the coin box.  Casey pulled the strap attached to his leg, closing the door, and we moved on, across Madison Square, past St. Leo’s, up the slope of Murray Hill.  At Thirty-seventh Street there was a tug at the strap, and one of the young men said a curt ‘good-night’ and alighted.  We passed the old Reservoir, crossed Forty-second Street.  Two blocks more and the second of the young men signalled.  ‘Good-night, Dick!’ he said and was gone.  As we resumed the journey the gentleman who with his wife had climbed aboard at Eighth Street noticed that the head of the third young man, the one apparently intoxicated, was sinking lower and lower.  Thinking that he might be carried beyond his destination he stepped forward and touched his arm.  ‘We are passing Fifty-third Street,’ he said.  There was no response.  He shook the shoulder and repeated the information.  Suddenly he turned to his wife.  ‘We will get out,’ he said quickly.  ‘But, George—­’ she began.  ‘We will get out,’ he repeated, pulling the strap.  As they stood under the lamp light at the corner the wife continued her protests.  ‘But there were four more blocks to go.’  ’My dear,’ said the husband, ’that young man’s throat was cut from ear to ear!’”

“You are,” I remarked crossly, “a most infernal old liar.”

“Maybe, maybe,” was the wheezy response.

[Illustration:  “THE SITE OF THE OLD LENOX LIBRARY IS NOW OCCUPIED BY THE HOUSE OF MR. HENRY C. FRICK, ONE OF THE GREAT SHOW RESIDENCES OF THE AVENUE AND THE CITY.  A BROAD GARDEN SEPARATES THE HOUSE, WHICH IS EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ENGLISH, FROM THE SIDEWALK”]

“But I haven’t said that it was true, have I?  Nor again have I said that it wasn’t.  Strange things have happened on the Avenue.  There have been nights of violence.  Sometimes, on late trips, my nerves have jumped at the sound of some terrified cry.  Often it has come from one of the most respectable of houses.  Again, in broad daylight, I have seen startled faces pressed against upper windows.  I have seen hands dropping notes to the pavement.  Once in a while a passer-by has picked up one of those notes.  But as a rule they were caught by the wind and whisked away.  What was in those notes?  That’s what I want to know.  Again, when it was dark, there has been the sound of running feet, and a panting man has jumped from the roadway to my rear step while we were in motion.  The next morning there were stains on my cushions—­the stains left by bloody hands.  They never could wash them out.  They never could wash them out.”

There was a lurch as a wheel bumped down into a hollow in the rough road, and the exile fell to groaning and blaspheming.

“Ah, my rheumatic joints; my poor old bones!  This climate!”

So the old Fifth Avenue bus complained of the rheumatism.  I recalled that the diligence that carried M. Tartarin across the Algerian desert also gave vent to many “Ai’s” about aching joints and sudden twinges.  What creatures of imitation we are, to be sure!