The plump little fingers came forth and met the rough hand of the sinner. Skippy squeezed them convulsively, not daring to trust his voice, nodded twice and smiled bravely back in the moonlight to show that the leaven of higher things was already beginning to work. "How'd you get on with Margarita?" he asked Snorky when they retired for the night. "Margarita's a pippin!" said Snorky. "I squared you all right." "You bet you did! She came right up and fed out of my hand. But, say, they swallowed it all right." "What?" "The dead game sporting life stuff." "Yes, I know. Got a cig?" "What? Oh yes. Get you one in a jiffy. But say. Go easy. The governor and all that sort of thing, you know." "Nerves sort of jumpy to-night," said Skippy languidly. "Need a few whiffs to quiet 'em down." It was something new in his life, a good influence. All his better nature rose up in response. So summoning up his courage, he lit a cigarette and tried to inhale--a desperate character, worthy to be saved, certainly ought to inhale! It was nauseating. It stung his lungs and set his head to reeling. He left the window and crawled over to the bed where he lay weak but unconquered. "By jinks, I will inhale, I'll inhale to-morrow!" he said, seeing always the uplifting smile and the pure velvety eyes of Miss Jennie as the room waltzed around him. "It's going to be awfully hard living up to her, but I'll do it if it kills me!" CHAPTER XXXII LIVING UP TO AN ANGEL SKIPPY woke with a blood curdling shriek and landed sprawling in the middle of the floor, his legs caught in the sheets, his head smothered in the comforter, a convulsive grip on the bolster, which he was desperately trying to stifle when Snorky flung himself out of bed and rushed to the rescue. "Hold him back. Help Snorky! Hold him!" "Hold what, who?" said Snorky, pursuing the smothered figure of Skippy, who was still wrestling with the bolster. "Wake up. It's me! It's Snorky." Skippy's grip relaxed and presently his terror-stricken eyes emerged from the comforter. "Holy Maria! In another minute he'd have had me in the electric chair," he said, wiping the clammy perspiration from his forehead. "Nightmare eh?" "Ugh! Gee! Moses!" "Too much cigarette." "Golly, what a life I've been leading!" said Skippy, referring to the dream. "Bar rooms and gambling dens, dark lanterns, hold-ups, racetracks and--" "Wake up, wake up!" "It's all in the dream," said Skippy sulkily. Then he remembered that all through the hideous phantasmagoria, in the smoky mists of low gambling dens, in the drizzle of midnight conclaves, across the sepulchral silences of leaden prisons, there had flitted the beatific vision of an angel with velvety eyes and the softest of lisps. "Well, go on," said Snorky. "Can't remember any more," said Skippy. Her name must be shielded at every cost.