savings-bank account. After five o'clock this hyena purred at his wife
and licked his cubs; the rest of the time he knew no mercy.

But he concealed his cruelty and his avarice under a mask of benignity.
He was fat, jolly and sympathetic, and his smile was the smile of a
warm-hearted humanitarian. The milk of human kindness oozed from his
every pore. In fact, he was always grumbling about the amount of work he
had to do for nothing. He was a genial, generous host; unostentatiously
conspicuous in the local religious life of his denomination; in court a
model of obsequious urbanity, deferential to the judges before whom he
appeared and courteous to all with whom he was thrown in contact. A
good-natured, easy-going, simple-minded fat man; deliberate, slow of
speech, well-meaning, with honesty sticking out all over him, you would
have said; one in whom the widow and the orphan would have found a
staunch protector and an unselfish friend. And now, having thus subtly
connoted the character of our villain, let us proceed with our
narrative.

The telephone buzzed on the wall set beside him.

"That you, chief?" came the voice of Simpkins.

"Yep."

"Got one off Delany."

"What is it?"

"Kid smashed a window--malicious mischief. Held for examination
to-morrow at two. Five hundred bail."