Michael held himself tensely and fought the desire to choke the fellow before him; tried to remember that he was the same Sam who had once divided a crust with him, and whom he had come to help; reflected that he might have been as bad himself if he had never been taken from the terrible environment of the slums and shown a better way; knew that if he for one fraction of a second showed his horror at the evil plot, or made any attempt to stop it all hope of reaching Sam, or Buck, or any of the others was at an end; and with it all hope of finding any stray links of his own past history. Besides, though honor was strong in him and he would never “snitch” on his companions, it would certainly be better to find out as much as possible about the scheme. There might be other ways besides “snitching” of stopping such things. Then suddenly his heart almost stopped beating, Madison Avenue! Sam had said Madison Avenue, and a girl! What if it were Starr’s jewels they were planning to take. He knew very little about such matters save what he had read. It did not occur to him that Starr was not yet “out” in society; that she would be too young to wear costly jewels and have her costume put in the paper. He only knew that his heart was throbbing again painfully, and that the fellow before him seemed too vile to live longer on the same earth with Starr, little, beautiful, exquisite Starr. He was quite still when Sam had finished; his face was white with emotion and his eyes were blazing blue flames when he raised them to look at Sam. Then he became aware that his answer was awaited. “Sam, do you mean _burglary_?” He tried to keep his voice low and steady as he spoke but he felt as if he had shouted the last word. The restaurant was almost empty now, and the waiters had retired behind the scenes amid a clatter of dishes. “That’s about as pretty a word as you can call it, I guess,” said Sam, drawing back with a snarl as he saw the light in Michael’s eyes. Michael looked him through for an instant, and if a glance can burn then surely Sam’s little soul shrank scorching into itself, but it was so brief that the brain which was only keen to things of the earth had not analyzed it. Michael dropped his glance to the table again, and began playing with his spoon and trying to get calm with a deep breath as he used to when he knew a hard spot in a ball game was coming. “Well, why don’t you speak? You ’fraid?” It was said with a sneer that a devil from the pit might have given. Then Michael sat up calmly. His heart was beating steadily now and he was facing his adversary.