large, my dear; things with which you have no concern. Mr. Allerby," she would add wistfully, "has seen a great Ideal of the world." Miss Sara herself had ventured no farther into the world than Cincinnati, where she occasionally went for a week to hear grand opera. But she always made the most of this opportunity, and her heart thrilled with the true globetrotter's response to the conductor's casual mention of Alaska or Mexico, the diamond-mines at Kimberley, the China coast, and other foci of life and adventure. What turn of the wheel had stranded him here among the oilfields of Kentucky, with no apparent background except his trolley-car and a volume of Tennyson, she yearned to inquire; but somehow she never did. For all his jovial rotundity, there was a certain reserve about the little man which baffled curiosity. And there. curiosity. And there was something more something the old lady once described to her niece as "heroic." But the younger woman's surprised laughter sent her back into her shell again, and she never quite explained, even to herself, what she found of the heroic in the cheerful, rosy, shabby street-car conductor who quoted Tennyson. Probably nobody else in Winfield. thought of dissociating the man from his surroundings. The trolley-car was to Mr. Allerby as its shell to a turtle. Habits form easily in that part of the world, and the town has become so accustomed to strangers now as to have quite lost any provincial interest in their affairs. It has seen so many flies gather about the honey-pot, wax fat, and go away again, or wax lean and disappear, forgotten, that it has learned to go its own way unheeding, and wait for this upsetting era of prosperity to pass. Mr. Allerby had so well fitted himself to his environment as to have become even a member of the Coffin Club. At a certain hour every day, Juggernaut was to be found at rest near a certain corner of Main Street; and then, if you happened to be in haste to get anywhere, and knew the ways of the place, you would go straight to Cassidy's Undertaking Parlor, walk through to the room at the back where the coffins are kept, and there you would find from five to a dozen of the town's leading citizens sitting in at a little game. Mr. Allerby would obligingly leave to carry you to your destination at a spanking pace, whirl the car about on the turn-table, and so back again, galloping, to his game. This It is the pleasantest gathering-place in town, Tim Cassidy's undertaking establishment, convenient to the Oil Exchange, to Judge Cary's office, and, to Dr. Grant's consulting-room, with the court-house only a block away, and a mint-bed growing, as if by the act of Providence, at its very door-step. Winfield being a dry town, the mint-bed assumed special importance in those days, when every man carried a flask as surely as he carried a pocket-knife; and ice, too, was always to be counted upon there, thanks to Tim's profession. Occasionally (once when there had been a wreck on the C. and O. and again when a dynamite charge had exploded prematurely in the neighborhood) the club had been disconcerted to find its quarters in possession of strangers, dead strangers at that. But this happens very rarely. Winfield, for the most part, prefers to be buried at home. The Coffin Club is as perfect an example of the brotherhood of man, perhaps, as may be found outside of books. It had its origin in that birthplace of American democracy, the village school. There holds between men who have fished and fought and gone swimming and played hooky together a tie that life itself cannot put asunder, and life is a far more efficient sunderer than death. What mattered it that one of their number had been a United States senator, that another was the town's chief of police, that a third had gambled so successfully in oil that the laying out of corpses was to, him merely an esthetic gratification? In the little game in which they sat, professions did not count, nor pasts, nor futures. One man was as good as another, except for Mr. Allerby, who was rather better than the rest of them put together. And that was fortunate for him, the Winfield Street Railway Company not being munificent in its salaries. But winning or losing, the conductor maintained the equable front which had long since won his way into the esteem of the town's first citizenry. What with the oil-fields, and the races, and the annual uncertainty of the tobacco crop, life in that neighborhood progresses from cradle to grave through a succession of adventures with chance, so that a man is judged there, not unwisely, by the grace with which he pockets his losses. It was at the hands of the Coffin Club that Mr. Allerby came by his more familiar name of "Juke." There was a rumor that he had been christened "Harold," but nobody had put this slander to the test of question. "H" might quite as well stand for something respectable, like Henry. Winfield believes in giving people the benefit of the doubt. From the beginning of the war, which was fought out daily in the Coffin Club to a satisfactory conclusion, Judge Cary, being a Virginian, had taken England under his especial