“Yes, Bucky.”

“The dinkies are all right—­but—­but a Yank, a real Yank, would ‘a’ got me in six months.”

“All right, Bucky.  Shall I raise you up?”

“H’ist away.”

“Would you like the feeling of a gun in your hand again?” said Frawley, raising him up.

This time Greenfield did not laugh, but his hand closed convulsively over the butt, and he gave a savage sigh of delight.  His limbs contracted violently, his head bore heavily on the shoulder of Frawley, who heard him whisper again: 

“A bug—­a little—­”

Then he stopped and appeared to listen.  Outside, the evening was soft and stirring.  Through the door the children appeared, tumbling over one another, in grotesque attitudes.

Suddenly, as though in the breeze he had caught the sound of a step, Greenfield jerked almost free of Frawley’s arms, shuddered, and fell back rigid.  The pistol, flung into the air, twirled, pitched on the floor, and remained quiet.

Frawley placed the body back on the bed of leaves, listened a moment, and rose satisfied.  He threw a blanket over the face, picked up the revolver, searched a moment for his hat, and went out to arrange with the Mexican for the night.  In a moment he returned and took a seat in the corner, and began carefully to jot down the details on a piece of paper.  Presently he paused and looked reflectively at the bed of leaves.

“It’s been a good three years,” he said reflectively.  He considered a moment, rapping the pencil against his teeth, and repeated:  “A good three years.  I think when I get home I’ll ask for a week or so to stretch myself.”  Then he remembered with anxiety how Greenfield had railed at his lack of imagination and pondered a moment seriously.  Suddenly, as though satisfied, he said with a nod of conviction: 

“Well, now, we did jog about a bit!”

LARRY MOORE

I

The base-ball season had closed, and we were walking down Fifth avenue, Larry Moore and I. We were discussing the final series for the championship, and my friend was estimating his chances of again pitching the Giants to the top, when a sudden jam on the avenue left us an instant looking face to face at a woman and a child seated in a luxurious victoria.

Larry Moore, who had hold of my arm, dropped it quickly and wavered in his walk.  The woman caught her breath and put her muff hastily to her face; but the child saw us without surprise.  All had passed within a second, yet I retained a vivid impression of a woman of strange attraction, elegant and indolent, with something in her face which left me desirous of seeing it again, and of a pretty child who seemed a little too serious for that happy age.  Larry Moore forgot what he had begun to say.  He spoke no further word, and I, in glancing at his face, comprehended that, incredible as it seemed, there was some bond between the woman I had seen and this raw-boned, big-framed, and big-hearted idol of the bleachers.