one out. Who's out? Oh, it's _him_. Hey O'Brien, lemonade for the lady."

It brought a laugh, a deep, good-natured laugh, and then a chorus of
mockery; but Barry stepped unconfused to the bar, accepted the glass of
lemonade, and when the others downed their fire-water, he sipped his
drink thoughtfully. Outside, the wind had risen, and it shook the hotel
and carried a score of faint voices as it whirred around corners and
through cracks. Perhaps it was one of those voices which made the big
dog lift its head from its paws and whine softly! surely it was
something he heard which caused Barry to straighten at the bar and cant
his head slightly to one side--but, as certainly, no one else in the
barroom heard it. Barry set down his glass.

"Mr. Strann?" he called.

And the gentle voice carried faintly down through the uproar of the bar.

"Sister wants to speak to you," suggested O'Brien to Strann.

"Well?" roared the latter, "what d'you want?"

The others were silent to listen; and they smiled in anticipation.

"If you don't mind, much," said the musical voice, "I think I'll be
moving along."

There is an obscure little devil living in all of us. It makes the child
break his own toys; it makes the husband strike the helpless wife; it
makes the man beat the cringing, whining dog. The greatest of American
writers has called it the Imp of the Perverse. And that devil came in