The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 31, 1904, Page 2

*HIS is the last install- ment of Miriam Michel- son’s novel,“In the Bish- op's Carriage,” which began in The Sunday Call Magazine on July 10. Next week be- gins a story by Max Pember- ton, author of the famous “Kronstadt™ and “The Phan- tom Army,” entitled “Doctor Xavier,” one of the very best of the later hooks of this fam- ous English novelist. The complete story will be pub- lished in four installments. ig > e E started as though he o believe s s when he me. The Lord hath delivered mine enemy into my hand” shone in le face Why, Mr. Tausig,” I cried, before he could get his breath. “How cdd to meet you here! Did you find a baby, too?” He glared at me. *“I s enough. Now—" Jluncheon was to be at I laughed. “And I haven't dress yet.” nge it all right for some- thing becoming if you don’t €he paper. Pz “Yes, pa Look here, if you give it back to me this minute—now—I'll n » you for—for—" > of my reputation?™ I ecut suggested sc “Yes.” He looked doubtfully at me, mistrusting the amiable deference of my manner “That would be awfully good of you,” answer, but watched me wasn't sure which way next moment. r what could induce you to ing,” I went on musirgly. of paper is this you miss? be valuable—" it's valuable all right. Come Quit your fooling and get down to business. I'm going to have that paper. Do you know, Mr. Tausig,” I said ‘if 1 were you, and any- d stolen a valuable paper from mpulsively, me d have him arrested. I would. I should not care a rap what the publie exposure did to his reputation, so long—so long,” I grinned right up at him, “so long as it didn’t hurt me, my- gelf, in the eyes of the law.” Mad? Oh, he was hopping! A German swear word burst from him. I dont THE BHBY ASLEEPS JWONDER r 7 MIGH T SEE HER ONCE IMTORE! but I ©an im- know what it meant, agine. Look here, I give you one more chance,” he squeaked; “if u don't—" What'll you do?” d him. 1 was sure, er in which he had ing in the world I was sure I ha from the very W spoken, that the last t he wanted was to have that agreement by my arrest. But I on one thing. I °didn’t there was a middie way for a know man with money. His manner changed Nance Oiden he sald aloud now, I charge you with steaiing a valuable ate paper of mine from my desk. Her sergeant!” I hadn't particularly noticed the ser- geant standing at the door with his back to u But fro: he way he came at Tausig’'s call 1 knew he'd had a private talk with him, and I knew he'd found the middle way “This girl's taken paper of mine. I want her searched,” Tausig cried. “Do you mean,” 1 sald, “that you'll sign your name to such a charge against me?” He didn’t answer. He had pulled the sergeant down and was whispering in his ear. I knew what that meant. It meant a special pull and a speclal way of doing things and— “You'll do well, my girl, to give up Mr. Tausig’s property to him,” the ser- geant said stiffly. “But what have I got that belongs to him?” T demanded. He grinned and shrugged his big shoulders. “We've a way of finding out, you know, here. Give it up or—" “But what does he say I've taken? What “rharge is there against me? Have you -the right to search any wo- man who walks in here? And what in the world: would I want a paper of Tausig’s for?” “You won't tapped a bell. A woman came in. T had a bad min- ute .there, but-it didn’t last; it wasn't the matron I'd brought the baby to. “You'll take this girl into the other room and search her thoroughly. The thing we're looking for—" The ser- geant turned to Tausig. * “A small paper,” he sald eagerly. “A —a contract—Jjust a single sheet of le- gal cap paper it was, type-written and signed by myself and some other gen- tlemer, and folded twice.” The woman looked at me. She was a bit hard-mouthed, with iron-gray hair, but her eyes looked as though they'd seen a lot and learned mot to flinch, though they still felt like it. ~I knew that kind of look—I'd seen it at the Cruelty. “What an unpleasant job this of yours is,” I said ‘to her, smiling up at her for all the world as that tike of a baby had smiled at me, and watching her melt just as I had. 1l not make it a bit harder. This thing's all a mis- give it up then?” He TN take. Which way? . . . back, Mr. Tausig, to recelve your apol- ogy, but you can hardly expect me to go to lunch after this.” T'll come He-® growled a wrathful, resenting mouthful. But he looked a bit puzzled just the same. He looked more puzzled yet, even be- wildered, when we came back into the main office a quarter of an hour later, the woman and I, and she reported that no paper of any kind had she found. Me? Oh, I was sweet amliabllity per- sonified with the woman and with the sergeant, who began to back-water fu- riously. But with Tausig— What? You don’t mean to say you're not on, Mag? Oh, dear, dear, it's well you had that beautiful wig of red hair that puts even Carter's in the shade; for you'd never have been a success in ~—in other businesses I might name, Bamboozled the woman? Net a bit of it; you can't deceive women with mouths and eyes like that. It was just that I'd had a flash of genius in the minute I heard Tausig’s