As a general thing I don't go much on looks, but I will say that I've seen handsomer specimens than Rossiter. He's got good height, and plenty of reach, with legs branchin' out just under his armpits--you know how them clothespin fellers are built--but when you finish out the combination with pop eyes and a couple of overhangin' front teeth-- Well, what's the use? Rossy don't travel on his shape. He don't have to, with popper bossin' a couple of trunk lines. When he first begun comin' to the Studio I sized him up for a soft boiled, and wondered how he could stray around town alone without havin' his shell cracked. Took me some time, too, before I fell to the fact that Rossy was wiser'n he looked; but at that he wa'n't no knowledge trust. Just bein' good natured was Rossy's long suit. Course, he couldn't help grinnin'; his mouth is cut that way. There wa'n't any mistakin' the look in them wide set eyes of his, though. That was the real article, the genuine I'll-stand-for-anything kind. Say, you could spring any sort of a josh on Rossy, and he wouldn't squeal. He was one of your shy violets, too. Mostly he played a thinkin' part, and when he did talk, he didn't say much. After you got to know 'him real well, though, and was used to the way he looked, you couldn't help likin' Rossiter. I'd had both him and the old man as reg'lars for two or three months, and it's natural I was more or less chummy with them. So when Rossy shows up here the other mornin' and shoves out his proposition to me, I don't think nothin' of it. "Shorty," says he, kind of flushin' up, "I've got a favour to ask of you." "You're welcome to use all I've got in the bank," says I. "It isn't money," says he, growin' pinker. "Oh!" says I, like I was a lot surprised. "Your usin' the touch preamble made me think it was. What's the go?" "I--I can't tell you just now," says he; "but I'd like your assistance in a little affair, about eight o'clock this evening. Where can I find you?" "Sounds mysterious," says I. "You ain't goin' up against any Canfield game; are you?" "Oh, I assure----" he begins. "That's enough," says I, and I names the particular spot I'll be decoratin' at that hour. "You won't fail?" says he, anxious. "Not unless an ambulance gets me," says I. Well, I didn't go around battin' my head all the rest of the day, tryin' to think out what it was Rossiter had on the card. Somehow he ain't the kind you'd look for any hot stunts from. If I'd made a guess, maybe I'd said he wanted me to take him and a college chum down to a chop suey joint for an orgy on li-chee nuts an' weak tea. So I wa'n't fidgetin' any that evenin', as I holds up the corner of 42nd-st., passin' the time of day with the Rounds, and watchin' the Harlem folks streak by to the roof gardens. Right on the tick a hansom fetches up at the curb, and I sees Rossiter givin' me the wig-wag to jump in. "You're runnin' on sked," says I. "Where to now?"