"Get away from that window!" snapped Grand, his eyes glittering. "Oh, say now Bob, treat me fair, treat me right," pleaded Braddock, all at once abject. "I'll talk to you later on. Get away!" "Don't throw me down, Bob. I've always done the square thing by you. Didn't I pay up everything I owed you by--" "Are you going to leave that window?" demanded Grand. The miserable wretch looked into the deadly eyes of the man inside, and realized. A great sob arose in his throat. He held it back for a moment, but it grew and grew as he saw no pity in the steely eyes beyond. "My soul!" he groaned, with the bursting of the sob. He withdrew his ghastly face and rushed away in the night, stumbling over ropes and pegs, creating no end of havoc among the men who happened to toil in his path. They ran from him, thinking him mad. Half an hour later Ernie Cronk came upon him. He was sitting on the curb across the street from the circus lot, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands--staring, staring through dry, hot eyes at the tented city that was slipping away from him. "What's the matter?" asked the hunchback, in his high, querulous voice. The older man did not respond. He did not alter his position when the questioner spoke to him. "What are you looking at?" asked the other. "Ernie," began Braddock in a voice that sent a shiver across the boy's crooked back, it was so sepulchral, "let me take your pistol a second." Ernie Cronk drew back a step. He eyed Braddock narrowly. "Who are you going to kill?" he asked after a moment. "Myself," said Braddock, lifting his haggard face. Again the hunchback looked long at the man. Then, without a word, he handed a new revolver to Thomas Braddock. It was not the small derringer he was wont to carry. Braddock seemed surprised by the boy's readiness. He received the weapon gingerly. A sudden spasm shook his big frame. "Is--is it loaded?" he inquired, less lugubrious than he had been before. "No," said Ernie shortly. Braddock's chest swelled suddenly. "I suppose you think I'm fool enough to let you kill yourself with my gun and me right here where they could nab me. It's got blank ca'tridges, that's all. Somebody changed 'em on me last night--just before that--that sneak went away on the train." Volumes could not have told more than that single sentence. Braddock handed the weapon back to him. "But if you really want to shoot yourself," went on Ernie maliciously, "I've got a round of real ca'tridges here. While you're loadin' the gun I can make a sneak. If I was you, though, I'd go up that alley there, Brad. It's terrible public here." "You wicked little brute, you!" cried Braddock in horror, coming to his feet and drawing away as if from a viper. "You cold-blooded whelp! I--I never heard of such--" "Ain't you going to kill yourself?" demanded Ernie, grinning.