Now in Clancey's George found a crumpled copy of the _Evening Journal_
almost afloat on the high-tide of the dregs-drenched bar. Rescuing the
sheet, he smoothed it out, examined (grinning) its daily meed of
comics, read every word on the "Sports Page," ploughed through the
weekly vaudeville charts, scanned the advertisements, and at length
reviewed the news columns with a listless eye.

It may have been the stimulation of his drink, but it was probably
nothing more nor less than jealousy that sparked his sluggish
imagination as he contemplated a two-column reproduction in coarse
half-tone of a photograph entitled "Marian Blessington." Slowly the
light dawned upon mental darkness; slowly his grin broadened and
became fixed--even as his great scheme for the confusion and
confounding of P. Sybarite took shape and matured.

He left Clancey's presently, stepping high, with a mind elate;
foretasting victory; convinced that he harboured within him the
makings of a devil of a fellow, all the essential qualifications of
(not to put _too_ fine a point upon it) a regular wag....




III

THE GLOVE COUNTER


With a feeling of some guilt, becoming in one who stoops to unworthy
artifice, P. Sybarite walked slowly on up Broadway a little way, then