Castle Craneycrow

Soberly, they walked out into the street and off through the two o’clock stillness. The mystified burglar was losing his composure. He could not understand the captor’s motive, nor could he much longer curb his curiosity. In his mind, he was delighted that he was walking straight to the portals of the nearest station. In all his career as a housebreaker, he had never before been caught, and now, to be captured in such a way and treated in such a way was far past comprehension. Ten minutes before, he was looking at a stalwart figure with a levelled revolver, confidently expecting to drop the bullet in his body from an agitated weapon. Indeed, he encountered conditions so strange that he doubted their reality. He had no desire to escape for some peculiar and excellent reason. Something odd in the proceeding made him wish to see it to an end. Besides, he was sure the strapping young fellow would shoot if he attempted to bolt.

“This is a fairly good eating house,” observed the would-be victim as they approached an “all-nighter.” They entered and deliberately removed their coats, the thief watching his host with shifty, even twinkling eyes. “What shall it be, Mr. Robber? If you are hungry, you may order the entire bill, from soup to the date line, if you like. Pitch in.”

“Say, boss, what’s your game?” demanded the crook suddenly. With its week’s growth of beard, his sharp, pinched face wore a new expression—that of admiration. “I ain’t such a rube that I don’t like a good thing even when it ain’t comin’ my way. You are awesome, that’s right, and I think we’d do well in the business together. Put me next to yer game,”

“Game? The bill of fare tells you all about that. Here’s quail, squab, duck—see? That’s the only game I’m interested in. Go on and order.”

“Help me, Gawd, if you ain’t a peach.”

Mr. Burglar ate ravenously for half an hour, Quentin watching him through half-closed, amused eyes. He had had a dull, monotonous week, and this novelty lifted life out of the torpidity into which it had fallen.

The host at this queer feast was at that time little more than twenty-five years of age, a year out of Yale, and just back from a second tour of South America. He was an orphan, coming into a considerable fortune with his majority, and he had satiated an old desire to travel in lands not visited by all the world.