“There is, at least, reason to think so,” retorted the Reverend Bronson in a dry tone. Before I went about an order to send Inspector McCue to the Reverend Bronson, I resolved to ask a question concerning him. Gothecore should be a well-head of information on that point; I would send for Gothecore. Also it might be wise to let him hear what was afoot for his precinct. He would need to be upon his defense, and to put others interested upon theirs. Melting Moses, who still stood warder at my portals, I dispatched upon some errand. The sight of Gothecore would set him mad. I felt sorrow rather than affection for Melting Moses. There was something unsettled and mentally askew with the boy. He was queer of feature, with the twisted fantastic face one sees carved on the far end of a fiddle. Commonly, he was light of heart, and his laugh would have been comic had it not been for a note of the weird which rang in it. I had not asked him, on the day when he went backing for a spring at the throat of Gothecore, the reason of his hate. His exclamation, “He killed me mudder!” told the story. Besides, I could have done no good. Melting Moses would have given me no reply. The boy, true to his faith of Cherry Hill, would fight out his feuds for himself; he would accept no one's help, and regarded the term “squealer” as an epithet of measureless disgrace. When Gothecore came in, I caught him at the first of it glowering furtively about, as though seeking someone. “Where is that Melting Moses?” he inquired, when he saw how I observed him to be searching the place with his eye. “And why?” said I. “I thought I'd look him over, if you didn't mind. I can't move about my precinct of nights but he's behind me, playin' th' shadow. I want to know why he pipes me off, an' who sets him to it.” “Well then,” said I, a bit impatiently, “I should have thought a full-grown Captain of Police was above fearing a boy.” Without giving Gothecore further opening, I told him the story of the Reverend Bronson, and that campaign of purity he would be about. “And as to young Van Flange,” said I. “Does he still lose his money in Barclay Street?” “They've cleaned him up,” returned Gothecore. “Billy Van Flange is gone, hook, line, and sinker. He's on his uppers, goin' about panhandlin' old chums for a five-dollar bill.” “They made quick work of him,” was my comment. “He would have it,” said Gothecore. “When his mother died th' boy got his bridle off. Th' property--about two hundred thousand dollars--was in paper an' th' way he turned it into money didn't bother him a bit. He came into Barclay Street, simply padded with th' long green--one-thousand-dollar bills, an' all that--an' them gams took it off him so fast he caught cold. He's dead broke; th' only difference between him an' a hobo, right now, is a trunk full of clothes.”