protection, and patronized things English very largely. One morning he arrived at a session of the game with an illustrated London paper under his arm, remarking: "Well, Allerby, your kin seem to be doing you proud over there. Here's the account of a Sir Nicholas Allerby, K. C. X. Y. Z. and so on, being made a general, no less. Thought you might like to take a look at him. Stiffishlooking feller, with a mustache on him like a walrus. I must say he ain't very pretty." "Allerbys never are," murmured the other, without glancing at the picture. Dr. Grant, who had the curiosity of a cow, than which no living creature is more inquisitive, pricked up an ear at this unnatural indifference. "Did n't you tell me you were a Canadian?" he inquired. "I did not," replied Mr. Allerby, briefly. "Oh. Perhaps your accent-though Virginians use a broad a, too. Possibly you're a Virginian?" "I was born," said Mr. Allerby, "in Buckinghamshire, England." The Coffin Club exchanged surprised glances. It seemed odd, in view of recent events, that this interesting fact had not before come to light. Also, they suddenly realized that it was the first item of Mr. Allerby's personal history which ever had come to light. "Then," persisted the doctor, "this General Sir Nicholas, A. B. C., and so forth, really may be some kin of yours?" "Quite possibly," was the indifferent rejoinder. "Three cards, please. Allerbys are as thick in Bucks as maggots in cheese, and they range all the way from dukes to jailbirds." "Like us Cassidys in Cork," murmured the undertaker, with the tact of his race, sensing a certain tension in the air. "Only the head of our family was a king, I 'm told." "I believe it, judging by your morals, Tim," chuckled the doctor, accepting the change of subject. Thereafter Mr. Allerby was known as "Juke" to his cronies, with the exception of Dr. Grant, who asked no more questions. That word "jailbird" stuck unpleasantly in his head. Why, with England fighting the world's battles over there, had not one of her sons long since proclaimed the fact of his nativity with pride? Some months later Judge Cary con tributed further news of his favorite aristocracy. "I see by the papers, Juke, that your distinguished relative, the general, is being sent over by his country to lecture here, addressing soldiers at the mobilization camps. That will bring him to Louisville. If he knew we had an Allerby in our midst, he 'd probably run up to Winfield to see you." "Undoubtedly," was the grave reply, greeted with an appreciative chuckle from the club at large. "Also," continued the judge, referring to his paper, "I see that he is to be accompanied by his wife, 'who will be remembered as the famous beauty, Lady Sybil Arbuthnot, third daughter of the Earl of Why, what 's up, Allerby? Where you going?" "Got to meet that C. and O.," explained the other, and went out of the room in haste, leaving uncashed chips upon the table. His friends stared after him. "And the C. and O.," murmured somebody, "not due for over an hour!" "I think," said Dr. Grant in the pause that followed, "that we'd better not guy Allerby any more about his English connections. Especially," he added significantly, "before Charlie here." Charlie Judd was Winfield's chief of police. "Wha-what do you mean?" queried that gentleman, round-eyed. "I mean that Allerby 's in hiding, and we don't want to be the ones to find him. Would n't be hospitable." "It would not," decided the law in the person of Judge Cary. "Of course this must go no further, boys," added Dr. Grant, with a troubled sigh. "Certainly not," they agreed. And that is how the rumor started. It came very shortly to the ears of Miss Sara Truman, filling the old lady with an odd mixture of gratification and dismay. "There, I ve always said there was something out of the ordinary about that man," she told her married niece. "He may be an adventurer, or one of those remittance men you read about in Western novels; but you can't tell me that anybody with such a manner is, or ever has been, a jailbird! Jailbirds slink. I intend to ask him." And despite the niece's remonstrances, she donned her bonnet and her beaded dolman and went out on the porch to watch for Juggernaut. Mr. Allerby was singularly uncommunicative that day. It may have been because he had to do an unusual amount of stopping and starting. In fact, since the interesting rumor about him spread, there had been a notable increase of patronage for the Winfield Street Railway Company. Everybody wished to see at close range this scion of the English nobility who was probably a murderer or a bigamist or at the very least a defaulter. But Miss Sara bided her time, and when, on the homeward journey, they had the car quite to themselves, with no would-be passengers signaling to him from windows or waiting anywhere along the quiet, sleepy street ahead of them, she opened fire with one of their favorite bits: In the afternoon they came unto a land She declaimed it very loudly, so as to be heard above the internal noises which seemed a necessity of Juggernaut's progress, but Mr. Allerby failed to make the usual quotation in response: O rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. She tried again on a more personal note, her old voice quavering with reassuring friendliness: "You-you seem to be feeling the heat to-day, Mr. Allerby. But surely "I do not know," he replied drearily. He answered with a faint smile: They've discovered him!" she thought; but aloud she said: "To escape the duties of hospitality? That sounds almost-rude, Mr. Allerby." "Fortunately, one has the privilege of being rude to a brother," he muttered. "Oh, I disagree with you, I disagree with you, absolutely." The old lady sat forward earnestly on the edge of her seat. "My father used to say that anybody could be nice to strangers; that the surest test of good breeding family circle Unless, of course, one's was the courtesy which prevailed in the brother had forfeited respect?" she finished tentatively. Lord, no! But look here, Miss Sara,""Old Nick forfeit respect? Good he turned half toward her, "how 'd you like to entertain a brother you had n't seen for thirty years in-in a room over a mews, where you did your own cooking and washing, yes, and ironing, too? Eh?" "No brother would think the less of you for poverty," she said gently. "He would only be sorry." "Exactly. And he need n't be, thank you! He jolly well need n't be. I'm not the one to let 'em down. Besides, it is n't Nick I mind so much; it's she." "Aha!" thought Miss Sara, triumphantly. She had found what she was looking for; and it was no hidden crime, no disgrace, no ugliness of any sort. There are certain things any woman can understand, and one of them is the tone of voice in which he spoke that pronoun. This way romance had passed, and in the atmosphere of romance, Miss Sara, despite her seventy years of spinsteryou must have felt greater heat than hood, or perhaps because of them, was this in South Africa?" "Ah, one was younger then," he said, making an effort to pull himself together because of the friendliness of that voice. "To tell the truth, Miss Sara, I am about to leave this pleasant land of afternoon; and I am sorry." thoroughly at home. "I imagine," she said, "that you are one of these remittance-men I 've read about." "Something of the sort," he murmured, "only without the remittance. My people fancy-otherwise. The fact is, I 've lied to my people, Miss Sara, lied to them most abominably." "Of course you have," she said cheerfully, patting the seat beside her. "Come here, my dear boy, and tell me all about it." And at the look in her motherly old eyes, Harold Allerby's fifty years of struggle and loss and lonely failure disappeared, leaving him for the moment the boy she called him. He looked about. Nothing was astir in all the drowsy neighborhood except the Prewitt pony, in fat possession of the tracks a block or two ahead. It seemed as good a time as any for a trolley-ca to take its rest. So he abandoned the wheel, and went in to Miss Sara, and told her all about it. When he had finished, her face was alight with the joy of conflict. "You wait till I get hold of that Jimmy Grant!" To Miss Sara the gray-haired doctor and his friends were merely youths who had exchanged their balls and tops for amusements less innocuous. "I'll make them pay for the scandals they start at their precious club! As to this Lord and Lady Allerby," the titles rolled trippingly from her tongue, although Miss Sara was the least of snobs,-"don't you worry about entertaining them. Winfield will do that for you." "He's not a peer; just a baronet," corrected the conductor. "Just a baronet' will be quite as much as Winfield can stand," prophesied Miss Sara; and she was right. THE erect, soldierly little gentleman who got off the train from Louisville some weeks later, accompanied by a graceful, veiled lady with the sort of figure which may still be called willowy, looked about him in some surprise. "Quite a civilized sort of place, my love," he murmured reassuringly to the lady, and a moment later shook hands with our Mr. Allerby, difficult to recognize in smart gray flannels, as undemonstratively as if they had parted yesterday. "Lookin' very fit, Hal," he said. "Thanks. So 're you, old man," our Mr. Allerby was heard to reply. "Lost an arm, I see. Congratulations." "Yes, I was lucky not to have it the right, eh? Quite a lot of people about, "I fancy," explained Mr. Allerby, flushing, "that it 's in honor of you, old boy." "Ah, very decent of the townspeople; very," commented Sir Nicholas, also flushing, and looking straight before him. But the lady at his side lifted her veil, and spoke in a musical, clear, carrying voice straight to the interested crowd. "How perfectly sweet of you! Thanks awfully." And she smiled. The Coffin Club later compared notes about that smile. Each felt, as had many a better man before him, that it was directed exclusively toward him. "What a ducky car you 've got, Hal," continued the carrying voice, as Mr. Allerby led them toward Tim Cassidy's handsomest limousine, the one he rented to only the most exclusive funerals. "And what a quaint custom to introduce the chauffeur! So democratic! Is it always done in the States? And do you call your servants 'help,' as a |