upholster the paving stones, and after we got used to the new foot-work it was almost as good as a rubber mat.

We'd been having a gingery little go one day, with the whole crew of the castle, from head purser down to the second assistant pan wrastler, holding their breath in the background, and I was playing shower bath for the Boss with a leather bucket, dipping out of the fountain pool and sousing it over him, when I spots a deadhead in the audience.

She'd been playin' peek-a-boo behind one of them big stone pillars, but I guess she had got so interested that she forgot and stepped out into the open. She was a native, all right; but say, she wasn't any back-row dago girl. She was in the prima donna class, she was. Ever see Melba made up for the "Carmen" act? Well, this one was about half Melba's size, but for shape and color she had her stung to a whisper; and as for wardrobe, she had it all on. Gold hoops in her ears, tinkly things on her jacket, and a rainbow dress with the reds and greens leading the field. Eyes were her strong point, though—regular forty candle powers. She had the current all switched on, too, and a plumb centre range on the Boss.

Now he wasn't exactly in reception costume, the Boss wasn't. When he'd knocked off his runnin' shoes it left him in a pair of salmon trunks that cleared the knees considerable. He'd made a fine ad. for a physical culture school, just as he stood; for he's well muscled, and his underpinning mates up, and he don't interfere when he walks. The cold water had brought out the baby pink all over him, and he looked like one of these circus riders does on the four sheet posters. He had the lime-light, too, for a streak of sun comin' down between the towers just hit him. I see the girl wasn't missin' any of these points. It wasn't any snap-shot she was takin', it was a time exposure.

"Who's your lady friend in the wings?" says I to the Boss.

"Where?" says he.

I jerks my thumb at her. For a minute there wasn't a word said. The Boss wasn't able, I guess, and the girl never moved an eyelash. Then he yells for the bath towel and makes a break inside, me after him. When we'd rubbed down and got into our Broadway togs, we chases back and organizes ourselves into a board of inquiry. Who was she—regular boarder, or just transient? Where did she come from? And why? Likewise how, trolley, subway, or balloon?

But I'm blessed if that whole gang didn't go as mum as a lot of railroad hands after a smash-up. Why, they hadn't seen no such lady, cross their hearts they hadn't. Maybe it was old Rosa, yes? And Rosa a sylph that would fit tight in a pork barrel! A goat, then?

"Let's give 'em the third degree," says I.

So we done it, locked 'em all in a room and put 'em on the carpet one by one. They was scared stiff, too stiff to talk. All but old Vincenzo, the white-haired old pirate the count had left in charge. He was a lovely peagreen under the gills, but he made a stagger at putting up a game of talk. No, he hadn't seen no one. He had been watching their excellencies in their little affair of honor. Still, he couldn't swear that we hadn't seen some one. Folks did see things at the castle; he had seen sights himself, though generally after dark. He remembered a song about a beautiful young lady who, back in the seventeen hundred and something, had—

But I shut him off there. This fairy might have seen seventeen summers, or maybe eighteen, but she was no antique. I could kiss the Book on that. She was a regular Casino broiler. I made a point of this. It didn't feaze the old sinner, though. He went on perjuring himself as cheerful as a paid witness, and he'd have broken the Ananias record if he'd had time.

"That will do for now," says the Boss, in a kind of "step-up-front-there" tone. "If you don't know who she was just now, we'll let it go at that. But by to-morrow you'll know the whole story. It'll be healthier for all hands if you do."

Vincenzo, though, didn't have a proper notion of what he was up against. Next day he knew less than the day before. He was ready to swear the whole outfit, by all the saints in the chapel, that there hadn't been a girl on the premises.

"Bring him along, Shorty," says the Boss, starting downstairs. "There's a hole in the sub-cellar that I want this old pirate to look through."

If that hole had been cut for an ash chute it was a dandy, for the muzzle of it was a mile more or less from anything solider'n air. We skewered Vincenzo's arms to the small of his back and let him down by the heels until he had a bird's-eye view of three counties. Then we pulled him up and tested his memory.

It worked all right. That upside-down movement had shook up his thought works. He was as anxious to testify as the front benchers at a Bowery mission on soup day. We loosened the cords a bit, set him where he could see the chute plain, and told him to blaze away.

Lucky the Boss knows Eye-talyun, for old Vincenzo couldn't separate himself from English fast enough. But they had me guessing what it was all about. I couldn't make out why the old chap had to use up all the dago words in the box just to tell who was the lady that had the private view. Once in a while the Boss would jab in a question, and then old Vincenzo would work his jaw all the faster. When it was all over the Boss looks at me as pleased as though he'd got money from home, and says:

"Shorty, how's your nerve?"

"Not much below par," says I. "Why?"

"Because," says he, "they're after us—brigands."

"Brigands!" says I. "Tut, tut! Don't tell me that this dead and alive country can show up anything like that."

"It can," says he. "The woods are full of 'em."

Then he gives me the framework of what old Vincenzo had been telling him. The prima donna girl, it seems, was a lady brigandess, daughter of the heavy villain that led the bunch. She'd come in to size us up and make an estimate as to what we'd fetch on a forced sale. They had spotted us from the time we registered and had been hangin' around outside laying for us to separate. Their game was to pinch one of us and do business with the other on a cash basis—wanted some one left who could go away and cash a check, you see. When we didn't show no disposition to take after dinner promenades or before breakfast rambles they ups and tell Vincenzo that they wants the run of the castle and promises to toast his toes if they don't get it.

They don't have to promise but once, for Vincenzo has been through the mill. It was this kind of work that had queered the count. According to Vincenzo, old Blue Beak had been Pat-Crowed regular every season for five summers, and the thing had got on his nerves.

Well, Vincenzo lets three or four of 'em in one day just as the Boss and me were swappin' uppercuts and body punches in the courtyard. Maybe they didn't like the looks of things. Anyway, they hauled off and sent for the main guy, who was busy down the line a-ways. He comes up with the reserves, and his first move is to send the girl in to get a line on us. And that was the way things stood up to date.

"Who'd a thought it?" says I. "The way she looked at you I suspicioned she'd marked you out as something good to eat."

That turned the Boss red behind the ears. "I'm afraid we'll have to ask for her visiting card the next time she calls," says he. "Come, Vincenzo, I want you to show me about locking up."

After that no one came or went without showing a pass, and I lugged about four pounds of brass keys around, for we didn't want to be stood up by a gang of moth-eaten brigands loaded with old hardware. They covered close by day,