Far enough up the hill to view the blossoming orchards all over the Valley and the distant blue of the lake between the hills, Langford stopped at a large, two-storied dwelling house set in expansive grounds and almost hidden among shade trees.

He walked right in, and Phil followed him.

A matronly woman, of portly dimensions, met them in the hallway.

“Mrs. Clunie,” cried Langford, “I’ve caught you a new, live lodger fresh off the train to-day. He will just fit the spare room over the way from mine.”

Mrs. Clunie looked her prospective tenant over critically.

“Mrs. Clunie,––Mr. Ralston,” continued Langford.

Phil bowed, and Mrs. Clunie nodded in a strictly non-committal way.

“His father is Lord Athelhurst-Ralston of Ecclefechan, Mrs. Clunie. He has come out here for his health.”

“Mr. Langford,––that’ll do,” said the landlady severely. “There was no’ a Ralston in the whole o’ Ecclefechan let alone a Lord What-ye-call-him Ralston, when I left twenty years syne, and I ha’e my doots if there’s one there noo. Don’t be makin’ a fool o’ the young man.

“Where do ye come frae, laddie?”

“I come from Campbeltown, Mrs. Clunie.”

“What?––Campbeltown on the Mull o’ Kintyre,––then you must ha’e left there before you were shortened,” she returned quickly.

“Campbeltown, Ontario!” corrected Phil.

“Oh,––ahee!––You’re sober, respectable, law-abiding, and attentive to your work?”

“I hope so.”

“As upright as Mr. Langford?”

“Oh, yes!” laughed Phil, remembering Langford’s autobiography as he had heard it a short time ago.

“I hope so,” she returned pointedly, repeating Phil’s own words.

“And he can say the Shorter Catechism and repeat the Psalms of David by heart,” put in Langford sonorously.

“Mr. Langford,––that’ll do. Scotsmen shouldna be flippant ower such serious subjects,” the goodly Mrs. Clunie chided.

“Come up stairs and I’ll show ye your room.”

She showed Phil into a comfortable little place, fixed a price that suited his scanty purse, collected a month’s rent on the spot––lest haply Phil might run into temptation by having that much more money in his possession––and left the newcomer to his own devices.

Half an hour later, Langford shouted to him from the hallway.

“Come on over, Ralston, if you’re awake.”

Phil obeyed.

“We’ve all had to go through what you did,” said Langford, “but Mrs. Clunie is worth it;––she’s a crackerjack. How do you like the lay-out?”

Phil was busy taking in the physical features of Langford’s room.

But for the bed and the bureau, the room was more 60 like a study than a bedroom. It contained bookcases from floor to ceiling, packed with literary treasures.

“My pals,” said Langford, pointing to two of them containing the classics of fiction, poetry and essays.

“My enemies,” he continued, nodding at the third bookcase, packed with books on law.

“Friends of mine,” he went on, pointing to a pen and inkwell on a small writing table.

He went over to one of the trunks that graced the window as seats. He raised the lid. It was filled to overflowing with rolls of paper, loose sheets and scraps, all closely written upon.

“My babies,” he laughed. “Behold in me the most prolific mother in all literature!”

“What are they?” inquired Phil.

“The offsprings of fancy,” returned Langford, grandiloquently; “essays, short stories, dramas, poems––all of no financial value. Dime novels worth fifty dollars a time, but all cashed. Advice to the Love Sick––five dollars a column––alas also unconvertible.”

Phil stood before him a little nonplussed, while Langford grinned and smoked on.

“I suffer continually the mental pangs of literary childbirth.”

He sat in a chair and lounged dreamily as he puffed out clouds of smoke, his long legs sprawling out in front of him.

“You’re lucky to have such a talent,” put in Phil at last.

“Lucky! Talent!” exclaimed Langford.

“I always understood literature was a lucrative pursuit.”

“Pursuit,––yes;––but lucrative! Ye gods!

“You see, Ralston, I suffer with my thoughts until I relieve myself by getting them down as best I can on 61 paper, then I bury them in my trunk along with their elder brothers. I know I ought to burn them, but I haven’t the heart to murder my children born in such travail. Some day, however, it will have to be done, otherwise they’ll crowd their father-mother out of house and home.”

