1

the perfect hostess makes a point of never displaying discomposure. in moments of trial she aims at the easy repose of manner of a red indian at the stake. nevertheless, there was a moment when, as she saw sigsbee h. caracole into the drawing-room with george and heard him announce in a ringing voice that this fine young son of the western prairies had come to take pot-luck, mrs. waddington indisputably reeled.

she recovered herself. all the woman in her was urging her to take sigsbee h. by his outstanding ears and shake him till he came unstuck, but she fought the emotion down. gradually her glazed eye lost its dead-fishy look. like death in the poem, she 'grinned horrible a ghastly smile.' and it was with a well-assumed graciousness that she eventually extended to george the quivering right hand which, had she been a less highly civilised woman, would about now have been landing on the side of her husband's head, swung from the hip.

"chahmed!" said mrs. waddington. "so very, very glad that you were able to come, mr.——"

she paused, and george, eyeing her mistily, gathered that she wished to be informed of his name. he would have been glad to supply the information, but unfortunately at the moment he had forgotten it himself. he had a dim sort of idea that it began with an f or a g, but beyond that his mind was a blank.

the fact was that, in the act of shaking hands with his hostess, george finch had caught sight of molly, and the spectacle had been a little too much for him.

molly was wearing the new evening dress of which she had spoken so feelingly to her father at their recent interview, and it seemed to george as if the scales had fallen from his eyes and he was seeing her for the first time. before, in a vague way he had supposed that she possessed arms and shoulders and hair, but it was only at this moment that he perceived how truly these arms and those shoulders and that hair were arms and shoulders and hair in the deepest and holiest sense of the words. it was as if a goddess had thrown aside the veil. it was as if a statue had come to life. it was as if ... well, the point we are trying to make is that george finch was impressed. his eyes enlarged to the dimensions of saucers; the tip of his nose quivered like a rabbit's: and unseen hands began to pour iced water down his spine.

mrs. waddington, having given him a long, steady look that blistered his forehead, turned away and began to talk to a soda-water magnate. she had no real desire to ascertain george's name, though she would have read it with pleasure on a tombstone.

"dinner is served," announced ferris, the butler, appearing noiselessly like a djinn summoned by the rubbing of a lamp.

george found himself swept up in the stampede of millionaires. he was still swallowing feebly.

there are few things more embarrassing to a shy and sensitive young man than to be present at a dinner-party where something seems to tell him he is not really wanted. the something that seemed to tell george finch he was not really wanted at to-night's festive gathering was mrs. waddington's eye, which kept shooting down the table at intervals and reducing him to pulp at those very moments when he was beginning to feel that, if treated with gentle care and kindness, he might eventually recover.

it was an eye that, like a thermos flask, could be alternately extremely hot and intensely cold. when george met it during the soup course he had the feeling of having encountered a simoom while journeying across an african desert. when, on the other hand, it sniped him as he toyed with his fish, his sensations were those of a searcher for the pole who unexpectedly bumps into a blizzard. but, whether it was cold or hot, there was always in mrs. waddington's gaze one constant factor—a sort of sick loathing which nothing that he could ever do, george felt, would have the power to allay. it was the kind of look which sisera might have surprised in the eye of jael the wife of heber, had he chanced to catch it immediately before she began operations with the spike. george had made one new friend that night, but not two.

the consequence was that as regards george finch's contribution to the feast of wit and flow of soul at that dinner-party we have nothing to report. he uttered no epigrams. he told no good stories. indeed, the only time he spoke at all was when he said 'sherry' to the footman when he meant 'hock.'

even, however, had the conditions been uniformly pleasant, it is to be doubted whether he would have really dominated the gathering. mrs. waddington, in her selection of guests, confined herself to the extremely wealthy: and, while the conversation of the extremely wealthy is fascinating in its way, it tends to be a little too technical for the average man.

with the soup, some one who looked like a cartoon of capital in a socialistic paper said he was glad to see that westinghouse common were buoyant again. a man who might have been his brother agreed that they had firmed up nicely at closing. whereas wabash pref. a., falling to 73-7/8, caused shakings of the head. however, one rather liked the look of royal dutch oil ordinaries at 54-3/4.

