Arnaux 
whistle of wings, the blue meteor flashed into 
the loft. Billy slammed the door and caught 
him. Deftly he snipped the threads and handed 
the roll to the banker. The old man turned 
deathly pale, fumbled it open, then his color 
came back. ‘Thank God!” he gasped, and 
then went speeding to his Board meeting, master 
of the situation. Little Arnaux had saved him. 
The banker wanted to buy the Homer, feel- 
ing in a vague way that he ought to honor 
and cherish him; but Billy was very clear 
about it. “ What’s the good? You can’t buy 
a Homer’s heart. You could keep him a 
prisoner, that’s all; but nothing on earth could 
make him forsake the old loft where he was 
hatched.” So Arnaux stayed at 211 West 
Nineteenth Street. But the banker did not 
forget. 
There is in our country a class of miscreants 
who think a flying Pigeon is fair game, because 
it is probably far from home, or they shoot him 
because it is hard to fix the crime. Many a 
noble Homer, speeding with a life or death 
message, has been shot down by one of these 
wretches and remorselessly made into a pot-pie. 
88 