“Don’t you try to market your work?”

“I did once––many times once––but they would have none of my high-faluting flights, although as Captain Mayne Plunkett, the writer of penny dreadfuls for the consumption of England’s budding pirates and cowpunchers, I am not without a following, and I have a steady contract for one per month at fifty dollars straight. To a New York girls’ journal, I am not unkindly thought of as Aunt Christina in the Replies to the Love Lorn column,––five dollars per––.”

He laughed reflectively.

“But don’t you work?” asked Phil innocently.

“Work! Lord, isn’t that work a-plenty?”

“Yes, but work that pays in real dollars and cents.”

“Ah!” Langford’s eyes swept the ceiling. “Meantime, I am what you might call Assistant to the Government Agent. God knows how long he will suffer me. He is a real good sort, and doesn’t expect too much for his money either in time or in ability. I knock about fifty dollars a month out of him when I work, and that, with the fifty with which my old dad so benevolently pensions me, together with fifty for every ‘penny horrible’ I write, I contrive to eke out a scanty living.

“You’ve got to work, too, Ralston; haven’t you?”

“Work or starve!” answered Phil.

“I hate to think of any man having to work,” mused Langford, “but if starve is the only alternative, why, I guess you’ve got to find a job. Got anything in view?”

“No!”

“Particular about what you tackle?”

“Not at all!”

“All right! I’ve to be at the Court House at five o’clock. Kick your heels around this little burg for a few hours and I’ll try to scare up something for you. But don’t get into mischief.”

He rose, knocked the ashes out of his pipe on the heel of his boot at the stove, and put on his hat.

He turned at the door.

“Say, Ralston! It won’t be any pen-pushing job, mark you. You have to get your muscle up, for there’s something I want you to do when you are good and fit.”

“And what is that?”

“Tell you later. So long!”

A few minutes later Phil got his hat from the hall-rack and strolled leisurely out, taking the road down the hill toward the main street of the town.

He passed a red brick building which bore the aristocratic title on a large painted sign over the doorway, “Municipal Hall.” He looked at the windows. Hanging on one of them, in the inside, was a black card with gilt letters, “Mayor Brenchfield.”

Phil’s under lip shot out and his brow wrinkled. His hand travelled to his hip pocket, as a nervous man’s does when he sees a sign in a railway station, “Beware of Pickpockets.”

He swung on his heel and walked up the wooden steps into the main office, as calm and collected as could be.

“Is the Mayor in?” he asked one of the officials.

“Yes! Wish to see him? What name, please?”

“Oh, just tell him it’s an old friend.”

The office man went into the inner room and soon returned.

“He is very busy on some special work. Would you mind calling in again?”

“Anybody with him?”

“No!”

Phil brushed past the man and walked straight into the Mayor’s office, closing the door behind him.

Brenchfield was sitting in an armchair, behind a desk, smoking a huge cigar and blowing clouds in the air; the very picture of municipal overwork.

“Thought it might be you! Heard you were in town. Sit down, Phil!”

“Thanks, no!” returned Phil brusquely.

Brenchfield reached over, opened a cheque book, took up a pen, dipped it in an inkwell, turned his cigar savagely to a corner of his mouth and looked up at his visitor inquiringly.

“How much do you want?”

Phil smiled on him, half-pityingly. Physically, he was tremendously weak, but he despised the man before him so much that it gave him courage and strength.

“How much have you?” he asked.

“None of your damned business!”

“Oh!––I guess you’ve forgotten that our five years’ partnership is up:––a pool and a fair divide, wasn’t it? Share and share alike! Well,––there’s mine!”

He threw a few bills and a little silver on the table.

Brenchfield pushed back his chair.

“So that’s your game, you poor miserable––you know the name!”

“Poor and miserable, all right,––like the fool I was. But I’m not a fool any more. I know you. I know the world just a little better than I did five years ago.”

“Shut up, man! Do you wish the whole town to hear?”

“What if they do hear? I’ve nothing to hide;––I’m not like you.”

“And you’ll be getting a little more of what you have 64 already had, if you don’t go easier than you are doing. See here!––I’m busy, but I’m willing to start you off. What’s your price to get out of here for good and forget you ever knew me, and to forget me for all time to come?”

