e Maria as by any other means. He was bound to come to grief
sooner or later, but that was no business of Hillerton's.

On May 7th, Hillerton came down with pleurisy and Peckham suddenly found
himself at the head of affairs. Hillerton had no partner; no one but
Peckham could take his place. And in Peckham's moral constitution was a
substratum of unshakable fidelity upon which the astute Hillerton had
built. Cursing his own unimpeachable sense of duty, Peckham could see
but one straw of hope to clutch at. It might be a light case.

He went directly to the doctor's office, and with a feverish anxiety
apparent in his voice and bearing, he asked how long Hillerton was
likely to be laid up.

"Curious," thought the doctor during that carefully calculated pause
which your experienced practitioner so well knows the value of. "Curious
how fond folks get of James Hillerton. The fellow looks as though his
own brother were at death's door."

"I think there is nothing serious to apprehend," he answered soothingly.
"Hillerton has a good constitution. I've no doubt he will be about again
by the end of the month."

Peckham went white to the lips.

"I suppose that's the best you can promise," he said.

"Yes, but I can promise that safely."

The confidential clerk went back to the office filled with a profound
loathing of life.

"If liquor wasn't so nasty, I'd take to drink," he said to himself as he
sat down at Hillerton's desk and set to work.

The next day was Sunday, and Peckham was at something of a loss what to
do with it. He hated the sight of his room. The odor of the straw
matting and the pattern of the wallpaper were inextricably associated
with those anticipations which he had been rudely cheated out of. To
escape such associations he took an electric car to the Bluffs, those
rock-bound islands in the prairie sea which lie a couple of miles to the
east of the town. There was only one other passenger besides himself, a
man with a gun, who softly whistled a popular air, very much out of
tune. Peckham came perilously near kicking the offender, but, happily,
the fellow got off just in time, and went strolling across the open with
the gun over his shoulder. Once he stooped to pick a flower which he
stuck in his buttonhole. Queer, thought Peckham, that a man should go
picking flowers and whistling out of tune! There were the mountains,
too. Some people made a great deal of them--great, stupid masses of dumb
earth! He rem