with the fish, united beef began to tell a neat though rather long, story about the bolivian land concession, the gist of which was that the bolivian oil and land syndicate, acquiring from the bolivian government the land and prospecting concessions of bolivia, would be known as bolivian concessions, ld, and would have a capital of one million dollars in two hundred thousand five-dollar "a" shares and two hundred thousand half-dollar "b" shares, and that while no cash payment was to be made to the vendor syndicate the latter was being allotted the whole of the "b" shares as consideration for the concession. and—this was where the raconteur made his point—the "b" shares were to receive half the divisible profits and to rank equal with the "a" shares in any distribution of assets.

the story went well, and conversation became general. there was a certain amount of good-natured chaff about the elasticity of the form of credit handled by the commercial banks, and once somebody raised a laugh with a sly retort about the reserve against circulation and total deposits. on the question of the collateral liability of shareholders, however, argument ran high, and it was rather a relief when, as tempers began to get a little heated, mrs. waddington gave the signal and the women left the table.

coffee having been served and cigars lighted, the magnates drew together at the end of the table where mr. waddington sat. but mr. waddington, adroitly sidestepping, left them and came down to george.

"out west," said mr. waddington in a rumbling undertone, malevolently eyeing amalgamated tooth-brushes, who had begun to talk about the mid-continent fiduciary conference at st. louis, "they would shoot at that fellow's feet."

george agreed that such behaviour could reflect nothing but credit on the west.

"these easterners make me tired," said mr. waddington.

george confessed to a similar fatigue.

"when you think that at this very moment out in utah and arizona," said mr. waddington, "strong men are packing their saddle-bags and making them secure with their lassoes you kind of don't know whether to laugh or cry, do you?"

"that was the very problem," said george.

"say, listen," said mr. waddington, "i'll just push these pot-bellied guys off upstairs, and then you and i will sneak off to my study and have a real talk."

2

nothing spoils a tête-à-tête chat between two newly-made friends more than a disposition towards reticence on the part of the senior of the pair: and it was fortunate therefore, that, by the time he found himself seated opposite to george in his study, the heady influence of zane grey and the rather generous potations in which he had indulged during dinner had brought sigsbee h. waddington to quite a reasonably communicative mood. he had reached the stage when men talk disparagingly about their wives. he tapped george on the knee, informed him three times that he liked his face, and began.

"you married, winch?"

"finch," said george.

"how do you mean, finch?" asked mr. waddington, puzzled.

"my name is finch."

"what of it?"

"you called me winch."

"why?"

"i think you thought it was my name."

"what was?"

"winch."

"you said just now it was finch."

"yes, it is. i was saying...."

mr. waddington tapped him on the knee once more.

"young man," he said, "pull yourself together. if your name is finch, why pretend that it is winch? i don't like this shiftiness. it does not come well from a westerner. leave this petty shilly-shallying to easterners like that vile rabble of widow-and-orphan oppressors upstairs, all of whom have got incipient bright's disease. if your name is pinch, admit it like a man. let your yea be yea and your nay be nay," said mr. waddington a little severely, holding a match to the fountain-pen which, as will happen to the best of us in moments of emotion, he had mistaken for his cigar.

"as a matter of fact, i'm not," said george.

"not what?"

"married."

"i never said you were."

"you asked me if i was."

"did i?"

"yes."

"you're sure of that?" said mr. waddington keenly.

"quite. just after we sat down, you asked me if i was married."

"and your reply was...?"

"no."

mr. waddington breathed a sigh of relief.

"now we have got it straight at last," he said, "and why you beat about the bush like that, i cannot imagine. well, what i say to you, pinch—and i say it very seriously as an older, wiser, and better-looking man—is this." mr. waddington drew thoughtfully at the fountain-pen for a moment. "i say to you, pinch, be very careful, when you marry, that you have money of your own. and, having money of your own, keep it. never be dependent on your wife for the occasional little sums which even the most prudent man requires to see him through the day. take my case. when i married, i was a wealthy man. i had money of my own. lots of it. i was beloved by all, being generous to a fault. i bought my wife—i am speaking now of my first wife—a pearl necklace that cost fifty thousand dollars."

he cocked a bright eye at george, and george, feeling that comment was required, said that it did him credit.

"not credit," said mr. waddington. "cash. cold cash. fifty thousand dollars of it. and what happened? shortly after i married again i lost all my money through unfortunate speculations on the stock exchange and became absolutely dependent on my second wife. and that is why you see me to-day, winch, a broken man. i will tell you something, pinch—something no one suspects and something which i have never told anybody else and wouldn't be telling you now if i didn't like your face.... i am not master in my own home!"

"no?"

"no. not master in my own home. i want to live in the great, glorious west, and my second wife insists on remaining in the soul-destroying east. and i'll tell you something else." mr. waddington paused and scrutinised the fountain-pen with annoyance. "this darned cigar won't draw," he said petulantly.

"i think it's a fountain-pen," said george.

"a fountain-pen?" mr. waddington, shutting one eye, tested this statement and found it correct. "there!" he said, with a certain moody satisfaction. "isn't that typical of the east? you ask for cigars and they sell you fountain-pens. no honesty, no sense of fair trade."

"miss waddington was looking very charming at dinner, i thought," said george, timidly broaching the subject nearest his heart.

"yes, pinch," said mr. waddington, resuming his theme, "my wife oppresses me."

"how wonderfully that bobbed hair suits miss waddington."

"i don't know if you noticed a pie-faced fellow with an eye-glass and a tooth-brush moustache at dinner? that was lord hunstanton. he keeps telling me things about etiquette."

"very kind of him," hazarded george.

mr. waddington eyed him in a manner that convinced him that he had said the wrong thing.

"what do you mean, kind of him? it's officious and impertinent. he is a pest," said mr. waddington. "they wouldn't stand for him in arizona. they would put hydrophobia skunks in his bed. what does a man need with etiquette? as long as a man is fearless and upstanding and can shoot straight and look the world in the eye, what does it matter if he uses the wrong fork?"

"exactly."

"or wears the wrong sort of hat?"

"i particularly admired the hat which miss waddington was wearing when i first saw her," said george. "it was of some soft material and of a light brown colour and...."

"my wife—i am still speaking of my second wife. my first, poor soul, is dead—sicks this hunstanton guy on to me, and for financial reasons, darn it, i am unable to give him the good soak on the nose to which all my better instincts urge me. and guess what she's got into her head now."

"i can't imagine."

"she wants molly to marry the fellow."

"i should not advise that," said george seriously. "no, no, i am strongly opposed to that. so many of these anglo-american marriages turn out unhappily."

"i am a man of broad sympathies and a very acute sensibility," began mr. waddington, apropos, apparently, of nothing.

"besides," said george, "i did not like the man's looks."

"what man?"

"lord hunstanton."

"don't talk of that guy! he gives me a pain in the neck."

"me, too," said george. "and i was saying...."

"shall i tell you something?" said mr. waddington.

"what?"

"my second wife—not my first—wants molly to marry him. did you notice him at dinner?"

"i did," said george patiently. "and i did not like his looks. he looked to me cold and sinister, the sort of man who might break the heart of an impulsive young girl. what miss waddington wants, i feel convinced, is a husband who would give up everything for her—a man who would sacrifice his heart's desire to bring one smile to her face—a man who would worship her, set her in a shrine, make it his only aim in life to bring her sunshine and happiness."

"my wife," said mr. waddington, "is much too stout."

"i beg your pardon?"

"much too stout."

"miss waddington, if i may say so, has a singularly beautiful figure."

"too much starchy food, and no exercise—that's the trouble. what my wife needs is a year on a ranch, riding over the prairies in god's sunshine."

"i happened to catch sight of miss waddington the other day in riding costume. i thought it suited her admirably. so many girls look awkward in riding-breeches, but miss waddington was charming. the costume seemed to accentuate what i might describe as that strange boyish jauntiness of carriage which, to my mind, is one of miss waddington's chief...."

"and i'll have her doing it before long. as a married man, winch—twice married, but my first wife, poor thing, passed away some years back—let me tell you something. to assert himself with his wife, to bend her to his will, if i may put it that way, a man needs complete financial independence. it is no use trying to bend your wife to your will when five minutes later you have got to try and wheedle twenty-five cents out of her for a cigar. complete financial independence is essential, pinch, and that is what i am on the eve of achieving. some little time back, having raised a certain sum of money—we need not go into the methods which i employed to do so—i bought a large block of stock in a hollywood motion picture company. have you ever heard of the finer and better motion picture company of hollywood, cal.? let me tell you that you will. it is going to be big, and i shall very shortly make an enormous fortune."

"talking of the motion-pictures," said george, "i do not deny that many of the women engaged in that industry are superficially attractive, but what i do maintain is that they lack miss waddington's intense purity of expression. to me miss waddington seems like some...."

"i shall clean up big. it is only a question of time."

"the first thing anyone would notice on seeing miss waddington...."

"thousands and thousands of dollars. and then...."

"a poet has spoken of a young girl as 'standing with reluctant feet where the brook and river meet....'"

mr. waddington shook his head.

