And thus Jean Lescaut, wife poisoner and perpetrator of a dozen crimes, helped in his expiation of those crimes to advance the cause of science; and justice was not cheated, for the execution of his sentence was merely postponed the matter of a few hours. THE PAINTED LADY AND THE BOY. THE PAINTED LADY AND THE BOY. “Bud Phillips says The Boy is going to the devil,” announced Stebbins, as he strolled into the smoking room at the Sherwood Club, after beating Perkins three games of billiards. “Well, Bud is certainly in a position to be accurately informed on that subject,” answered the Colonel; and the truth of his reply was so apparent, that everyone smiled. Bud was night clerk at the Algonquin, the hotel where The Boy had a suite. So he had a chance to see at what hour and how the guests came home. He also knew just how many times a week The Boy’s rooms were a rendezvous for the young subalterns from Fort Blair, who came into town every time they could get leave, to gamble away their month’s scanty pay. But as Bud Phillips also said, The Boy wasn’t entirely to blame, for he had never had a mother’s care; and, though no one in Preston City except the Colonel and I knew the facts of his early life, everyone had a good word for him, and was inclined to overlook many indiscretions on the part of popular Billy Richards, The Boy. Colonel Wade and I could remember the day when Stewart Sloan shocked the good people back in Sioux City by bringing home for a wife La Petite Mabelle, skirt dancer from a vaudeville theatre in Des Moines. The predictions of the sewing-club gossips were more than fulfilled, for La Petite Mabelle ran away one fine day before the year was up, leaving Sloan with a two-months-old baby boy, and a little note of farewell. La Petite Mabelle told him in melodramatic sentences, covering two sheets of note paper, that the attractions of the old life, with its cheap finery and grease paint, were too strong for her. She could never remain in Sioux City, where nobody called on her, Stewart himself seemed ashamed of her, and where there was nothing going on. She said further, that he mustn’t think too badly of her, and that he ought to try and forget her. This Sloan had certainly tried hard enough to do. That fall he secured a divorce, and when the legislature convened in Des Moines next year, he had the name that La Petite Mabelle had disgraced changed to Richards, his mother’s maiden name. So young William Richards, as Sloan rechristened the boy, grew up to manhood, never knowing the tragedy of his father’s early life, and never having felt the softening influence of a mother’s love. His father died when the lad was twelve, naming as his son’s guardian Colonel Wade, who looked after him as well as an old bachelor of fifty, loaded down with business cares, could be expected to look after a growing and spirited youth.