ck
when he saw his friend coming toward him with bended head and a slouched hat drawn well oves his eyes. His whole appearance betokened the ruined gamester, and that such he was there could be no longer any doubt.
Smith went for the man of God.
"Where is my money ?" he demanded, waking the clergyman to a realizing sense of things by a tremendous slap upon the back.
" I left it with a friend."
" Where is my money ? " roared Smith, seizing the reverend collar and shaking the rising lie from the reverend lips.
"Lost every dollar of it," was the reply.
" Take me to the place ? "
"I cannot."
"You will; quickly, now, if- you would avoid a scene."
Slowly the good man turned and walked about a block, ascended a flight of stairs, passed through an ante-room into a large saloon where stood several tables, and thence into a back parlor. Smith following closely at his heels. In this room behind a table was a large and highly ornamental safe well filled with money. On one side stood a secretary writing, and on the other a big burly short-haired Irish shoulderstriker. Smith saw no danger, but only the safe, and one whom he took for the proprietor, who was in the act of opening the door of his treasure-house, when the former, now pale with passion, walked up to him and exclaimed:
"I want my money."
"What name?" asked the man, as calmly and as politely as if in answer to the most common and reasonable of requests.
" insurance company," was the reply.
The gambler looked at Smith and then at the parson. He took it all in at a glance. With his hand still upon the knob, in the attitude the intruders first