"it isn't only meat. what causes the real trouble is the desserts. it stands to reason that if a woman insists on cramming herself with rich stuff like what we were having to-night she is bound to put on weight. if i've said it once, i've said it a hundred times...."

what mr. waddington was about to say for the hundred and first time must remain one of the historic mysteries. for, even as he drew in breath the better to say it, the door opened and a radiant vision appeared. mr. waddington stopped in mid-sentence, and george's heart did three back-somersaults and crashed against his front teeth.

"mother sent me down to see what had become of you," said molly.

mr. waddington got about half-way towards a look of dignity.

"i am not aware, my dear child," he said, "that anything has 'become of me.' i merely snatched the opportunity of having a quiet talk with this young friend of mine from the west."

"well, you can't have quiet talks with your young friends when you've got a lot of important people to dinner."

"important people!" mr. waddington snorted sternly. "a bunch of super-fatted bits of bad news! in god's country they would be lynched on sight."

"mr. brewster bodthorne has been asking for you particularly. he wants to play checkers."

"hell," said mr. waddington, with the air of quoting something out of dante, "is full of brewster bodthornes."

molly put her arms round her father's neck and kissed him fondly—a proceeding which drew from george a low, sharp howl of suffering like the bubbling cry of some strong swimmer in his agony. there is a limit to what the flesh can bear.

"darling, you must be good. up you go at once and be very nice to everybody. i'll stay here and entertain mr.——"

"his name is pinch," said mr. waddington, rising reluctantly and making for the door. "i met him out on the side-walk where men are men. get him to tell you all about the west. i can't remember when i've ever heard a man talk so arrestingly. mr. winch has held me spell-bound. positively spell-bound. and my name," he concluded, a little incoherently, groping for the door-handle, "is sigsbee horatio waddington and i don't care who knows it."

3

the chief drawback to being a shy man is that in the actual crises of real life you are a very different person from the dashing and resourceful individual whom you have pictured in your solitary day-dreams. george finch, finding himself in the position in which he had so often yearned to be—alone with the girl he loved, felt as if his true self had been suddenly withdrawn and an incompetent understudy substituted at the last moment.

the george with whom he was familiar in day-dreams was a splendid fellow—graceful, thoroughly at his ease, and full of the neatest sort of ingratiating conversation. he looked nice, and you could tell by the way he spoke that he was nice. clever, beyond a doubt—you knew that at once by his epigrams—but not clever in that repellant, cold-hearted modern fashion: for, no matter how brilliantly his talk sparkled, it was plain all the while that his heart was in the right place and that, despite his wonderful gifts, there was not an atom of conceit in his composition. his eyes had an attractive twinkle: his mouth curved from time to time in an alluring smile: his hands were cool and artistic: and his shirt-front did not bulge. george, in short, as he had imagined himself in his day-dreams, was practically the answer to the maiden's prayer.

how different was this loathly changeling who now stood on one leg in the library of number 16, seventy-ninth street, east. in the first place, the fellow had obviously not brushed his hair for several days. also, he had omitted to wash his hands, and something had caused them to swell up and turn scarlet. furthermore, his trousers bagged at the knees: his tie was moving up towards his left ear: and his shirt-front protruded hideously like the chest of a pouter pigeon. a noisome sight.

still, looks are not everything: and if this wretched creature had been able to talk one-tenth as well as the george of the day-dreams, something might yet have been saved out of the wreck. but the poor blister was inarticulate as well. all he seemed able to do was clear his throat. and what nice girl's heart has ever been won by a series of roopy coughs?

and he could not even achieve a reasonable satisfactory expression. when he tried to relax his features (such as they were) into a charming smile, he merely grinned weakly. when he forced himself not to grin, his face froze into a murderous scowl.

but it was his inability to speak that was searing george's soul. actually, since the departure of mr. waddington, the silence had lasted for perhaps six seconds: but to george finch it seemed like a good hour. he goaded himself to utterance.

"my name," said george, speaking in a low, husky voice, "is not pinch."

"isn't it?" said the girl. "how jolly!"

"nor winch."

"better still."

"it is finch. george finch."

"splendid!"

she seemed genuinely pleased. she beamed upon him as if he had brought her good news from a distant land.

