"Sit down in that chair by the winder, David. So! Wot a 'andsome chap you've got to be! My eye! Ruby will be proper crazy about you. I beg pardon: you mentioned Tom Braddock. Well, he was a setting right there where you are not more than twenty-four hours ago." "You don't mean it!" "Ruby will be in before long," rambled the old clown, thoroughly enjoying himself. "She's off to the market. Do you know, Davy, she's a most wonderful manager, that girl o' mine. We've been in from the road for nearly a month now--closed the most prosperous season on record at Rochester, New York, on the 17th of May--and Ruby 'ad the 'ouse running like it 'ad been oiled inside o' two hours arfter we got off the cars. She's a--Oh, we was talking of Brad, wasn't we? Well, let me see. Oh, yes, he was 'ere yesterday. And now you're 'ere to-day. It's marvelous 'ow things do go. Brad asked arfter you." "I suppose so," said David impatiently. "But, tell me, Joey, what is his game? What is he in New York for?" The old clown did not answer at once. He pursed his lips and stared in a troubled sort of way at the leg of David's chair. Then he began to fill his pipe. His hand trembled noticeably. Saving the snowy whiteness of his hair, Grinaldi did not appear to be an hour older than in the days of Van Slye's. His merry, wrinkled face was as ruddy, as keen, as healthy as it ever had been. No one would have called him sixty-five, and yet he was beyond that in years. "He's 'ere for no good purpose, I'm afraid," said he, at last. "In a way, I'm kind o' sorry for Brad, David. He'd 'a' been a different sort o' man if it 'adn't been for Bob Grand. If ever a chap 'ad an evil genius, Brad 'ad one in that man. I suppose Dick told you Brad's been up for two or three year, doing time. Not but wot he deserved it, the way he treated Mary, but it don't seem just right that Bob Grand should be the one to send 'im up. Mary 'ad nothink to do with it, but you can't make Brad believe that. He's got it in 'is 'ead that she's been working with Grand all along. I talked to 'im for two hours yesterday, but I couldn't shake 'im. He's a broken man--but he's a determined one. The time served up at Sing Sing 'ad one benefit to it: it dried up all the whiskey that was in 'im. He came out of there with 'is eyes and 'is mind as clear as whistles, and he's not the feller you used to know, David. He's twenty years older, and his face ain't no longer bloated; it's haggard and full o' lines. His hair is nearly as white as mine. And 'ere's the great thing about 'im: he ain't drinking a drop. He says he never will drink another drop, so long as he lives. Do you know why?" The old man leaned forward and spoke with a serious intentness that sent a cold chill to the heart of his young friend. "He says he ain't going to take any chances on bungling the job he's set out to do," went on Joey slowly. "He wants to be plumb sober when he does it, so's it will be done proper." "You mean--murder?"