"I'd almost think I'd dreamed her," said he, thoughtfully, "that is, if I was good enough to have dreams like that," he added hastily, with his first touch of shame. "I've seen 'em from the Battery up, and some of 'em was sure-enough queens, but I didn't know they came like this one. She's bran-new to me, parson. Say, you just show me what she wants me to help you with, and I'll do it. She seems to think I can, and it oughtn't to be any harder than opening a time-vault, ought it?" "No," said I gravely, "I shouldn't think it would be. Though I never opened a time-vault, you understand, and I hope and pray you'll never touch one again, either. I'd rather you wouldn't even refer to it, please. It makes me feel, rather--well, let's say _particeps criminis_." "I suppose that's the polite for punching you in the wind," said he, just as gravely. "And I didn't think you'd ever monkeyed with a vault; why, you couldn't, not if you was to try till Gabriel did his little turn in the morning--not unless you'd been caught when you were softer and put wise. Man, it's a bigger job than you think, and you've got to have the know-how and the nerve before you can put it over. But there--I'll keep it dark, seeing you want me to." He stretched out his hands, regarding them speculatively. "They _are_ classy mitts," he remarked impersonally. "Yep, seemed like they were just naturally made to--do what they did. They were built for fine work." At that his jaw snapped; a spasm twitched his face; it darkened. "The work little Miss Eustis suggested for you," I insinuated hastily, "is what very many people consider very fine work indeed. About one in a thousand can do it properly." "Lead me to it," said he wearily, and without enthusiasm, "and turn me loose. I'll do what I can, to please her. At least, until I can make a getaway for keeps." CHAPTER V ENTER KERRY When I was first seen prowling along the roads and about the fields stalking butterflies and diurnal moths with the caution of a red Indian on the warpath and the stealth of a tiger in the jungle; when mystified folk met me at night, a lantern suspended from my neck, a haversack across my shoulders, a bottle-belt about my waist, and armed with a butterfly net, the consensus of opinion was that poor Father De Rancé was stark staring mad. Appleboro hadn't heretofore witnessed the proceedings of the Brethren of the Net, and I had to do much patient explaining; even then I am sure I must have left many firmly convinced that I was not, in their own phrase, "all there."