voice, and in spite of my being so sure he wouldn't have me arrested I'd—Guess, Mag, guess! There was only one, way. The baby, of course! In the moment I had—it wasn't long—Id stooped down, pretending to kiss that cherub good-by, and in‘a jiffy I'd pinned that precious peper with a safety-pin to the baby’'s under-petticoat, preferring that risk to— Risk! I should say it was. And now it was up to Nance to make good. AFREL, " LSS PERED. LT DARE. Look AT (7717, While Tausig insisted and explained and expostulated and at last walked out with the sergeant—glving me a queer last lock that was half-cursing, half-placating—I stood chatting sweet- ly with the woman who had searched me. I didn't know just how far I might 80 with her, She knew the paper wasn't on me, and I coud see she was disposed to believe I was as nice as she'd have liked me te be. But she'd had a lot of experience and she knew, &8s most women do even without expe- rience, that if there's nit always fire where there |s smouke it's because somebody’s been cleve! enough and quick enough to cover the blaze. “Well, good-by,” I saic putting out my hand. “It's been disigreeable but I'm obliged to you for—why, where's my purse! We must hate left it—" And I turned to go back nto the room where I'd undressed. “¥You didn't have any.” The words came clear ind cold and positive. Her tone was lke an lcicle down my back. “I didn’t' have any!” 1 exclaimed. “Why, I certainly—" “You ¢ertainly had no purse, for I should have seen it and sarched it it you had.” I Now, what do you thinkof a woman like that? “Nancy Olden,” I'sald to myself, more in sorrow than in arger, “you've met your match right hele. When a Woman knows a fact and dates it with such quiet conviction, vithout the least unnecessary emphasis and not a superfluous word, 'ware that woman. There's only one game to play to let you hang round here a bit longer and find out what's become of the baby. Play it!" = T looked at her with respect; it was both real and feigned. “Of course, you must be right,” I sald humbly. “I know you wouldn't be likely to make a mistake, but, just to convince me, do you mind letting me go back to look?” “Not at all,” she sald placidly. “If I go with you there's no reason why you should not look.” Oh, Mag, it was hard lines looking. ‘Why? Why, because the place was so bare and so small. There were so few things to move and it took such a short time, in.spite of all I could do and pretend to do, that I was in de- spair. “You must be right,” I said at length, looking woefully up at her. “Yes, I knew I was,” she sald stead- ily. “I must have lost It." “Yes.” There was no hope there. to go. “P'll lend you a nickel to get home, if you'll leave me your address,” she sald after a moment. Oh, that admirable woman! She ought to be ruling empires instead of searching thieves. Look at the bal- ance of her, Mag. My best acting had- n’t shaken her. She hadn’t that fatal curiosity to understand motives that I turned She was satisfied just not to let L get ahead of her In the least particu- lar. = But she wasn't mean, and she would lend me a nickel—not an emo- tionally extravagant 10-cent piece, but just a nickel—on the chance that I was what I seemed to be. Oh, I did admire her; but I'd have been more enthusiastic abc could have seen my way baby and the papes I took the nickel and thanked her, but effusiveness left her unmoved. A wholesome, blue-gowned rock with a neat, full-bibbed white apron; that's what she was! And still I lingered. Fancy Nance Olden just heartbroken at being com- pelled to leave a police station! But there was nothing for it. Go, I had to. My head was a-whirl with schemes coming Yorward with sugges- tions and being dismissed as unsuit- able; my thoughts were flying-about at such a dizzy rate while I stood there in the doorway, the woman’s patient , hand on the knob and her watchful eyes on me, that I actually— Mag, I actually didn’t hear the mat- ron's voice the first time she spoke. The second time, though, I turned —80 happy I could not keep the tremor out of my voice. “I thought you had gone long ago,” she sald. Oh, we were friends, we two! chummed over a baby, which women is like what taking a drink together is for men. The admirable dragon in the blue dress didn't waver a bit because her superior, spoke pleas- antly to me. She only ‘\ul"hf‘d and listened. Which puts you in a difficult posi- tion when your name’'s Nance Olden -you have to tell the truth. “I've been detained,” 1 sald with lignity, “against my wish. But that's all over. I'm going now. Good 1 nodded and caught up my skir I paused just as the admirable gon was cloging the door on me. the baby a: p? 1 wonder if I might see her once more.” My heart was beating like an engine gone mad, in spite of my reless tone, and there was a buzzing in my ears that deafened me. But I stand still and listen, an off, as though it didn’t least to me, while her smashing the hope out of ‘““We've sent her with an officer t to the neighborhood re you four her. He'll find out where st 1 no doubt. Good da We'd XV Ah me, Maggle, th that went away from have had your future in your grasp like that one of the Fates