words came laboriously, but his heavy brows were drawn down, his
jaw was square. "I was clumsy. I might have killed her. But she's
all right, and I'll be all right, too, when I get a doctor. Now
put that pistol in my pocket, John. Do as I say. There! Now I'm
ready."

The hall-man of the Elegancia was somewhat amused at sight of the
three figures that emerged from Miss Lynn's apartment, and
surmised that there had been a gay time within, judging from the
condition of the old man in the center. Theatrical people were a
giddy lot, anyhow. Since there was no likelihood of a tip from one
so deeply in his cups, the attendant did not trouble to lend a
hand, but raised his heels to the switchboard and dozed off again.

Bob Wharton mounted the box and drove eastward across Broadway,
through the gloomy block to Columbus Avenue and on to Central Park
West, the clop-clop-clop of the horse's feet echoing lonesomely in
the empty street. At Sixty-seventh Street he wheeled into the
sunken causeway that links the East and West sides.

Once in the shadows, Merkle leaned from the door, crying softly,
"Faster! Faster!"

Bob whipped up, the horse cantered, the cab reeled and bounced
over the cobblestones, rocking the wounded man pitifully.

To John Merkle the ride was terrible, with a drunkard at the reins
and in his own arms a perhaps fatally injured man, who, despite
the tortures of that bumping carriage, interspersed his groans
with cries of "Hurry, Hurry!" But, while Merkle was appalled at