r
since he and his gang got poor Butler into trouble and then left him to
kill himself as the only way out, I have felt that there was something
coming to all of them--Hansen, Schwartz and the rest. I saw Fleming on
the street to-day."

"What!" I exclaimed, almost jumping out of my chair.

Fred surveyed me quizzically over his coffee cup.

"'Hasn't he a daughter!'" he quoted. "Yes, I saw him, Jack, this very
day, in an unromantic four-wheeler, and he was swearing at a policeman."

"Where was it?"

"Chestnut and Union. His cab had been struck by a car, and badly
damaged, but the gentleman refused to get out. No doubt you could get
the details from the corner-man."

"Look here, Fred," I said earnestly. "Keep that to yourself, will you?
And you too, Edith? It's a queer story, and I'll tell you sometime."

As we left the dining-room Edith put her hand on my shoulder.

"Don't get mixed up with those people, Jack," she advised. "Margery's a
dear girl, but her father practically killed Henry Butler, and Henry
Butler married my cousin."

"You needn't make it a family affair," I protested. "I have only seen
the girl once."

But Edith smiled. "I know what I know," she said. "How extravagant of
you to send Bobby that enormous hobby-horse!"

"The boy has to learn to ride sometime. In four years he can have a
pony, and I'm going to see that he has it. He'll be eight by that time."

Edith laughed.

"In four years!" she said, "Why, in four years you'll--" then she
stopped.

"I'll what?" I demanded, blocking the door to the library.

"You'll be forty, Jack, and it's a mighty unattractive man who gets past
forty without being sought and won by some woman. You'll be buying--"

"I will be thirty-nine," I said with dignity, "and as far as being
sought and won goes, I am so overwhelmed by Fred's misery that I don't
intend to marry at all. If I do--_if I do_--it will be to some girl who
turns and runs the other way every time she sees me."

"The oldest trick in the box," Edith scoffed. "What's that thing Fred's
always quoting: 'A woman is like a shadow; follow her, she flies; fly
from her, she follows.'"

"Upon my word!" I said indignantly. "And you are a woman!"

"I'm different," she retorted. "I'm only a wife and mother."

In the library Fred got up from his desk and gathered up his papers. "I
can't think with you two whispering there," he said, "I'm going to the
den."

As he slammed the door into his workroom Ed