"Ah!" says he, tappin' his head. "The golden crowned! El Sareef Ka-heel?"

"That's the name, Cahill," says I. "He's a friend of a friend of mine, and you might as well get it through your nut right now that if anything's happened to him----"

"You are a friend of Sareef Ka-heel?" he breaks in, eyin' me suspicious.

"Once removed," says I; "but it amounts to the same thing. Now where is he?"

"For a friend--well, I know not," says the old boy, kind of hesitatin'.

Then, with another shrug, he makes up his mind. "So it shall be. Come.

You shall see the Sareef."

At that he beckons me to follow and starts towards the back. I went through one dark room, expectin' to feel a knife in my ribs every minute, and then we goes through another. Next thing I knew we're out in a little back yard, half full of empty cases and crates. In the middle of a clear space is a big brown tent, with the flap pinned back.

"Here," says the old gent, "your friend, the Sareef Ka-heel!"

Say, for a minute I thought it was a trap he's springin' on me; but after I'd looked long enough I see who he's pointin' at. The party inside is squattin' cross-legged on a rug, holdin' the business end of one of these water bottle pipes in his mouth. He's wearin' some kind of a long bath robe, and most of his red hair is concealed by yards of white cloth twisted round his head; but it's Spotty all right, alive, uncarved, and lookin' happy and contented.

"Well, for the love of soup!" says I. "What is it, a masquerade?"

"That you, McCabe?" says he. "Come in and--and sit on the floor."

"Say," says I, steppin' inside, "this ain't the costume you're going to start for Canada in, is it?"

"Ah, forget Canada!" says he. "I've got that proposition beat a mile.

Hey, Hazzam," and he calls to the old pirate outside, "tell Mrs. Cahill to come down and be introduced!"

"What's that?" says I. "You--you ain't been gettin' married, have you?"

"Yep," says Spotty, grinnin' foolish. "Nine o'clock last night. We're goin' to start on our weddin' trip Tuesday, me and Mareena."

"Mareena!" I gasps. "Not the--the one we saw out front? Where you going, Niagara?"

"Nah! Syria, wherever that is," says he. "Mareena knows. We're goin' to live over there and buy rugs. That two hundred was just what we needed to set us up in business."

"Think you'll like it?" says I.

"Sure!" says he. "She says it's fine. There's deserts over there, and you travel for days and days, ridin' on bloomin' camels. Here's the tent we're goin' to live in. I'm practisin' up. Gee! but this pipe is somethin' fierce, though! Oh, here she is! Say, Mareena, this is Mr.

McCabe, that I was tellin' you about."

Well, honest, I wouldn't have known her for the same girl. She's changed that Grand-st. uniform for a native outfit, and while it's a little gaudy in color, hanged if it ain't becomin'! For a desert bride I should say she had some class.

"Well," says I, "so you and Spotty are goin' to leave us, eh?"

"Ah, yes!" says she, them big black eyes of hers lightin' up. "We go where the sky is high and blue and the sun is big and hot. We go back to the wide white desert where I was born. All day we shall ride toward the purple hills, and sleep at night under the still stars. He knows. I have told him."

"That's right," says Spotty. "It'll be all to the good, that. Mareena can cook too."

To prove it, she makes coffee and hands it around in little brass cups.

Also there's cakes, and the old man comes in, smilin' and rubbin' his hands, and we has a real sociable time.

And these was the folks I'd suspected of wantin' to carve up Spotty! Why, by the looks I saw thrown at him by them two, I knew they thought him the finest thing that ever happened. Just by the way Mareena reached out sly to pat his hair when she passed, you could see how it was.

So I wished 'em luck and hurried back to report before Pinckney sent a squad of reserves after me.

"Well!" says he, the minute I gets in. "Let me know the worst at once."

"I will," says I. "He's married." It was all I could do, too, to make him believe the yarn.

"By Jove!" says he. "Think of a chap like Spotty Cahill tumbling into a romance like that! And on Fourth-ave!"

"It ain't so well advertised as some other lanes in this town," says I; "but it's a great street. Say, what puzzled me most about the whole business, though, was the new name they had for Spotty. Sareef! What in blazes does that mean?"

"Probably a title of some sort," says Pinckney. "Like sheik, I suppose."

"But what does a Sareef have to do?" says I.

"Do!" says Pinckney. "Why, he's boss of the caravan. He--he sits around in the sun and looks picturesque."

"Then that settles it," says I. "Spotty's qualified. I never thought there was any place where he'd fit in; but, if your description's correct, he's found the job he was born for."

CHAPTER IV

A GRANDMOTHER WHO GOT GOING

Ever go on a grandmother hunt through the Red Ink District? Well, it ain't a reg'lar amusement of mine, but it has its good points. Maybe I wouldn't have tackled it at all if I hadn't begun by lettin' myself get int'rested in Vincent's domestic affairs.

Now what I knew about this Vincent chap before we starts out on the grandmother trail wouldn't take long to tell. He wa'n't any special friend of mine. For one thing, he wears his hair cut plush. Course, it's his hair, and if he wants to train it to stand up on top like a clothes brush or a blacking dauber, who am I that should curl the lip of scorn?

Just the same, I never could feel real chummy towards anyone that sported one of them self raisin' crests. Vincent wa'n't one of the chummy kind, though. He's one of these stiff backed, black haired, brown eyed, quick motioned, sharp spoken ducks, that wants what he wants when he wants it.

You know. He comes to the studio reg'lar, does his forty-five minutes'

work, and gets out without swappin' any more conversation than is strictly necessary.

All the information I had picked up about him was that he hailed from up the State somewhere, and that soon after he struck New York he married one of the Chetwood girls. And that takes more or less capital to start with. Guess Vincent had it; for I hear his old man left him quite a wad and that now he's the main guy of a threshin' machine trust, or something like that. Anyway, Vincent belongs in the four-cylinder plute class, and he's beginnin' to be heard of among the alimony aristocracy.

But this ain't got anything to do with the way he happened to get confidential all so sudden. He'd been havin' a kid pillow mix-up with Swifty Joe, just as lively as if the thermometer was down to thirty instead of up to ninety, and he's just had his rub down and got into his featherweight serge, when in drifts this Rodney Kipp that's figurin' so strong on the defense side of them pipe line cases.

"Ah, Vincent!" says he.

"Hello, Rodney!" says Vincent as they passes each other in the front office, one goin' out and the other comin' in.

I'd never happened to see 'em meet before, and I'm some surprised that they're so well acquainted. Don't know why, either, unless it is that they're so different. Rodney, you know, is one of these light complected heavyweights, and a swell because he was born so. I was wonderin' if Rodney was one of Vincent's lawyers, or if they just belonged to the same clubs; when Mr. Kipp swings on his heel and says:

"Oh, by the way, Vincent, how is grammy?"

"Why!" says Vincent, "isn't she out with you and Nellie?"