and he knew that I would not do that.  I made him understand, however, that our mother’s heart was being broken in any case, and that I had set firm on the point that I would rather see him in Rochester gaol than in a New York hotel.  So at last he gave in, and he made me a solemn promise that he would see Sparrow MacCoy no more, that he would go to Europe, and that he would turn his hand to any honest trade that I helped him to get.  I took him down right away to an old family friend, Joe Willson, who is an exporter of American watches and clocks, and I got him to give Edward an agency in London, with a small salary and a 15 per cent commission on all business.  His manner and appearance were so good that he won the old man over at once, and within a week he was sent off to London with a case full of samples.

“It seemed to me that this business of the cheque had really given my brother a fright, and that there was some chance of his settling down into an honest line of life.  My mother had spoken with him, and what she said had touched him, for she had always been the best of mothers to him and he had been the great sorrow of her life.  But I knew that this man Sparrow MacCoy had a great influence over Edward and my chance of keeping the lad straight lay in breaking the connection between them.  I had a friend in the New York detective force, and through him I kept a watch upon MacCoy.  When, within a fortnight of my brother’s sailing, I heard that MacCoy had taken a berth in the Etruria, I was as certain as if he had told me that he was going over to England for the purpose of coaxing Edward back again into the ways that he had left.  In an instant I had resolved to go also, and to pit my influence against MacCoy’s.  I knew it was a losing fight, but I thought, and my mother thought, that it was my duty.  We passed the last night together in prayer for my success, and she gave me her own Testament that my father had given her on the day of their marriage in the Old Country, so that I might always wear it next my heart.

“I was a fellow-traveller, on the steamship, with Sparrow MacCoy, and at least I had the satisfaction of spoiling his little game for the voyage.  The very first night I went into the smoking-room, and found him at the head of a card-table, with a half a dozen young fellows who were carrying their full purses and their empty skulls over to Europe.  He was settling down for his harvest, and a rich one it would have been.  But I soon changed all that.

“`Gentlemen,’ said I, `are you aware whom you are playing with?’

“`What’s that to you?  You mind your own business!’ said he, with an oath.

“`Who is it, anyway?’ asked one of the dudes.

“`He’s Sparrow MacCoy, the most notorious card-sharper in the States.’

“Up he jumped with a bottle in his hand, but he remembered that he was under the flag of the effete Old Country, where law and order run, and Tammany has no pull.  Gaol and the gallows wait for violence and murder, and there’s no slipping out by the back door on board an ocean liner.