t off and found me changing a tire and very dusty
and worried, because a new tube cost five dollars and so far I had made
but six-fifteen.

I did not know he was there until he said:

"Step back and let me do that, Bab."

He was all dressed, but very firm. So I let him and he looked terrible
when finished.

"Now" he said at last, "jump in and take me somewhere near the Club. And
tell me how this happened."

"I am a bankrupt, Carter," I responded in a broken tone. "I have sold my
birthright for a mess of porridge."

"Good heavens!" he said. "You don't mean you've spent the whole
business?"

I then got my Check Book from the tool chest, and held it out to him.
Also the unpaid bills. I had but $40.45 in the Bank and owed $90.00 for
the things mother had bought.

"Everything has gone wrong," I admitted. "I love this car, but it is as
much expence as a large familey and does not get better with age, as
a familey does, which grows up and works or gets married. And Leila is
getting to be a Man-hater and acts very strange most of the time."

Here I almost wept, and probably would have, had he not said:

"Here! Stop that, Or I----" He stopped and then said: "How about the
engagement, Bab? Is it a failure to?"

"We are still plited," I said. "Of course we do not agree about some
things, but the time to fuss is now, I darsay, and not when to late,
with perhaps a large familey and unable to seperate."

"What sort of things?"

"Well," I said, "he thinks that he ought to play around with other girls
so no one will suspect, but he does not like it when I so much as sit in
a hammick with a member of the Other Sex."

"Bab," he said in an ernest tone, "that, in twenty words, is the whole
story of all the troubles between what you call the Sexes. The only
diference between Tommy Gray and me is that I would not want to play
around with any one else if--well, if engaged to anyone like you. And I
feel a lot like looking him up and giving him a good thrashing."

He paid me fifty cents and a quarter tip, and offered, although poor, to
lend me some Money. But I refused.

"I have made my bed," I said, "and I shall occupy it, Carter. I can have
no companion in misfortune."

It was that night that another house near the Club was robed, and
everything taken, including groceries and a case of champane. The Summer
People got together the next day at the Club and offered a reward of two
hundred dollars, and engaged a night watchm