instead of a part of it, I would have understood, and things would all have been different. It is all very well f

with her face perfectly white, and ask me if my Dicky Carte

y feet getting cold, "but that's where he

rain, aren't you?" she asked. "Don't s

train," I said. I wasn't going

ve to send him away again the moment h

g at her, with

rybody waiting for him for the last six days,

er foot, with her p

ings weren't bad enough! I suppose he'll have to come,

p brought his glass

getting the mineral-water habit, Patty! I'm afraid p

he rail. They were old friends

with the father?" he said

d her shoulders. "

criterion I should think he has had a relapse. A little sal

uddenly, "will you d

He was very fond of Mi

ck, get father to play cribbage, will you?

erious. "Patty, Patty, you'll be the death of me yet

"Just a dear, slightly bald, but

t hand and looked at the rin

oing, my child," he said. "Sometimes I wish that some nice red-blooded bo

d. "How naughty of you, and with y

o the table, stopping for a

, "I shall be in favor of having her wear a ma

. Jennings from behind his newspaper, a

Sam came out at five o'clock and said he'd been in the long-distance telephone booth for an hour and had called everybody who had ever known Mr. Dick, and that he had dropped right off the earth, I just about gave up. He had got some detectives, he said,

, and didn't know whether it was night or morning. But Thoburn was going around with

from getting my feet wet in a shower, when I had been standing in a mineral spring for so many years that it's a wonder I'm n

emed to feel somebody looking at the back of my neck and I turned ar

just as the face vanished I saw that it wasn't. It was ol

the door and looked out. The man came around the corner just then and I could see him plainly in the fir

re looked so snug! I've been trying to get to the ho

ouched me on the raw. "That's Hope Springs

hat's awfully bad, isn't it? To tell you the truth, I think

re was a drawn look around his mouth, and he hadn't shaved that day. I wish I had had as much

e' for fourteen years and I've served all the fancy drinks you can name over the brass railing of that sp

ehind him and came

on't be astonished if I melt before y

e to see him I'd sized up tha

e," I said, poking the fire log

any, and I've certain

healthy,

to nourish him for months, and then I looked at my

h of buttered and salted pop-corn, there's some on the mantel. It's pretty s

ate it all. If he hadn't had any luncheon he hadn't had much breakfast. The queer part was-he was a gentleman

up and the drawn lines were gone. He wasn't like Mr. Dick

to my liking, and I had thought of engaging a suite up here. My secretary usually attends to the

he came up and stood in front of me

t to lie down and let the little birds cover me with leaves." Then he glanced at the empty

like that-and then he went to the Philippines, and got stuck there and had to sell books to get home. He had a little money, "enough for a grub-stake," he said, and all his folks were dead. Then a college friend of his wrote a rural play called Sweet Peas-"Great title, don't you think?" he asked-and he put up all the money. It would have been a hit, he said, but the

! Why don't you bring out a play with women in low-necked gowns, and champagne suppers, and a s

t every dollar he'd put into it, which was al

. It's hard for the women. A fellow can always get some sort of a job-I was coming up here to see if they needed an extra clerk o

l you what I think they're goin