with tring; and then to have it snatche from you by an impish -breeze blown away, goodness knows wh: I don't know just which way I e I didn't ¢ after I left that station. where 1 went. Nothing I could think of gave me any comfert. .I tried to fancy myself coming h e to you. I tried to see myself going down to tell the whole thing to Obermuller. But I couldn't do that. There was only one thing I wanted to say to Fred Ober- muller, and that thing I couldn't say now. But Nance Olden’s not the girl to go around long like a molting hen. There was only one chance in a hun dred, and that was the one I took, of course. “Back to the square where you found the baby, Nance!” I cried to myself. “There’'s the chance that that admir- able dragon has had her susplcions aroused by your connection with the baby, which she hadn't Xxnown before, and has already dutifully notified the sergeant. There’s the chance that the baby is home by now and the paper found by her mother will be turned over to her papa; and then it's good- by to your scheme. There's the chance that—" But In the heart of me I didn't be- Heve in any chance but one—the chance that I'd find that blessed baby and get my fingérs once more on that precious paper. I blew in the A. D.'s nickel on a cross-town car and got dack to little square. There was another or- gan-grinder there grinding out coon songs, to which other pickaninnies danced. But nary a little white bundle of fluff caught hold of my hand I ‘walked that square till my feet were the sore. It was hot. My throat was parched. I was hungry. My head ached. I was hopeless. And yet I just couldn’t give it up. I had asked 80 many children and nurse-malds whether they'd heard of the baby lost that morning and brought back by an officer that they began to look at n as though I was not quite right in r mind. -The malds grabbed the ch dren If they started to come near 3 and the children stared at me with big round eyes, as though they’'d been told 1 was an ogre who might eat them. I was hungry enough tco. The little fruitstand at the entrance had a fas- cination for me. I found elf there time and again, till I got afraid I might actually try to get off with a peach or a bunch of grapes. That thou haunted me. Fancy Nance Olden starved and blundering into the cheap- est and most easily detected species of thieving! 1 suppose great generals in their hour of defeat imagine themselves dcing the feeblest, foolishest things. As I there on the bench, gazing before me, 1 saw the whole thing—Nanecy Olden, after all her bragging, her skirmish- ing, her hairbreadth escapes and suc- cesses, arrested in broad daylight and before witnesses for having stolen a cool, wet bunch of grapes, worth a nickel, for her hot, dry, hungering throat! I saw the policeman that'd do ity he looked like that Sergeant Mulhill T met "way, 'way back in Lati- mer's garden, I saw the officer that'd recei”> me; he had blue eyes like the detective that came for me to the Man- hattan. I saw the woman jailer—oh, she was the A. D, all right, who'd re- ceive me without the slightest emotion, show me to a cell and loek the d as calm, as little triumphant or affect- ed as though I hadn't once outwitted that cleverest of creatures—and out- witted myself in forestalling her. I saw— 4 grab It with a s wn purse lying at my feet, near 1 that had tempted me it was, stripped 3 a_paper oy st the Y rying svf I walked up to the frultstand with the purse in my hand. The old fe who kept it 1 smile. Lord encouraged this morning I showed it over in his crfp t was full to him, and he turned it old hands. tuller, led any- want to get her into girl?™ he asked cau- “Not L. I—myself—" ng to say—well, y hat I was goln, a bat and full of ens your wits, 4 blinds your eyes.and rs!—I'd have suspected s g at the mere sight of %her sat Kitty Wilson enthr You n't rank"w quisiti she didn’t ‘'want to s, she topped, th »oked from the emr tched hand to me t pause Intimate! a2 minute, till I get n know how much you t what lle to tell you anged her mind whe he face. You know, Mag, If a thing that's fixed in y it's the face of the body yo The r ectables have their gallery, but we, that is, the brigade, have got a fools’ pond to it. m is my picture? ve Now, T ean. You know my < hangs in both. 1 loc lown on the little beggar that had ted me for the second salon, and in a flash she was her feet, the lapful of good things tumbled to the ground, and Kitty was disappointed in that gether mista r. Hers 1s a talented in t esource ngue and a stea at a safe distar “She says she won't med. e knows I'd peach her And with all my might I ran a Silly? Of course it was. I ght have known what the short above those thin legs meant. ild n't come within fifty feet of h 1 halted, panting, and she paused dancing tantalizingly half a b < away What t ? I wished I had another purse to be I ha®l nothi but w on that absot ad not all at once I re mbered it—that you gave me for ( tmas, d to. ap- of the flying mpanied us. 1@ tell her that where that He sped on ahe: »d with Kit; and while they talked T held aloft the little pin so that Kit might see the price, She hesitated so long that I feared parle