“One-half of all you have, and interest to date,––I to stay here as long as I please.”

The Mayor looked at Phil as if he were looking at a lunatic, then he smiled and started in to fill up a cheque.

“I owe you five hundred. I’ve tacked on a thousand more. There! The train leaves at 3:15 p.m. to-morrow. You get out on it. Do you understand?”

“Thank you!––but this place suits me. I like it and I’m going to stay.”

“You are,––eh! If you don’t get out with to-morrow’s train you’ll go out the day following, in a box, feet first.”

“Yes! Judging from what happened early this afternoon, I daresay you are quite equal to that kind of thing,” said Phil quietly. “But I’m going to stay all the same.”

“You won’t get a job within twenty miles of Vernock. If you do, you won’t hold it, for every man in the district will know you for what you are,––an ex-jailbird.”

“Who will tell them?”

“I will.”

“No, you won’t!”

“Won’t I? Try it out and I’ll show you quick enough.”

Phil went over to Brenchfield’s desk.

“I suppose you think your tracks are pretty well covered up after five years.”

“I have none to cover,” retorted Brenchfield. “I don’t know you personally; never did know you;––don’t want to know you. I do know you by reputation for an escaped jailbird and a would-be blackmailer, who will be back where he belongs before he is much older. Get that?”

“Yes,––I got it,” answered Phil, desperate, and almost beaten, when an imp in his mind set him busy.

“I’m going to stay here, Graham, and you’re not going to try to prevent me or say a word that would injure my standing. If you do, then God help you.”

Brenchfield laughed up at the ceiling.

“Five years ago,” went on Phil, “you wrote a little note in cypher and left it with me when you turned tail and ran away. Maybe you have forgotten about that note. Well,––written things have a habit of turning up.”

Brenchfield’s bravado oozed away. His hard face grew pale.

“You’re lying. You burned that note.”

“Did I?”

“If you didn’t, it would have been found and would have come out in the evidence.”

“Perhaps!”

Phil put his hand in the inside pocket of his jacket, as if to bring out the paper, then he appeared to change his mind, for he desisted and made as if to leave.

Brenchfield jumped up quickly, sprang for the door and stood with his back to it.

“Damn you! How much do you want?”

“Nothing!”

“Name your price and give me that note.”

“It is priceless.”

“Good heavens, man!––you need money. You’re a pauper. I can make you comfortable. I can get you a position that will make you secure for life.”

Phil slowly picked up his own money that he had thrown on the desk and put it in his trouser pocket.

“Much obliged!” he remarked, “but I have no intention of remaining a pauper for long. I wouldn’t insult my conscience by taking any position you could find for me. Do you mind letting me out?”

For answer, Brenchfield was on him like a wild-cat. Phil wriggled, but the Mayor got behind him, with an arm pressing his throat and a hand over his mouth. With a quick movement and without the slightest noise he bore Phil backward full length on the thickly carpeted floor. He moved his grip and, half strangling him with one hand as he knelt heavily on Phil’s chest, he went through Phil’s inside pocket.

The pocket was empty.

Phil could not cry out, and would not have done so had he been able.

Slowly Brenchfield searched every pocket in turn. He failed to find a document of any kind.

He released him at last, rose and brushed the dust from his trousers, breathing heavily.

“Damn you!––I knew you lied.”

Phil got up also.

“Guess you take me for a fool such as I used to be,” he panted. “I don’t carry my valuables with me now when I visit your kind. I have more sense. Now, do you mind letting me out?”

Brenchfield made as if he were going to strike Phil in his anger.

“If I thought you had that paper, I’d kill you for it.”

“And, if you thought I hadn’t, you’d hound the life out of me. Well,––do your darnedest.”

“The money offer still holds good,” said Brenchfield in a more conciliatory tone. “Keep your mouth shut and I’ll do the same. Let me know when you are ready to name your price for that paper.”

“When I need the money, I’ll let you know,” replied the other.

Brenchfield opened the door, and smiling an urbane mayoral “Good afternoon,” that all in the main office could hear, he ushered Phil out.