So, as I walked down the street with Nell and Will Somers a part of the way, the talk was in that strain, and when I left them, after passing Sam Hollis bound home, it was with the hope of things coming out all right. I was feeling happy until I got near Minnie Arkell's door, where my worrying began again, for there on the steps and in the glare of the electric light was Minnie Arkell herself, as though she were waiting for somebody. And not wanting to have her know that I saw her waiting at her door steps at that time of night, I stepped in the shadows until she should go in. It was then that Maurice came along, and she called him up. And he went up and stood on the step below her and she bent over him as if she wanted to lift him up. And it was less than five minutes since Sam Hollis left her. "Come around by way of the side door of grandma's house, Maurice, and through her yard and into my house, and nobody will see you. And then no old grannies will talk and we'll have a little supper all to ourselves. Hurry now." She was talking as if she owned him. I did not hear what Maurice said, nor I did not want to hear; but making for the corner, he went by me like a shot, and "O Lord!" I heard him groan as he passed me, not recognizing me--not even seeing me, I believe. I did not know what to make of it and let him go by. But after he had turned the corner and Minnie Arkell had shut her door--and she watched him till he disappeared around the corner--I ran after him. In my hurrying after him I heard the voice of Clancy coming down the street. He was singing. I had heard from Nell of Clancy being at the ball, where he was as usual in charge of the commissary. I could imagine how they must have drove things around the punch-bowl with Clancy to the wheel. He was coming along now and for blocks anybody that was not dead could hear him. And getting nearer I had to admire him. He was magnificent, even with a list to port. Not often, I imagined, did men of Clancy's lace and figure get into evening dress. The height and breadth of him!--and spreading enough linen on his shirt front to make a sail for quite a little vessel. He was almost on top of me, with "Oh, hove flat down on th' Western Banks Was the Bounding Billow, Captain Hanks-- And----" when I hailed him. "Hulloh, if it ain't Joe Buckley. Why, Joey, but aren't you out pretty late to-night? But maybe you're only standing watch for somebody? Three o'clock, Joey, and no excuse for you, for you didn't have to stand by the supplies--" But then I rushed him around the corner, and down the street to the side door of Mrs. Arkell's and just in time to head off Maurice, bound as I knew for Minnie Arkell's house across the yard. I didn't have a chance to say a word to Tommie, but he didn't have to be told. If I'd been explaining for a week he couldn't have picked things up any better than he did.