Then, sighing out like a child, she lay back on the pillow, turned over, and went to sleep. * * * * * And this is the story of Hester which so insisted to be told. I think she must have wanted you to know. And wanted Gerald to know that you know, and, in the end, I rather think she wanted God to know. _Everybody’s Magazine_ “CAB, SIR?” BY SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS “CAB, SIR?”[6] By SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS Reviewing the facts candidly, the sike now attributes his part in the crime to the stimulus of a third cup of tea. The first two he took because he was lonely. The third he had, for fellowship, on invitation from a gob and a flit who perceived his condition. They explained that they were lifelong friends, having originally met last week at a sing-song while waiting for their final discharge papers; and why not see New York first? The sike said that he had no place to go short of College City, Missouri. The gob, it appeared, had plenty of places to go in the near vicinage, but did not wish to resume his old way of life which, he hinted, was ignominious if not actually criminal. The flit had to go to the dental clinic in the morning, so he didn’t care; he was feeling reckless and suicidal. The hour was that of slacktide on Broadway, when the chorus is just opening the second act. “What is that which it is that we make to do this evening?” inquired the gob, as they emerged from the War Camp Community Service Club on Twenty-seventh Street. Having taken the cantonment course in Uncle Sam’s French Idioms for the Idiotic, the others comprehended at once. “Would a bus ride be a good start?” suggested the sike. “Take a walk and get the kinks out of us,” amended the flit who still suffered from transport cramp. “What-ho about a roof-show?” queried the gob. Madison Square Garden loomed flatly beside them while they were still debating it by the ambulant method. A shaft of light from a side exit fell across their path. The flit blinked into the aperture and withdrew his tongue from his most peevish tooth for the purpose of remarking: “Whoa, Dobbin!” “It’s a tank,” observed the sike, following his gaze. “What does the sign say?” He pointed to a placard, pendent from the creature’s neck. “‘To be returned,’” read the gob. “To return it, you first got to take it out,” argued the flit. “It spoke just in time. Maudie, I’m your little return ticket.” “You!” said the gob incredulously. “Where do you come in? Can you run that thing?” “I can run anything that drinks gasoline.” “It looks like Providence by special arrangement,” observed the gob. “What do _you_ say, Buddy?” “I told you I was for a bus ride,” returned the sike under the influence of the third cup of tea.