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And now the lady was disturbed both in her disbelief and in her poise.

“O professor!” she cried anxiously–“When?–where? Has he been found? Do not keep me in suspense.”

“I beg you will excuse me for a very few minutes,” said Professor Cherubusco, “and I think I can demonstrate to you the efficacy of the true Art.”

Thomas was contentedly munching the last crumbs of the bread and fowl when the enchanter appeared suddenly at his side.

“Are you willing to return to your old home if you are assured of a welcome and restoration to favor?” he asked, with his courteous, royal smile.

“Do I look bughouse?” answered Thomas. “Enough of the footback life for me. But will they have me again? The old lady is as fixed in her ways as a nut on a new axle.”

“My dear young man,” said the other, “she has been searching for you everywhere.”

“Great!” said Thomas. “I’m on the job. That team of dropsical domedaries they call horses is a handicap for a first-class coachman like myself; but I’ll take the job back, sure, doc. They’re good people to be with.”

And now a change came o’er the suave countenance of the Caliph of Bagdad. He looked keenly and suspiciously at the ex- coachman.

“May I ask what your name is?” he said shortly.

“You’ve been looking for me,” said Thomas, “and don’t know my name? You’re a funny kind of sleuth. You must be one of the Central Office gumshoers. I’m Thomas McQuade, of course; and I’ve been chauffeur of the Van Smuythe elephant team for a year. They fired me a month ago for–well, doc, you saw what I did to your old owl. I went broke on booze, and when I saw the tire drop off your whiz wagon I was standing in that squad of hoboes at the Worth monument waiting for a free bed. Now, what’s the prize for the best answer to all this?”

To his intense surprise Thomas felt himself lifted by the collar and dragged, without a word of explanation, to the front door. This was opened, and he was kicked forcibly down the steps with one heavy, disillusionizing, humiliating impact of the stupendous Arabian’s shoe.

As soon as the ex-coachman had recovered his feet and his wits he hastened as fast as he could eastward toward Broadway.

“Crazy guy,” was his estimate of the mysterious automobilist. “Just wanted to have some fun kiddin’, I guess. He might have dug up a dollar, anyhow. Now I’ve got to hurry up and get back to that gang of bum bed hunters before they all get preached to sleep.”

When Thomas reached the end of his two-mile walk he found the ranks of the homeless reduced to a squad of perhaps eight or ten. He took the proper place of a newcomer at the left end of the rear rank. In a file in front of him was the young man who had spoken to him of hospitals and something of a wife and child.

“Sorry to see you back again,” said the young man, turning to speak to him. “I hoped you had struck something better than this.”

“Me?” said Thomas. “Oh, I just took a run around the block to keep warm! I see the public ain’t lending to the Lord very fast to- night.”

“In this kind of weather,” said the young man, “charity avails itself of the proverb, and both begins and ends at home.”

And the Preacher and his vehement lieutenant struck up a last hymn of petition to Providence and man. Those of the Bed Liners whose windpipes still registered above 32 degrees hopelessly and tunelessly joined in.

In the middle of the second verse Thomas saw a sturdy girl with wind-tossed drapery battling against the breeze and coming straight toward him from the opposite sidewalk. “Annie!” he yelled, and ran toward her.