"Then don't try," returned Dyker, laughing easily. "You can make it all right with me when you testify against Rose." She kept his hand a moment longer, partly in fear of the human multitude about her and partly in genuine gratitude. "But I do thank you," she said. Dyker, not too well liking the white light of publicity in which this little scene was being enacted, pressed her hand and dropped it. "That's all right," he responded. "Just don't forget your promise." He stepped back into the cab. "Good-by, and good luck," he said. "Good-by," he heard her answer, and then, with his head out of the cab-window, he saw her pause bewilderedly. "To your right," he cautioned. He watched her turn. He saw her plunge into the crowd. He saw the crowd swallow her up. "Take me over to my office," he ordered the driver, and added his address. Once there, he dismissed the cab, climbed the steps of what seemed an old and modest little house, and, opening the door and turning into the front room, lit a gas-jet the flame of which revealed an apartment surprisingly new and arrogant. The walls were lined with new bookcases holding rows of new law-books, and surrounded by rows of new chairs. The flat-top desk in the center, at which his stenographer sat by daylight, was a new desk, with new wire-baskets upon it, and a new telephone, to which Dyker now immediately proceeded and called a number. "Hello," he said into the transmitter, adopting the low tone that he always used in his wired conversations. "Is that Schleger's?--It is?--That you, Ludwig?--This is Dyker.--Yes, good-evening, Ludwig.--Yes, pretty good, thank you. How are you, and how's business?--That's good. Mrs. Schleger and the babies all right?--I'll bet that boy's gained three pounds!--He has? I'm glad to hear it. You're a wonder.--Yes.--That's what I said. And, say, Ludwig, is O'Malley anywhere around?--He isn't?--Hasn't been in this evening?--Oh! Well, I wonder where I can find him.--You don't? Perhaps he's at Dugan's place.--No, it's not anything important: I just wanted to take a drink with him, that's all. He's sure to be at Dugan's or Venturio's, but I guess I won't bother. Ever so much obliged, Ludwig.--Good-by." In spite of his word, Dyker did, however, bother. He called three other numbers in his quest of the political boss, and when he found him, the underling made a pressing appointment for an important conference on the next morning, though what it was that he wanted then to discuss he carefully neglected to mention over a telephone-wire. He hung up the receiver in a glow of satisfaction. "And now," he said, "I think I'll get away for the night. I don't care to have any arguments with Rose for a day or two." Yet, even as he said it, the telephone-bell uttered its staccato summons. He stood uncertainly beside the desk. "She wouldn't have the nerve to use the wire," he argued. "Perhaps it's O'Malley with more to say."