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 "I promise you, Simon."

Simon passed tobacco through the bars of the door. As for fire, he never was without it on the tip of his cigarette. This he supplied when Henderson had filled his pipe.

"The olla, Gabriel," he requested, pointing to the jar of heavy earthenware that stood out of his reach.

"Permit me to keep it, Simon. If I am not to have anything more to eat, permit me to drink, at least."

"Oh, very well."

Simon was in no hurry now. The flurry of excitement that had moved his languid limbs in such unexampled haste a few hours past had calmed. He stood leaning against the thick wall between the outer and inner doors of the cell, his eyes half closed in the comfortable contemplation of his own importance and of the things he knew.

"But what use is a watch to a dead man?" he inquired.

He turned, blowing a long trail of smoke from his nostrils, his eyes drawn a bit closer, as if to ponder his own question in judicial astuteness.

"Very little, Simon."

"And money—can a dead man spend money?"

"I never heard of one doing it."

"Nor I," Simon agreed.

There seemed to be no personal allusion in these philosophical speculations. Simon appeared to be far from the desire of a watch or money for him-