"I think he'll live to see the day he'll regret the mean trick he played you," answered Mac; "but that doesn't prove your contention that all beggars are frauds." "Did you try to catch him?" interrupted Boggs. "No, I was too hurt. I didn't mind the money or the clothes. What I minded was the way in which I had squandered my personality. The only thing I did do was to tell Captain Alec Williams of our precinct about him. "'Smooth-talking fellow?' Williams asked; 'had a scrap with his father? Light-blue eyes and a little turned-up mustache? Yes, I know him--slickest con' man in the business. We've got his mug in our collection; show it to you some day, if you come;' and _he did_." "And the great reader of human nature didn't go to London and build arches and kill the fatted calf, after all," remarked Lonnegan, with a wink at Boggs. "No," retorted Boggs; "he could have suicided himself at home with less trouble." "Laugh on, you can't hurt me! I'm immune," said Woods. "I learned my lesson that time, and I've graduated. I'm not practising any theories, old or new; I'm doing missionary work instead, pointing out and running down dead beats wherever I see them. No more men's night meetings for me, no more widows with twins--no nothing. When I've got anything to give I hand it to my aunt. It isn't a pleasant yarn--it's one on me every time. I only told it to Mac so he could save his money." "I'm saving it, Woods--save it every day; got a lot of small banks all over the place that pay me compound interest. Now I'll tell _you_ a yarn, and I want you fellows to listen and keep still till I get through. If there's any doubts, Boggs, of your releasing your grasp on your talking machine, I'll take your remarks now. All right, enough said. Now hand me that tobacco, Lonnegan, and one of you fellows move back so I can get up closer, where you can all hear. This story, remember, Woods, is for you." When Mac talks we listen. The story, whatever it may be, always comes straight from his heart.