ter with clean hands, wearing a gray jacket
and cap. "Hurry, hurry!" he called. He was like a lad invited to go
fishing or swimming.

"I've been all 'balled up' since you went away," he explained--"took a
contract to produce a certain line of ornamental reliefs; it never pays
to be mercenary. But there it is! I was greedy, I went out for
money--now behold me in the grasp of a business agreement. Can't sleep,
can't breathe country air--had to work all day Sunday."

"It'll pay some of our debts, though," explained Mrs. Moss, "and buy the
children's summer suits."

"Summer suits! Why summer suits? I only had one complete suit a year
when I was a child--and that was a buff."

All the way down the elevator he gazed admiringly at Bertha. "My, my!
how fit you look. Julia, why don't you get a hat and cloak like that?"

"Why don't I? Do you know why?" Then as they came out in sight of the
'mobile she said, "Why don't you furnish me an auto-car like this?"

"I will," he said, as though the notion had just risen in his mind.
"I'll secure one this week."

Mart, who had taken a seat with Lucius, was touched and warmed by their
hearty greeting, and they rolled away up the street as merry as
school-children--even the self-contained Lucius smiled at Joe's odd
turns of speech. Bertha's heart swelled with the keen delight of giving
pleasure to her friends. This was, indeed, the chief of all the wondrous
powers of money--it enabled one to be hospitable, to possess a home
wherein visitors were always welcome, to own a car in which dear friends
could ride; for the moment her resolution to give it all up weakened.

Moss was delirious with joy as they went sweeping up the Lake Shore
Drive. He took off his cap and stood up in the car in order to drink
deep of the wind that came over the water, crisp and clean and
crystalline.

On the park mead the boys were playing ball, and the combination of
green grass and soft and feathery foliage was very beautiful. The
water-fowl were out, the captive cranes crying, and the drives were full
of carriages and cars. It was all very cheering, with death and winter
far away.

Moss, sobering somewhat, began to set forth his plan for making Chicago
a new and greater Venice by bringing the lake into all the city
boulevards and spanning these waterways with stately bridges of a new
type, "designed by Joe Moss, of course," he added; "'twould make Venice
look like a faded print in a lovely old song-book