LITMIR.BIZ

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If his face ached and his knuckles smarted where the skin had been knocked off, that was his own business also. And when the judgment of calmer moments has convinced a respectable young gentleman of spirit that there is nobody but himself to blame for what has happened he is inclined to solitary communion while taking the measure of his self-dissatisfaction.

      It was indeed the end of a very imperfect day for Mr. Philip Kendrick. As he descended the stairs to the Canoe Club his thoughts were troubled. At that hour there was nobody about, but he let himself in with a special key which he carried for such contingencies. He found the suitcase undisturbed where he had left it and soon had his canoe in the water. A moment later he was driving into the thick wall of fog with strong, practiced strokes, heading straight across the bay for Centre Island.

      The fog gave him little concern. This land-locked Toronto Bay he knew like a well-marked passage in a favorite book and at two o'clock in the morning it was not necessary to nose along cautiously, listening for the approach of water craft. Away to the right the lights of the amusement park on Hanlan's Point had gone out long ago, before the fog settled down like a wet blanket. The ferries had stopped running for the night. Even the "belt line boat," Lulu—last hope of bibulous or belated Islanders—was back in her slip, funnel cold, lights out. The whole deserted waterfront lay wrapped in the shroud of the fog, lulled by the lap of water against pilings and the faint creakings of small craft at their moorings.

      As the solitary canoe poked out for the open bay these minor sounds fell behind and were replaced by the steady purl of water under the bow. It filled with pleasing monotone the interludes between the fussing of the yard-engine back on the railway trackage and the blatancy of the foghorn at the Eastern Gap, every half minute bawling its warning into the open lake beyond.

      There was nobody over at the big summer residence on Centre Island except Mrs. Parlby, the housekeeper, and her husband who acted as gardener. The place belonged to Kendrick's uncle, the Honorable Milton Waring, and it was usual for them to open the big house about the end of May. This year, however, his aunt and uncle had chosen to spend the summer at Sparrow Lake and for the past week they had been up at a rented cottage in the woods, leaving Phil behind in charge of the Island residence.

      In response to a wire from his uncle, requesting him to join them at once and bring along certain articles which had been overlooked, he had packed his suitcase and paddled across to the city in the morning, intending to take the train for Sparrow Lake. A chance meeting with an old classmate, however, had resulted in a sudden decision to delay his departure for another twenty-four hours in favor of a good time with Billy Thorpe.

      As if in punishment, things had seemed to go wrong with him all day. In the afternoon the Rochester baseball team had knocked three Toronto pitchers out of the box, a blow-up which had cost the loyal Mr. Kendrick twenty-five dollars and a loss of reputation as an authority on International League standings. Then in the evening, in the crowd out at The Beach, somebody had taken hold of his silk ribbon fob and gently removed the gold watch which his aunt had given him on his birthday. Later still—!

      It was the left eye, so swollen now that it was closed to a mere slit. There was no optical delusion about its nomenclature and in diameter and chromatic depth it was at the head of its class; in fact, it gave promise of being by daylight in a class by itself. It was the sort of decoration which could be relied upon implicitly to fire the imagination of misguided acquaintances through several merry weeks of green and yellow recuperation. And withal it cast a reflection upon the fistic prowess of young Mr. Kendrick which was entirely unjust, it being the product of what is known as a "lucky punch"—for the other fellow.

      No, it was not in the result of the fight that dissatisfaction lay, but in the cause. McCorquodale's remarks about the Honorable Milton Waring had been addressed to McCorquodale's two companions; there had been no intent to insult the Honorable Milton Waring's nephew who sat at the next table in the restaurant, none of the three worthies being aware that they were within earshot of a hypersensitive member of the honorable gentleman's family. That being so, it had been distinctly foolish for the aforesaid nephew to walk over to the other table and demand an apology. He should have finished his coffee and cigarette and strolled out. Or, if he had deemed it imperative to participate in the political discussion, why in the mischief hadn't he just stepped across, proffered his cigarette-case and made a joke of the situation?

