“Tst,” said the beggar.  “Move on.  Here’s a plain-clothes man.”

The shepherd moved on as if he had been pricked by an awl; since it was not among the police that he felt called upon to separate the black sheep from the white.

The plain-clothes man approached loitering.  He might have been a citizen in good standing and with nothing better to do than hobnob with whatever persons interested him upon his idle saunterings.

“How many pairs of laces have you sold this morning?” he asked.

“Nary a pair, charitable sir,” returned the beggar.

“Speaking of shoe-laces,” said the plain-clothes man, “what is your opinion of head-gear?”

“Bullish,” said the beggar.  “Straw hats will be worn next winter.”

The eyes of both men sparkled with a curious exhilaration.  The plain-clothes man drew a deep and sudden breath, and appeared to shiver.  So a soldier may breathe at the command to charge; so a thoroughbred shivers when the barrier is about to fall.

“There will be nice pickings,” said the beggar; “there will be enough geese to feed ten thousand.”

The plain-clothes man dropped a penny into the tin cup.  “By the way,” he asked professionally, “where can I lay hands on Red Monday?”

The beggar shook his strong head curtly.  “Hands off,” he said.

“When did he join the church?”

“Last night, with tears and confession.  A strong man Red, now that he has seen the light.”

The plain-clothes man laughed and passed on, still loitering.

The “Danse Macabre” had come to a timely end, if that which is without tempo may be said to have any relation with time, and the trio of Chopin’s “Funeral March” was already in uneven progress.  The legless man sat on the bare pavement, his back against the handsome area railing of No. 1 Fifth Avenue, and steadily revolved the mechanism of the organ with his hairy, powerful hand.

Passers were now more frequent.  Some looked at him and continued to look after they had passed, others turned their eyes steadfastly away.  Some pitied him because he was a cripple; others, upon suddenly discovering that he had no legs, were shocked with a sudden indecent hatred of him.  A lassie of the Salvation Army invited him to rise up and follow Christ; he retorted by urging her to lie down and take a rest.  Then, as if premonition had laid strong hands upon him and twisted him about, he turned, and looked upward into the fresh, rosy face of Barbara Ferris.

Their eyes met.  Always the child of impulse, and careless of appearance and opinion, she felt her thoughts, none too cheerful or optimistic that morning during her long walk down the avenue, drawn by the expression upon the legless man’s face to a sudden focus of triumph and solution.  She struck the palm of one small workman-like hand with the back of the other, and exclaimed:  “By George!”