Long before he got his senses his arm began to feel funny. After he’d investigated the costume, he took off the Willy-boy coat and stripped up his shirt sleeve. There was a tattoo mark, smarting like sin, with the name “DOTTY” in beautiful capital letters! Well, when he saw that he went right up into the air. He was just like that old woman in the nursery rhyme—“Lawk-a-massy on us, this is none of I!”
The tattoo mark was his only clue. I was the only one he knew in the business, so he came down to me and wanted to know how, and when, and where, and why, and what-the-devil.
“Look here, my son,” says I, “what are you kicking about, anyway? You go to sleep with eight dollars on your back and two bits in your jeans. You wake up with about a seven hundred and fifty dollar rig on, and a wad in your pocket, more than you ever had in your life. The thing for you to do,” I says, “is to lose yourself before you’re called for, and to stay lost, good and hard! Next time you fade away on the water-front, you may wake up in a jumper and overalls, shovelling garbage! You can’t expect to draw a straight flush in diamonds every deal: next shuffle you may catch deuces. You take my advice and drop a part of that roll of yours for a ticket in the ’Owl’ train to-night, before you’re enchanted back again.”
“All right,” he says, “I’ll do it. But for heaven’s sake, tell me just one thing, and I’ll ask no more questions. Who in blazes is Dotty?”
“Aw,” I says, “she’s the fairy godmother of this pipe dream. She’s changed into a sea-gull by this time!”
“Well,” concluded the rubber, “he skipped, and I have never seen him since, from that day till to-night, when I found you scrapping with him, for this man is Harry Maidslow for sure. If you want to talk to him now, he’ll probably be all right. He’s had time to have a plunge, and you’ll find him sleeping upstairs. I’ve got to go home, so good-by. Come round again some time and tell me about him!”
Admeh Drake, after a swim in the tank himself, passed through the main salon and upstairs, acting upon the hint of the Dermograph Artist. The place was lined with cots, now filled with snoring occupants, and it was not until he had explored a second story that Admeh found him of the clay-yellow beard. He was alone in a secluded ward, sleeping peacefully. Admeh touched him, and Maidslow sat up suddenly with a terrified stare.
“What d’you want? What d’you want of me?” he cried.
Admeh was astonished at his fright, but hastened to relieve the man’s suspense. “Oh, nothing bad, I hope. Is your name—” here he hesitated, and the man’s face showed abject fear—“Maidslow?”—and the mouth relaxed its tensity.