“Why--if you must know, I meant to rob you; to take and appropriate to my own base uses that which I have not, and which you presumably have. Not having had the practice which makes perfect, I seem to have fallen down. Would you mind sitting a little farther back on me? I could breathe much better if you would.” Philip got up and picked up the dropped weapon. “I suppose I ought to shoot you with your own gun,” he snapped; and the reply to that was another chuckling laugh. “You couldn’t, you know,” said the highwayman, sitting up. “It’s perfectly harmless--empty, as you may see for yourself if you’ll break it. You were quite safe in ignoring it.” Philip regarded him curiously. “What kind of a hold-up are you, anyway?” he asked. “The rottenest of amateurs, as you have just proved upon my poor body. I thank you for the demonstration. It decides a nice question for me. I hesitated quite some time before I could tip the balance between this, and going into a restaurant, ordering and consuming a full meal, and being kicked out ignominiously for non-payment afterward. This seemed the more decent thing to do, but it is pretty evident that I lack something in the way of technique. Wouldn’t you say so?” “I should say that you are either a fool or crazy,” said Philip bluntly. “Wrong, both ways from the middle,” was the jocular retort. “At the present moment I am merely an empty stomach; and empty stomachs, as you may have observed, are notoriously lacking in any moral sense. May I get up?” “Yes,” said Philip; and when the man was afoot: “Now walk ahead of me to that street lamp on the corner. I want to have a look at you.” What the street lamp revealed was what he was rather expecting to see; a handsome, boyish face a trifle thin and haggard, eyes that were sunken a little, but with an unextinguished smile in them, a fairly good chin and jaw, a mouth just now wreathing itself in an impish grin under his captor’s frowning scrutiny. “Umph!--you don’t look like a very hard case,” Philip decided. “Oh, but I am, I assure you. I’ve been kicked out of two respectable colleges, dropped from the home club for conduct unbecoming a gentleman, and finally turned out of house and home by a justifiably irate father. Can I say more?” “What are you doing in Denver?” “You saw what I was trying to do a few minutes ago. The outcome dovetails accurately with everything else I have attempted since I parted with the final dollar of the even thousand with which I was disinherited. Failure seems to be my baptismal name.” “What is your name?” “Henry Wigglesworth Bromley. Please don’t smile at the middle third of it. That is a family heirloom--worse luck. But to the matter in hand: I’m afraid I’m detaining you. Shall I--‘mog,’ is the proper frontier word, I believe--shall I mog along down-town and surrender myself to the police?” “Would you do that if I should tell you to?”