aturday
afternoon while she was trotting me round, I could see she'd been
worrying to herself a good deal."

"Worrying?"

"Yes. Whenever she thought I wasn't paying attention her face would
go--sort of dead tired and sad--all used up. I can't describe it. And
one or two remarks she dropped didn't sound as happy as she meant them
to. Then, Sunday morning, she had to get some work done, so I took Miss
Goucher to church. I'm supposed to be a Catholic, you know; but I guess
I'm not much of anything. I'd just as soon go to one kind of church as
another, if the music's good. Anyway, it was a nice morning and Miss
Goucher thought I'd like to see the Fifth Avenue parade; so we walked up
to some silk-stocking church above Thirty-fourth Street, where they have
a dandy choir; and back again afterwards. I stayed at the Brevoort, down
near them, you know; and Miss Goucher certainly is a peach. We got along
fine. And I found out from her how Mr. Phar's been acting. He's a bad
actor, all right. I'm just as glad I didn't run into him. I might have
done something foolish."

"What, for instance?" I suggested.

"Well," muttered Jimmy, "there's some things I can't stand. I might have
punched his head."

Phil whistled softly.

"He's not what I call a white man," explained Jimmy, dogged and slow, as
if to justify his vision of assault. "He's a painted pup."

"Come, Jimmy!" Phil commanded. "Out with it! Hunt and I know he's been
annoying Susan, but that's all we know. I supposed he might have been
pressing his attentions too publicly. If it's more than that----"

There was an unusual sternness in Phil's eye. Jimmy appealed from it to
mine, but in vain.

"Look here, Mr. Hunt," he blurted, "Susan's all right, of course--and
so's Miss Goucher! They've got their eyes open. And maybe it's not up to
me to say anything. But if I was in your place, I'd feel like giving two
or three people down there a piece of my mind! Susan wouldn't thank me
for saying so, I guess; she's modern--she likes to be let alone. Why,
she laughed at me more than once for getting sort of hot! And I know
I've a bunch to learn yet. But all the same," he pounded on, "I do know
this: It was a dirty trick of Mr. Phar's not to stand up for Susan!"

"Not stand up for her! What do you mean?" Phil almost barked.

"Jimmy means, Phil," I explained, "that some rather vague rumors began
not along ago to spread through Maltby's crowd in regard to Susan--as to
why she found i