THE  TRAIL OF  '98            6$
selves, a picture of dignity and sweetness, were the Jewish maid and her aged grandfather.
Although he was my room-mate I had seen but little of him. He was abed before I retired and I was up and out ere he awoke. For the rest I avoided the two because of their obvious connection with the Winklesteins. Surely, thought I, she cannot be mixed up with those two and be everything that's all right. Yet there was something in the girl's clear eyes, and in the old man's fine face, that reproached me for my doubt.
It was while I was thus debating, and covertly studying the pair, that something occurred.
Bullhammer and Marks were standing by me, and across the deck came the acridly nasal tones of the dance-hall girls. I saw the libertine eyes of Bull-hammer rove incontinently from one unlovely demirep to another, till at last they rested on the slender girl standing by the side of her white-haired grandfather.    Appreciatively he licked his lips.
" Say, Monkey, who's the kid with old Whiskers there?"
"Search me, Pete," said Marks; "want a knockdown?"
"Betcher! Seems kinda standoffish, though, don't she?"
" Standoffish be darned! Never yet saw the little bit of all right that could stand off Sam Marks. I'm a winner, I am, an' don' you forget it. Just watch my splash."
I must say the man was expensively dressed in