"His old man sends you up for a stretch for something you didn't do--and you take up with his son like----"

"And yet you don't understand!" There was scorn for such gross stupidity in the musical voice.

Aggie choked a little from the cigarette smoke, as she gave a gasp when suspicion of the truth suddenly dawned on her slow intelligence.

"My Gawd!" Her voice came in a treble shriek of apprehension. "I'm wise!"

"But you must understand this," Mary went on, with an authoritative note in her voice. "Whatever may be between young Gilder and me is to be strictly my own affair. It has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of you, or with our schemes for money-making. And, what is more, Agnes, I don't want to talk about it. But----"

"Yes?" queried Aggie, encouragingly, as the other paused. She hopefully awaited further confidences.

"But I do want to know," Mary continued with some severity, "what you meant by talking in the public street yesterday with a common pickpocket."

Aggie's childlike face changed swiftly its expression from a sly eagerness to sullenness.

"You know perfectly well, Mary Turner," she cried indignantly, "that I only said a few words in passin' to my brother Jim. And he ain't no common pickpocket. Hully Gee! He's the best dip in the business."

"But you must not be seen speaking with him," Mary directed, with a certain air of command now become habitual to her among the members of her clique. "My cousin, Miss Agnes Lynch, must be very careful as to her associates."

The volatile Agnes was restored to good humor by some subtle quality in the utterance, and a family pride asserted itself.

"He just stopped me to say it's been the best year he ever had," she explained, with ostentatious vanity.

Mary appeared sceptical.

"How can that be," she demanded, "when the dead line now is John Street?"

"The dead line!" Aggie scoffed. A peal of laughter rang merrily from her curving lips.

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