"your father," proceeded george, not having anything to add by way of development of the theme but unable to abandon it, "thought it was pinch. or winch. but it is not. it is finch."

his eye, roaming nervously about the room, caught hers for an instant: and he was amazed to perceive that there was in it nothing of that stunned abhorrence which he felt his appearance and behaviour should rightly have aroused in any nice-minded girl. astounding though it seemed, she appeared to be looking at him in a sort of pleased, maternal way, as if he were a child she was rather fond of. for the first time a faint far-off glimmer of light shone upon george's darkness. it would be too much to say that he was encouraged, but out of the night that covered him, black as the pit from pole to pole, there did seem to sparkle for an instant a solitary star.

"how did you come to know father?"

george could answer that. he was all right if you asked him questions. it was the having to invent topics of conversation that baffled him.

"i met him outside the house: and when he found that i came from the west he asked me in to dinner."

"do you mean he rushed at you and grabbed you as you were walking by?"

"oh, no. i wasn't walking by. i was—er—sort of standing on the door-step. at least...."

"standing on the door-step? why?"

george's ears turned a riper red.

"well, i was—er—coming as it were, to pay a call."

"a call?"

"yes."

"on mother?"

"on you."

the girl's eyes widened.

"on me?"

"to make inquiries."

"what about?"

"your dog."

"i don't understand."

"well, i thought—result of the excitement—and nerve-strain—i thought he might be upset."

"because he ran away, do you mean?"

"yes."

"you thought he would have a nervous break-down because he ran away?"

"dangerous traffic," explained george. "might have been run over. reaction. nervous collapse."

woman's intuition is a wonderful thing. there was probably not an alienist in the land who, having listened so far, would not have sprung at george and held him down with one hand while with the other he signed the necessary certificate of lunacy. but molly waddington saw deeper into the matter. she was touched. as she realised that this young man thought so highly of her that, despite his painful shyness, he was prepared to try to worm his way into her house on an excuse which even he must have recognised as pure banana-oil, her heart warmed to him. more than ever, she became convinced that george was a lamb and that she wanted to stroke his head and straighten his tie and make cooing noises to him.

"how very sweet of you," she said.

"fond of dogs," mumbled george.

"you must be fond of dogs."

"are you fond of dogs?"

"yes, i'm very fond of dogs."

"so am i. very fond of dogs."

"yes?"

"yes. very fond of dogs. some people are not fond of dogs, but i am."

and suddenly eloquence descended upon george finch. with gleaming eyes he broke out into a sort of litany. he began to talk easily and fluently.

"i am fond of airedales and wire-haired terriers and bull-dogs and pekingese and sealyhams and alsations and fox-terriers and greyhounds and aberdeens and west highlands and cairns and pomeranians and spaniels and schipperkes and pugs and maltese and yorkshires and borzois and bloodhounds and bedlingtons and pointers and setters and mastiffs and newfoundlands and st. bernards and great danes and dachshunds and collies and chows and poodles and...."

"i see," said molly. "you're fond of dogs."

"yes," said george. "very fond of dogs."

"so am i. there's something about dogs."

"yes," said george. "of course, there's something about cats, too."

"yes, isn't there?"

"but, still, cats aren't dogs."

"no, i've noticed that."

there was a pause. with a sinking of the heart, for the topic was one on which he felt he could rather spread himself, george perceived that the girl regarded the subject of dogs as fully threshed out. he stood for a while licking his lips in thoughtful silence.

"so you come from the west?" said molly.

"yes."

"it must be nice out there."

"yes."

"prairies and all that sort of thing."

"yes."

"you aren't a cow-boy, are you?"

"no. i am an artist," said george proudly.

"an artist? paint pictures, you mean?"

"yes."

"have you a studio?"

"yes."

"where?"

"yes. i mean, near washington square. in a place called the sheridan."

"the sheridan? really? then perhaps you know mr. beamish?"

"yes. oh, yes. yes."

"he's a dear, isn't he? i've known him all my life."

"yes."

"it must be jolly to be an artist."

"yes."

"i'd love to see some of your pictures."

warm thrills permeated george's system.

"may i send you one of them?" he bleated.

"that's awfully sweet of you."

so uplifted was george finch by this wholly unexpected development that there is no saying what heights of eloquence he might not now have reached, had he been given another ten minutes of the girl's uninterrupted society. the fact that she was prepared to accept one of his pictures seemed to bring them very close together. he had never yet met anybody who would. for the first time since their interview had begun he felt almost at his ease.

unfortunately, at this moment the door opened: and like a sharp attack of poison-gas mrs. waddington floated into the room.

"what are you doing down here, molly?" she said.

she gave george one of those looks of hers, and his newly-born sang-froid immediately turned blue at the roots.