      Of a truth the expression upon this fellow McCorquodale's homely, good-humored face when Kendrick revealed his identity had been sufficiently quizzical. He had grinned widely as he waved the indignant young man to a seat at the table and even then the situation would have adjusted itself had it been left to the principals. But McCorquodale's companions were a pair of flashily dressed young "sports" who, thinking they saw a chance for some fun at Kendrick's expense, had proceeded to tread upon Mr. McCorquodale's professional pride—McCorquodale, one time known to ringside patrons as "Iron Man" McCorquodale, one time near middle-weight champion.

      "Y'see, it's this way," the ex-pugilist had explained earnestly. "I aint said nothin' about y'r uncle as aint public anyways. It's in the papers off an' on, see? An' now another election's comin' down the pike, y'll have to be gittin' used to all kinds o' spiels. Fac's is fac's, kid, an' when I says the Hon. Milt aint no sweet-scented geranium but's out fer all the simoleons he can pick off the little old Mazuma Tree—why, I on'y says what I reads an' hears, believe me. You bein' his nephew aint changin' public opinion none. See?"

      Kendrick's anger at this brazenness had prevented him from thinking clearly. He was getting "touchy" about his uncle's political record of late and had had occasion to defend it with some heat during certain discussions among friends; there had been several newspaper attacks which he had resented greatly also. His uncle's reputation as a public man he had been Quixotic enough to take to heart as a personal matter of family honor and, as everyone knows, family honor is a thing to uphold. He had demanded that McCorquodale retract his statement. McCorquodale had refused flatly to do so.

      One of the two grinning "sports" knew a place where they could settle it undisturbed—just around the corner in the basement of a pool-room. It had been a brisk little mix-up while it lasted; but it had not taken the ex-pugilist long to discover that he was facing the best amateur boxer Varsity had produced in a number of years and right in the middle of it he had put on his coat deliberately, to the overwhelming disappointment of his two friends.

      "Nix, you guys!" he had grunted, breathing heavily. "I knows when I'm up against it. Y'see, I got a date with a Jane to-morra an' I aint hankerin' to lose me way with no mussed map. Not on y'r tintype!"

      Whereupon the "Iron Man" had proceeded to demonstrate his malleability by assuring Mr. Kendrick that he was ready to agree that the sun rose in the south and made a daily trip straight north to escape the heat, if Mr. Kendrick said so. His anxiety to make friends had been positively funny; but there had been a sincerity in his handshake that somehow had seemed to rob the apology of its satisfaction. And when McCorquodale had proffered a broken cigar Kendrick had accepted it with an uneasy feeling that he had made somewhat of a fool of himself; for Phil was no prig and he found that McCorquodale was a pretty good sort with a certain whimsicality that was not to be denied.

      He rested his paddle for a moment and floated in the dark, listening. As soon as he got home he would go to the refrigerator for a piece of raw beefsteak for his swollen eye. Darn that eye anyway! He would have to hibernate up in the woods till it became more presentable. Far behind him in the mist somewhere the yard-engine was still coughing; across the water came a subdued squeal of protesting flanges, followed by the distant bang of shunted box-cars. He listened for any sound of the harbor patrol boat; but even had he bothered to show a light it would have been obliterated in the fog, which was the worst Kendrick ever had experienced. A raw beefsteak poultice—He fancied the fog-horn was a little louder; he would need to keep more to the left or he would find himself hitting Mug's Landing, west of Island Park, or wind up away over at the Point somewhere.

      He resumed his paddling. This matter of his uncle—Was it possible that in pursuit of political ambitions his uncle was forgetting the principles for which he professed to stand as a public man? Was it just possible that this fellow, McCorquodale, knew what he was talking about? Wasn't it men of that stamp who became the tools for corrupt practices—the

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