"No. The boys in the gallery cheered so that they fussed him, and he thought I was fruit. We shook hands, and he turned his head to snarl at the applause, and, seeing an opening, I smashed him a hot clip in the chin, and he tumbled backward and broke the ring rope. I vaulted the orchestra and bolted, and when the boys finally found me I was over near Waterbury under a barn. Eli wouldn't stand for it, and back I went to the button factory; and here I am, sir, by the grace of God, an ignorant man." He lay blinking as though saddened by his recollections, and I turned away and paced the floor. When I glanced at him again he was still staring soberly at the wall. "How did you find your way here, Gillespie?" I demanded. "I suppose I ought to explain that," he replied. I waited while he reflected for a moment. He seemed to be quite serious, and his brows wrinkled as he pondered. "I guessed it about half; and for the rest, I followed the heaven-kissing stack of trunks." He glanced at me quickly, as though anxious to see how I received his words. "Have you seen anything of Henry Holbrook in your travels? Be careful now; I want the truth." "I certainly have not. I hope you don't think--" Gillespie hesitated. "It's not a matter for thinking or guessing; I've got to know." "On my honor I have not seen him, and I have no idea where he is." I had thrown myself into a chair beside the couch and lighted my pipe. My captive troubled me. It seemed odd that he had found the abiding-place of the two women; and if he had succeeded so quickly, why might not Henry Holbrook have equal luck? "You probably know this troublesome brother well," I ventured. "Yes; as well as a man of my age can know an older man. My father's place at Stamford adjoined the Holbrook estate. Henry and Arthur Holbrook married sisters; both women died long ago, I believe; but the brothers had a business row and went to smash. Arthur embezzled, forged, and so on, and took to the altitudinous timber, and Henry has been busy ever since trying to pluck his sister. He's wild on the subject of his wrongs--ruined by his own brother, deprived of his inheritance by his sister and abandoned by his only child. There wasn't much to Arthur Holbrook; Henry was the genius, but after the bank went to the bad he sought the consolations of rum. He and Henry married the Hartridge twins who were the reigning Baltimore belles in the early eighties--so runneth the chronicle. But I gossip, my dear sir; I gossip, which is against my principles. Even the humble button king of Strawberry Hill must draw the line." When Ijima brought in a plate of sandwiches he took one gingerly in his swathed hand, regarded it with cool inquiry, and as he munched it, remarked upon sandwiches in general as though they were botanical specimens that were usually discussed and analyzed in a scientific spirit.