ed Biff, looking himself over with some complacency
nevertheless.

From his nice new derby, which replaced the slouch cap he had always
preferred, to his neat and uncomfortably-pointed gun-metal leathers
which had supplanted the broad-toed tans, Mr. Bates was an epitome of
neatly-pressed grooming. White cuffs edged the sleeves of his gray
business suit, and--wonder of wonders!--he wore a white shirt with a
white collar, in which there was tied a neat bow of--last wonder of
all--modest gray!

"I suppose that costume is due to distinctly feminine influence, eh,
Biff?"

"Guilty as Cassie Chadwick!" replied Biff with a sheepish grin. "She's
tryin' to civilize me."

"Who is?" demanded Bobby.

"Oh, _she_ is. You know who I mean. Why, she's even taught me to cut
out slang. Say, Bobby, I didn't know how much like a rough-neck I used
to talk. I never opened my yawp but what I spilled a line of
fricasseed gab so twisted and frazzled and shredded you could use it
to stuff sofa-cushions; but now I've handed that string of talk the
screw number. No more slang for your Uncle Biff."

"I'm glad you have quit it," approved Bobby soberly. "I suppose the
next thing I'll hear will be the wedding bells."

"No!" Biff denied in a tone so pained and shocked that Bobby looked up
in surprise to see his face gone pale. "Don't talk about that, Bobby.
Why, I wouldn't dare even think of it myself. I--I never think about
it. Me? with a mitt like a picnic ham? Did you ever see her hand,
Bobby? And her eyes and her hair and all? Why, Bobby, if I'd ever
catch myself daring to think about marrying that girl I'd take myself
by the Adam's apple and give myself the damnedest choking that ever
turned a mutt's map purple."

"I'm sorry, after all, that you are through with slang, Biff," said
Bobby, "because if you were still using it you might have expressed
that idea so much more picturesquely;" but Biff did not hear him, for
from the office came Nellie Platt with a sun-hat in her hand.

"Right on time," she said gaily to Biff, and, with a pleasant word for
Bobby, went down with Mr. Bates to the river bank, where lay the neat
little skiff that Jimmy had bought for her.

Bobby and Ferris and Platt, standing up near the filters, later on,
were startled by a scream from the river, and, turning, they saw the
skiff, in mid-stream, struck by a passing steamer and splintered as if
it were made of pasteboard. Nellie had been rowing. Biff had called
her