"Fine," he replied. "That’s cleaned up. And say—they’re taking on some more men in the dock department to-morrow—room for any of your friends. And—don’t forget to give my best wishes to the bride—and groom. I like a fellow that’s a real sport." An hour later a messenger boy arrived with a great bunch of white roses for the bride. On the card, the Old Man had scrawled: "Good luck." So peace was reëstablished. *VII* The morning after the wedding, Norman found me in the library reading what the newspapers had to say about it. "Eccentric Millionaire Weds Street Walker." "Prominent Socialist Leader, to avoid state prison, married a little girl he had seduced." When my friend, the protector of children, found that we had beaten the warrant, he had taken this way of venting his spleen. "I’m glad," Norman said, as he glanced at the headlines, "that Nina doesn’t read newspapers. These might bother her." But he made me read them aloud as he drank his coffee. And all the while his look of amused contentment deepened. "God! That sounds good," he commented. "I never knew just how to do it. I’ve spent many a sleepless night trying to think out some effective way of telling the ’best people’ to go to hell—some way of spitting in the eyes of the smug citizens—so they wouldn’t think it was a joke. Every time I get mad—really open up—and tell the gang what I think of them how the stench of their hypocrisies offends my nostrils, it adds to my reputation as a wit. I guess this will fix them! You know that thing of Heine’s...." He jumped up and pulled the "Memoirs" from the shelf and read me the passage where Heine tells of his boyish encounter with "Red Safchen," the hangman’s little daughter. Although the good people of the village where he went to school tolerated the office of public executioner, they would have no dealing with the officer. His family was mercilessly ostracised. Heinrich took pity on the daughter and once in a sudden exaltation he kissed her. In these words he ends his account: "I kissed her not only because of my tender feeling for her, but in scorn of society and all its dark prejudices." "That’s it," Norman said gleefully. "I’ve always wished I could find a hangman’s daughter and kiss her somewhere in public—show the empty-headed, full-bellied gang how I despise them. Nina’s done it for me." Nina had taken a very passive part in all these proceedings. She had done what she was told to do, said what she was told to say, without question. How passive a part it had been none of us realized at the time. But that afternoon when I came back from the Tombs, I found her in earnest conversation with Guiseppe. "Say," she said, after he had gone, "I want to talk to you." But she found it hard to begin. "What is it?" I encouraged her. "The old man, Guiseppe, is a fool," she blurted out. "Says your friend married me." "Well. That isn’t foolish. He did marry you."