Around the corner of the park strolled one of those new-crop,
smooth-faced young policemen that are making the force more
endurable--at least to the eye. He saw a woman with an expensive fur
coat, and diamond-ringed hands crouching down against the iron fence
of the park sobbing turbulently, while a slender, plainly-dressed
working girl leaned close, trying to console her. But the Gibsonian
cop, being of the new order, passed on, pretending not to notice,
for he was wise enough to know that these matters are beyond help so
far as the power he represents is concerned, though he rap the
pavement with his nightstick till the sound goes up to the
furthermost stars.




A MADISON SQUARE ARABIAN NIGHT


To Carson Chalmers, in his apartment near the square, Phillips
brought the evening mail. Beside the routine correspondence there
were two items bearing the same foreign postmark.

One of the incoming parcels contained a photograph of a woman. The
other contained an interminable letter, over which Chalmers hung,
absorbed, for a long time. The letter was from another woman; and
it contained poisoned barbs, sweetly dipped in honey, and feathered
with innuendoes concerning the photographed woman.

Chalmers tore this letter into a thousand bits and began to wear out
his expensive rug by striding back and forth upon it. Thus an animal