was not a word calculated to win in Twisted Nose's vocabulary.

Slowly, like a line of theatergoers approaching the box office, the crowd worked its way toward the desk sergeant's counter, where two police officers were booking the prisoners, receiving $10 in bail from each and handing them a receipt for the money. Murphy and John finally reached the counter.

"Murphy—Tim Murphy," said John's companion, stepping up to the desk and speaking before the desk sergeant asked him his name, as if it was an old ceremony which he knew by heart.

"Murphy—Tim Murphy," repeated the officer at the huge book. "If no one was looking, Murphy, I'd slip you out the back door for having a name like that."

Murphy handed over his $10 in bail, received his receipt slip and stepped to one side to wait for John.

"Gallant—John Gallant," said John, following Murphy's lead.

"Ten bucks," said the desk sergeant.

"No, I mean what am I arrested for?"

"Oh, you're particular, are you? Well, it's loitering in a gambling resort and playing the handbook. I suppose you'll ask for a jury trial?" inquired the officer, with pretended politeness.

He produced his $10 and was given a receipt. Murphy tugged at his arm.

"Come on," he whispered. "Da sooner we get back da better."

John followed him out into the street. Turning to the right, Murphy walked rapidly down First street toward Broadway, his arm hooked to John's.

"Now, Murphy," he said, "tell me what's this all about—what are you going to do?"

"Well, listen, kid, and I'll spill it to ya," Murphy said, talking as they walked. "Dis raid was all a phoney, get me?"

"A phoney?"

"Ya, a phoney! Fixed, framed, phoney, see? I get my orders da other day. A friend o' mine tips me. He steers me dat de handbooks are goin' to be pulled and if I'm pinched for me to go through with it and there'll be ten bucks in it for me."

"How?" asked John, impatiently.

"I'll get my ten bucks from da boss for bein' a good little boy and gettin' pinched, see? It's dis way: Dis new commissioner, Gibson, wants to make a big play, get me? He wants to do a grandstand on da bookmakers and de 'Gink's' for him, see?"

"The 'Gink'?" exclaimed John. "'Gink' Cummings?"

"Sssh, not so loud, not so loud," cautioned Murphy.

"You mean to tell me that the 'Gink' is helping Gibson?" John demanded, coming to a standstill.

"Come on," said Murphy, tugging at his arm. "I didn't say dat, did I? All I said was dat da 'Gink' was for him pulling the bookies. Search me, why. I figures it dat da 'Gink' has split with da bookies and is out to teach 'em to behave."

"Then this raid was just what Cummings wanted?"

"Dat's it. If it wasn't we wouldn't be gettin' our ten back and ten on top of it. I was steered to hang around a bookmaking joint for a few days so dat when Gibson and his deputies come there would be somebody to get pinched, see?"

"And were all those other men tipped to do the same thing?"

"Sure. Dey got a few suckers but de bunch was all in on the know."

"But how did the 'Gink' know beforehand that the raid was going to be made?"

"Say," expostulated Murphy, "ask me some-pun easy, will ya? Da 'Gink' knows everything before it happens, see? If he didn't he wouldn't be da 'Gink,' dat's all."

A thrill went through John. He was "in on the know," as Murphy had put it. What a discovery he had made! What would Brennan say when he told him? What would the mayor say? And what would Gibson say?

They were back before the place in which they had been arrested. Murphy turned, guiding John by the arm with him.

"Now keep your trap shut and let me do da talkin', see?" he admonished as they went through the swinging doors.

Inside things were exactly as they had been before the raid, except that there were twice as many in the long room. John recognized the red-faced man in the brown check suit and the greasy derby hat who had helped him on to the truck as he stood at the bar, a glass of near-beer in front of him and chatting with the bartender, who was pulling on his white coat again.

Murphy led him to the back room and rapped on a door.

"Come in," a voice called.

Murphy opened the door and entered, beckoning to John with a jerk of the head to follow him.