more. You are unmarried. She wouldn't have you. Alas, Comrade
Parker! However, thus it is! We look around us, and what do we
see? A solid phalanx of the girls we have loved and lost. Tell me
about her, Comrade Parker. Was it your face or your manners at
which she drew the line?"

Mr. Parker leaned forward with a scowl. Psmith did not move, but
his right hand, as it hung, closed. Another moment and Mr. Parker's
chin would be in just the right position for a swift upper-cut. . .

This fact appeared suddenly to dawn on Mr. Parker himself. He drew
back quickly, and half raised the revolver. Psmith's hand resumed
its normal attitude.

"Leaving more painful topics," said Psmith, "let us turn to another
point. That note which the grubby stripling brought to me at the
office purported to come from Comrade Windsor, and stated that he
had escaped from Blackwell's Island, and was awaiting my arrival at
some address in the Bowery. Would you mind telling me, purely to
satisfy my curiosity, if that note was genuine? I have never made
a close study of Comrade Windsor's handwriting, and in an unguarded
moment I may have assumed too much."

Mr. Parker permitted himself a smile.

"I guess you aren't so clever after all," he said. "The note was a
fake all right."

"And you had this cab waiting for me on the chance?"