"'You must trust me for that,' he answered. 'If I get off without discovery you will receive a hundred dollars at your address within the week. I have left all I had above.'
"'Chaff!' I muttered.
"'He will pay,' Mother Merry assured me.
"'Then here's my cap,' I grumbled, not any too well pleased.
"He took it, and though it was a common one enough, he looked like another man in it.
"'Support me in my character!' he ordered, just as that blowing curtain was caught and held back by a hand from without and the face of a policeman looked in.
"'Hey, there! lamps up!' was the order. We got a light flashed over us from the doorway.
"The man at my side advanced to meet it, and I saw him talking with the officer who had pushed his head through the upper half of the door. Then everything about and before me became mixed in the rush the police made from every side, and I failed to see anything again for some minutes. When a minute's quiet came about again, and I had the chance to use my eyes, I did not find the man to whom I had lent my coat and my name. He had been allowed to slip away.
"But I had no such luck. The place being turned over, and only a few women found, they turned on me. But I was game, and was soon able to show them I was one of their own sort. At which there naturally came the question as to who the other fellow was. But I did not help them out on this, and it ended in my being taken to Jefferson Market with the rest.
"We all got off next day and without much trouble. I have always thought that fellow paid the fines; at all events, one week from that day I found an envelope addressed to me, lying on my desk at the office. It contained bills to the amount agreed upon.