The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-09-15
..45=3. Aaddin of London, or the Lodestar z.=e==.
By Max PembertOn


an earnestness which reveal led the depth of the indignity he suffered; but BorisK- off remained inf1exible.
 q am determined upon It. was the harsh retort; 'the boy shall be link between Us. Keep him from this hell In which he has lived and I will set so much to your credit. I warn you that you have a difficult task. Do not fail in 1t as you value your own safety"
 The Vnanner of this reply left Gessner no alternative. and he sent Sllas Geary to Whitechapel as we have seen. A less clever man, perhaps, would have fenced alike with the proposal and the threat; but he knew his own countrymen too well for that. Perhaps a hope remained that at any kindness shown to this va grant lad would win back ultimately hls ancient freedom. Alone in his room that night, single light rebutting the dark ness he understood into an abyss of dis covery he had faHen, the price that must be paid, the debt that he owned to for gotten years.
 This man is a devil" he said, The will rob me shilling by shilling until I am beggar. Good Godi that is should have come to this after twenty years; twenty years which have achieved much twenty years of such slavery as few men have known. And I helpless; and this beggar Is here to remind me of my enemies, to tell me that I walk in chains and that their eyer are following me-"
 He threw himself upon his bed, Aressed as he was and tried to sleep. The still ness of the house gave fruitful visions magnifyng all his fears and bringing him to an unspea.kable terror of the days which must come after. He had many ambitions yet to achieve, great ideas which remained ideas masterly projects which must bring him both fame and ri bt1f bp p nAO them all this night If freedom had been offered him. Years ago, he remembered Boriskoff, the young miner, had earned his hatred. he knew not why unless 1t were truth that men best hate those who have served them best Tonight found that old hatred increased thou sand fold and shaping itself In schemes which he would not even whisper aloud He had always been looked upon as a man of good courage and that courage prompted him to a hundred mad notions to swift assassination or to slow in- trigue-last of all to self-destruction should his aims miscarry. He would kill himself and cheat them after all. Many another in Petersburg had sacrificed his life rather than suffer those years of tor ture which discovery brought. He knew that he would not shrink even from the irrevocable if he were driven far enough.
 A man may take such a resolution as
 
 main to thwart it. Gessner found him self debating the issues more calmly as the night wore on. and even asking him self if the presence of a stranger in his house might be so intolerable as he had believed. He had seen a little of Alban and that little had not been to the young mans disadvantage. If the youth were not all that report had painted him. II the amenities of the house should CiVilize him and kindness win his favor, then even he might be an advocate for those to whom he owed such faVors This new phase set Gessner thinking more hope fully than at any time since the beginning of it. He rose from his bed and turning on the lamps began to recall all that the Pole had demanded of him. The terms of the compact were not so very unreasona- ble, surely. he argued. Let this young Kennedy consent to remain at Five Ga bles" and he Richard Gessner, would an swer for the rest. But would he consent to remain-would that wild life of tho slums call him back to it's freedom and friendship? He knew not what to think. A great fear came to him, not that the lad would remain, but that he would go. Had it sbeen at a reasonable hour, he would have talked to him there and then, for the hours of that night were beyond all words intolerable. Hss.must see Kennedy and convince him. In the end, unable to support the doubt, he quilted his own room and crossed the landing, irresolute. trembling, hardly knowing what he did.
 It would have been about five o'clock of the morning when he entered Alban's room and discovered him to be still sleeping A sound of heavy breathing fol- lowed by a restless movement had de- ceived him and he knocked upon the door gently, quite expecting to be answered. When no reply came, he Ventured in as one who would not willingly pry upon another but is compelled thereto by cu- rioslty. The room itself should have been in darkness, but Alban had delib- erately drawn the heavy curtains back from the windows before he slept, and the wan gray light of dawn struck down upon his tired face as though seeking out him alone of all that slept in the house. A lusty figure of shapely youth a handsome face which the finger of the world had touched already. these the light revealed He slept upon his back, his head turned toward the light, his arm outstretched and almost touching the floor
 Gessner stood very still, afraid to wake the sleeper and by him to be thus dis covered. No good nationalist at any time he had always admired that pro- duct of hard-drinking, hard-fghtng ancestry the British boy; and in Alban it seemed to him that he discovered an excellent type. Undoubtedly the lad was both handsome and strong. For ms brains, Silas Geary would answer, and he had given evidence of good wit in their brief encounter last night. Gessner drew a step nearer and asked himself again if the detective's reports were true Was this the friends of vagabonds the companion of sluts-this clean-limbed virile fellow with the fair face and the fiaxen curls and the head of thinker and a sage? A judge of men himself he said that the words were a lie, and then he remembered Borskoffs account the story of a father who had died to serve an East End Mission, and of a de- voted mother worsted in her youth by those gathering hosts of poverty she had set out so bravely to combat. Could the son of such as these be all the swift espionage would have him? Gessner did not believe. it. New hopes, as upon great freshet of content, came to him to give him comfort. He had no son. Let this lad be the son whom he had desired SO ardently Let them live together, work together in a mutual affection or gratitude and knowledge. Who could prevail against such an alliance? What rancor of Boriskoff's would harm the lad he desired to be the husband of his daughter. Aye, and this was the supreme consolation-that if AIban would consent he. Gessner. would so earn his devotion and his love that therein he might arm himself against all the world.
 But would he consent? How if this old habit of change asserted itself and took him back to the depths? Gessner breathed quickly when he remembered that such might be the end of 1t. NO