They were both very nice to him. In this case, Lowry let Barrison do most of the talking, feeling that it was a case that required tact. He stood back in thoughtful silence while Jim got around the old doorkeeper in his very best and most diplomatic style with the result that within five minutes poor old Roberts was crumpling up in rather a piteous fashion, perfectly ready to tell them anything and everything he had ever done, said, or heard of. “I didn’t mean no harm,” he protested at last, with such an attitude of abasement that neither Barrison nor, indeed, Lowry had the heart to rub it in. “I do hope—oh, I do hope, that you’ll not let Mr. Dukane discharge me! I’ve been here a good many years, and no one can say as I’ve not been faithful. I don’t believe there’s been another night in all my life when I’ve left my post.” “It would have to be to-night!” murmured Lowry. “It would!” agreed Barrison. “Go on, Roberts. No one wants to kill you, and I don’t believe there’s the least likelihood of your losing your job. Just tell us——” “You don’t know Mr. Dukane, sir!” Roberts almost wept. “He’s strict, sir; very strict! He says a thing and you’ve got to do it, no matter what happens! _I_ know—haven’t I been working for him for twenty years? And now to be fired and out——” “Who said you were going to be fired? Get along, Roberts! Tell us what it was that you did.” “I left the stage door, sir,” said Roberts humbly. “That we gathered. But why did you leave it, and when, and for how long?” Roberts sniffed and answered in a small stifled voice: “As to when I left it, sir—it was when Mrs. Parry came to ask me to get a taxi for Miss Legaye.” “Why didn’t you get a taxi, then—telephone for one?” “I did, sir. I telephoned two places, but there wasn’t a single machine in. The starters all said the same thing: It looked like rain, and they couldn’t guarantee a taxi for an hour yet. I—I like Miss Kitty, sir; she’s always kind to me, and I didn’t want her to have to wait, ’specially when she was sick, as Mrs. Parry said she was. So, when I found I couldn’t get one over the wire, I went out into the alley to see if I could see one passing.” “Well, that doesn’t seem very awful,” said Barrison, smiling at him. “Did you get one?” Poor old Roberts brightened a bit at the kindly inflection. “I couldn’t see one, sir, not from this door, so I went up to the gate at the end of the court, and looked up and down the street. And after a minute I saw one coming and hailed it, and it stopped. So I ran back again; and Miss Legaye was standing just outside the stage door, waiting. So I called to her ‘All right, Miss Legaye, your taxi’s here!’ and went on back. She passed me, in her red coat, about halfway, and I told her I was sorry to have kept her waiting. Then I hurried back here.” “And you are sure you didn’t pass any one but Miss Legaye in the alley, no one coming in?”