and the doors and windows were all boarded up. There was not
a bell to ring. I pounded on the boards that covered the door, but it
was unavailing. The young woman called to me that the young man lived
in the front room of the topmost floor, and could not hear me, and I
glanced up and saw that one window alone of all those in the house was
not boarded up. Instantly I hopped upon the seat beside the driver and
said, "Central Park."

We dashed up Fifth Avenue and into the Park at full speed, and when we
were what I considered far enough in I ordered him to stop, and hurrying
up a low bank I began to grope among the leaves of last year under
the trees. I was right. In a few minutes I had filled my pockets with
acorns, was back in the car, and we were hurrying toward the house
of the lover, when I saw standing on a corner a figure I instantly
recognized as Lemuel, the elevator boy, and at the same time I
remembered that Lemuel spent his holidays pitching for a ball nine, He
was just the man I needed, and I stopped and made him get into the car.
In a minute more we were before the house again, and I handed Lemuel
a fistful of acorns. He drew back and threw them with all his strength
toward the upper window.

My dear, will you believe it? Those acorns were wormy! They were light.
They would not carry to the window, but scattered like bits of chips
when they had travelled but half-way. I was upset, but Lemuel was not.
He ordered the chauffeur to drive to lower Sixth Avenue with all speed,
in order that he might get a baseball. With this he said he could
hit any mark, and we had started in that direction when, passing a
restaurant on Broadway, I saw emerge Henry and Madge.

"Better far," I said to myself, "put this young woman in charge of her
brother and his new wife than leave her to elope alone," and I made the
chauffeur draw up beside them. Hastily I explained the situation, and
where we were going at that moment, and Henry and Madge laughed in
unison.

"Madge," said Henry, "we had no trouble making wormy acorns travel
through the air, had we?" And both laughed again. At this I made them
get into the automobile, and while we returned to the lover's house
I made them explain. It was very simple, and I had just tied a dozen
acorns tightly in my handkerchief, making a ball to throw at the window,
when the poor woman with the baby noticed that the window was partly
open. I asked Lemuel if he could throw straight enough to t