Dawn found them in an East Side basement drinking-place frequented by the lowest classes. Ringold was slumbering peacefully, half overflowing the wet surface of a table; Anthony had discovered musical talent in the bartender and was seated at a battered piano, laboriously experimenting with the accompaniment to an Irish ballad; Higgins and Locke were talking earnestly. It was the slackest, blackest hour in an all-night dive; the nocturnal habitues had slunk away, and the day's trade had not yet begun. Higgins, drawn and haggard beneath his drunken flush, was babbling incessantly; Locke, as usual, sat facing the entrance, his eyes watchful, his countenance alert. In spite of the fact that he had constantly plied his companion with liquor in the hope of stilling his tongue, Higgins seemed incapable of silence, and kept breaking forth into loud, garbled recitals of the scene at Padden's, which caused the Missourian to shiver with apprehension. To a sober eye it would have been patent that Locke was laboring under some strong excitement; for every door that opened caused him to start, every stranger that entered made him quake. He consulted his watch repeatedly, he flushed and paled and fidgeted, then lost himself in frowning meditation. "Grandes' fellow I ever met," Higgins was saying for the hundredth time. "Got two faults, tha's all; he's modesht an' he's lazy--he won't work." "Anthony?" "Yes." Locke stirred himself, and, leaning forward, said: "You and he are good friends, eh?" "Best ever." "Would you like to play a joke on him?" "Joke? Can't be done. He's wises' guy ever. I've tried it an' always get the wors' of it. Yes, sir, he's wise guy. Jus' got two faults: he won't work an'--" "Look here! Why don't you make him work?" "Huh?" Higgins turned a pair of bleared, unfocusable eyes upon the speaker. "Why don't somebody make him work?" The lean-faced youth laughed moistly. "Tha's good joke." "I mean it." "Got too much money. 'S old man puts up reg'lar." "Listen! It's a shame for a fine fellow like him to go to the dogs." Higgins nodded heavily in agreement. "Why don't you send him away where he'll have to rustle? That's the joke I meant." "Huh?" Again the listener's mind failed to follow, and Locke repeated his words, concluding: "It would make a new man of him." "Oh, he wouldn't work. Too lazy." "He'd have to if he were broke." "But he AIN'T broke. Didn't I tell you 's old man puts up reg'lar? Fine man, too, Misser Anthony; owns railroads." "I'll tell you how we can work it. I've got a ticket for Central America in my pocket. The boat sails at ten. Let's send him down there." "Wha' for?" Locke kept his temper with an effort. "To make a man of him. We'll go through his clothes and when he lands he'll be broke. He'll HAVE to work. Don't you see?" "No." Anthony's friend did not see. "He don't want to go to Central America," he argued; "he's got a new autom'bile."