She looked at the name on the plate, and gave a cry between a moan and a scream. “No, no, no, Eddie! Oh, my God, no! I won’t let you do that—not now! Let me go! You shan’t do that! You can’t—you mus’n’t! Not after you know! No, no! Come away quick! Oh, my God! Please, Eddie, come!” Half fainting, she reeled, and was caught in the bend of his arm. Cork’s right hand felt for the electric button and pressed it long. Another cop—how quickly they scent trouble when trouble is on the wing!—came along, saw them, and ran up the steps. “Here! What are you doing with that girl?” he called gruffly. “She’ll be all right in a minute,” said Cork. “It’s a straight deal.” “Reverend Jeremiah Jones,” read the cop from the door-plate with true detective cunning. “Correct,” said Cork. “On the dead level, we’re goin’ to get married.” XXI THE VENTURERS Let the story wreck itself on the spreading rails of the _Non Sequitur_ Limited, if it will; first you must take your seat in the observation car “_Raison d’être_” for one moment. It is for no longer than to consider a brief essay on the subject—let us call it: “What’s Around the Corner.” _Omne mundus in duas partes divisum est_—men who wear rubbers and pay poll-taxes, and men who discover new continents. There are no more continents to discover; but by the time overshoes are out of date and the poll has developed into an income tax, the other half will be paralleling the canals of Mars with radium railways. Fortune, Chance, and Adventure are given as synonymous in the dictionaries. To the knowing each has a different meaning. Fortune is a prize to be won. Adventure is the road to it. Chance is what may lurk in the shadows at the roadside. The face of Fortune is radiant and alluring; that of Adventure is flushed and heroic. The face of Chance is the beautiful countenance—perfect because vague and dream-born—that we see in our tea-cups at breakfast while we growl over our chops and toast. The VENTURER is one who keeps his eye on the hedgerows and wayside groves and meadows while he travels the road to Fortune. That is the difference between him and the Adventurer. Eating the forbidden fruit was the best record ever made by a Venturer. Trying to prove that it happened is the highest work of the Adventuresome. To be either is disturbing to the cosmogony of creation. So, as bracket-sawed and city-directoried citizens, let us light our pipes, chide the children and the cat, arrange ourselves in the willow rocker under the flickering gas jet at the coolest window and scan this little tale of two modern followers of Chance. “Did you ever hear that story about the man from the West?” asked Billinger, in the little dark-oak room to your left as you penetrate the interior of the Powhatan Club. “Doubtless,” said John Reginald Forster, rising and leaving the room.