CHAPTER 15Mr. Pinkerton went shakily up the stairs, trying to maintain as much dignity as he could, and closed his door behind him. He lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. A scene in his far off meagre childhood came back and smote his already aching brain. It was one summer Sunday evening. His two aunts who brought him up had taken him to chapel, where a man with a white face and flowing black tie had pointed eloquently to a miserable creature huddled near the pulpit beside him. After two hours or so, the young Pinkerton, guided by his two aunts, had gone forward and signed the pledge. He had not then questioned the wisdom of it for a moment. He questioned it even less as he lay there now, on the bright rayon oriental bedcover, Satan and a thousand imps hammering away inside the littl