"i've been talking to mr. finch, mother. isn't it interesting—mr. finch is an artist. he paints pictures."

mrs. waddington did not reply: for she had been struck suddenly dumb by a hideous discovery. until this moment she had not examined george with any real closeness. when she had looked at him before it had been merely with the almost impersonal horror and disgust with which any hostess looks at an excrescence who at the eleventh hour horns in on one of her carefully planned dinners. his face, though revolting, had had no personal message for her.

but now it was different. suddenly this young man's foul features had become fraught with a dreadful significance. sub-consciously, mrs. waddington had been troubled ever since she had heard them by the words molly had spoken in her bedroom: and now they shot to the surface of her mind like gruesome things from the dark depths of some sinister pool. "the sort of man i think i should rather like," molly had said, "would be a sort of slimmish, smallish man with nice brown eyes and rather gold-y, chestnutty hair." she stared at george. yes! he was slimmish. he was also smallish. his eyes, though far from nice, were brown: and his hair was undeniably of a chestnut hue.

"who sort of chokes and turns pink and twists his fingers and makes funny noises and trips over his feet...." thus had the description continued, and precisely thus was the young man before her now behaving. for her gaze had had the worst effect on george finch, and seldom in his career had he choked more throatily, turned a brighter pink, twisted his fingers into a more intricate pattern, made funnier noises and tripped more heartily over his feet than he was doing now. mrs. waddington was convinced. it had been no mere imaginary figure that molly had described, but a living, breathing pestilence—and this was he.

and he was an artist! mrs. waddington shuddered. of all the myriad individuals that went to make up the kaleidoscopic life of new york, she disliked artists most. they never had any money. they were dissolute and feckless. they attended dances at webster hall in strange costumes, and frequently played the ukulele. and this man was one of them.

"i suppose," said molly, "we'd better go upstairs?"

mrs. waddington came out of her trance.

"you had better go upstairs," she said, emphasising the pronoun in a manner that would have impressed itself upon the least sensitive of men. george got it nicely.

"i—er—think, perhaps," he mumbled, "as it is—er—getting late...."

"you aren't going?" said molly concerned.

"certainly mr. finch is going," said mrs. waddington: and there was that in her demeanour which suggested that at any moment she might place one hand on the scruff of his neck and the other on the seat of his trousers and heave. "if mr. finch has appointments that call him elsewhere, we must not detain him. good night, mr. finch."

"good night. thank you for a—er—very pleasant evening."

"it was most kay-eend of you to come," said mrs. waddington.

"do come again," said molly.

"mr. finch," said mrs. waddington, "is no doubt a very ba-husy man. please go upstairs immediately, molly. good na'eet, mr. finch."

she continued to regard him in a manner hardly in keeping with the fine old traditions of american hospitality.

"ferris," she said, as the door closed.

"madam?"

"on no pretext whatever, ferris, is that person who has just left to be admitted to the house again."

"very good, madam," said the butler.

4

it was a fair sunny morning next day when george finch trotted up the steps of number 16, seventy-ninth street, east, and pressed the bell. he was wearing his dove-grey suit, and under his arm was an enormous canvas wrapped in brown paper. after much thought he had decided to present molly with his favourite work, hail, jocund spring!—a picture representing a young woman, scantily draped and obviously suffering from an advanced form of chorea, dancing with lambs in a flower-speckled field. at the moment which george had selected for her portrayal, she had—to judge from her expression—just stepped rather hard on a sharp stone. still, she was george's master-piece, and he intended to present her to molly.

the door opened. ferris, the butler, appeared.

"all goods," said ferris, regarding george dispassionately, "must be delivered in the rear."

george blinked.

"i want to see miss waddington."

"miss waddington is not at home."

"can i see mr. waddington?" asked george, accepting the second-best.

"mr. waddington is not at home."

george hesitated a moment before he spoke again. but love conquers all.

"can i see mrs. waddington?"

"mrs. waddington is not at home."

as the butler spoke, there proceeded from the upper regions of the house a commanding female voice that inquired of an unseen sigsbee how many times the speaker had told him not to smoke in the drawing-room.

"but i can hear her," george pointed out.

the butler shrugged his shoulders with an aloof gesture, as if disclaiming all desire to go into these mysteries. his look suggested that he thought george might possibly be psychic.

"mrs. waddington is not at home," he said once more.

there was a pause.

"nice morning," said george.

"the weather appears to be clement," agreed ferris.

george then tumbled backwards down the steps, and the interview concluded.