but Slant-Face was not there, and his wife knew nothing of his whereabouts. Downtown again, Clifford began a tour of Slant-Face’s hang-outs; and at length he found him standing alone at the end of the Knickerbocker bar, before him a glass of buttermilk—a slender, smartly dressed person, whose immobile, lean face was given a saturnine cast by the downward slant of the left corner of his mouth.

“I saw your theater was closed, Slant-Face,” said Clifford. “What’s the matter?”

“Bradley.”

“Bradley! How could he have anything to do with closing your theater?”

“Bradley hasn’t forgot my little part in your stunt that got him out of the Department. He just waited—and laid his plans. While films were being run off and the house was dark, he had pockets picked in my place, or had people say their pockets were picked—pulled this three times. What with my reputation, this was enough for the Commissioner of Licenses, and he closed my joint.”

[22]“That’s pretty rank. Bradley certainly does have a long memory—and a long arm!”

[22]

“This is a five-reel picture, and it’s not all been run off yet,” half growled Slant-Face through his thin lips. “In the last reel, some one is going to get him!” He sipped his buttermilk, then abruptly: “Clifford, because of what you’ve done for me, I’ve played it straight for a year. The straight game don’t pay—not for me. So I’m through. I guess you understand what comes next.”

“See here, Slant-Face, don’t be—”

“I’m through!” There was the snap of absolute finality in the low, quiet voice.

Clifford knew that mere words could not change the decision made behind that lean, grim visage; so he turned to the matter that had brought him there.

“Have you seen your sister to-day?”

“Haven’t seen Mary in six months.”

“You mean you don’t know where she’s staying?” exclaimed Clifford.

“Down South in the woods somewhere,—God knows why,—doing a stretch of self-imposed solitary.”

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