"Oh, certainly. My real motive was to suggest, purely because of a paternal interest I take in you, that you leave town to-morrow morning--you and your ferocious friend." Varney eyed him amusedly. "But is not this somewhat--er--precipitate?" "Oh, not a bit of it. In fact, you hardly require me to tell you, Beany, that you were a great fool to come back at all." "Beany!" "You don't mind if I sit down?" A row of packing-cases clogged the sidewalk at the point where they stood, and the young man dropped down wearily upon one of them, and leaned back against the store-front. "Beany?" repeated Varney. "It was dark down on the river," observed the other slowly, "but the instant I saw you on the square, I recognized you, and so, my friend, will everybody else." "With even better success, I trust, than you have done. For my name is not Beany, but indeed Varney--Laurence Varney--permit me--" "Ah, well! Stick it out if you prefer. In any case--" "But do tell me the name of this individual to whom I bear such a marked resemblance. I naturally--" "The individual to whom you bear such a marked, I may say such a very marked, resemblance," said the stranger, mockingly, "is a certain Mr. Ferris Stanhope, a prosperous manufacturer of pink-tea literature. You never heard the name--of course. But never mind about that. I should advise you both to leave town anyway." "Is it trespassing too far if I ask--" "Any one who associates with little Hare, as I have a premonition that you two will do if you stay, is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward." Varney came a step nearer and rested his foot on the edge of the packing-case. "Now that," said he, "is by all odds the best thing you've said yet. Elucidate it a bit, won't you? I admit to some curiosity about that little tableau in the square--" "Yes? Well, I owe you one for that box of matches, Beany--er--Mr.--and it would be rather asinine for you or your pugilistic partner to begin monkeying with our buzz-saw. I happened, you see, to overhear part of your talk with J. Pinkney Hare just now. How others might view it I know not, but to me it seemed only fair to warn you that that interesting young man must be shunned by the wise. As to the mayoralty, he has as much chance of getting in as a jack-rabbit has of butting a way through the Great Wall of China. For we have a great wall here of the sturdiest variety." He meant, as he briefly explained, the usual System, and back of it the usual Boss: one Ryan, owner of the Ottoman saloon and the city of Hunston, who held the town in the hollow of his coarse hand, and was slowly squeezing it to death.