Their two figures, closely interwoven--one steering and supporting; the other being steered and being supported--passed in the murk round the back corner of Odd Fellows' Hall, to bring up at the foot of a flight of rough wooden stairs, built on against the wall for added protection and as an added means of exit from the upper floor in case of fire, fight or flight. Here the hardest part of Jeff's job began. He had to boost Red Hoss up, step by step. Above, the most successful watch party ever conducted under the auspices of the Supreme Kings of the Universe had progressed almost to its apogee. It was now six minutes before the hour when, according to no less an authority than the late Bard of Avon, churchyards yawn and graves give up their sheeted dead. The principal orator, with his high collar quite wilted down and his face, behind his spectacles, slick and shiny with sweat, reached his conclusion, following a burst of eloquence so powerful that his hearers almost could hear the Tophet fires crackling beneath their tingling feet. “An' now, my dearly beloved sistern an' brethem,” he proclaimed, in a short peroration to his longer one--“an' now I commands you to think on the fix this pore transgressor must be in at this very minute, cut off ez he wuz in the midst of his sins an' his shortcomin'ses. Think on yore own sins an' yore own shortcomin'ses. Think, an' think hard! Think, an' think copious!” His voice swung downward to the more subdued cadence of the semiconversational tone: “The hour of midnight is 'most at hand. In acco'dance wid the programme I shell now turn off the lights, an' this gatherin' will set in the solemn communion of darkness fur five minutes, till the New Yeah comes.” He stepped three paces backward and turned a plug set in the wall close to the door jam. All over the hall the bulbs winked out. Nothing was to be seen, and for a few seconds nothing was heard except the sound of the minister's shuffling movements as he felt his way back to his place at the front of the platform, and, below him, in the body of the hall, the nervous rustle of many swaying bodies and of twice as many scuffling feet. On the far side of the closed rear door crouched Jeff, breathless from his recent exertions, panting whispered admonitions in the ear of his co-conspirator. Red Hoss was impatient to lunge forward. He wanted to surge in right now. But Jeff held fast to him. Jeff could sense a psychological moment, even if he could not pronounce one. “Wait jes' one secont mo'--please, Red Hoss!” he entreated. “Wait twell I opens dis yere do' fur you. Den you bulge right in an' speak up de words 'Here I is!' loud an' clear. You won't furgit'dat part, will you?” “'On't furgit nothin'!” muttered Red Hoss. “Jes' watch my smoke--dat's all!” With his ear against a thin panel, Jeff listened; listened--and smiled. Through the barrier he heard the preacher's voice saying: