asis, that
_somewhere_ there is a birdie----"

"Mr. Carr!"

"Yes, merry old Top!"

"May I use your telephone?"

"I don't care what you do!" said Carr, gayly. "Use my telephone if you
like; pull it out by the roots and throw it over Cooper's Bluff, for all
I care! But"--and a sudden glimmer of reason seemed to come over him--"if
you have one grain of human decency left in you, you won't drag me and my
terrible plight into that scurrilous New York paper of yours."

"No," said Yates, "I won't. And that ends my career on Park Row. I'm
going to telephone my resignation."

Mr. Carr gazed calmly around and twisted his mustache with a satisfied
and retrospective smile.

"That's very decent of you, Yates; you must pardon me; I was naturally
half scared to death at first; but I realize you are acting very
handsomely in this horrible dilemma----"

"Naturally," interrupted Yates. "I must stand by the family into which I
am, as you know, destined to marry."

"To be sure," nodded Carr, absently; "it really looks that way, doesn't
it! And, Yates, you have no idea how I hated you an hour ago."

"Yes, I have," said Yates.

"No, you really have not, if you will permit me to contradict you, merry
old Top. I--but never mind now. You have behaved in an unusually
considerate manner. Who the devil are you, anyway?"

Yates informed him modestly.

"Well, why didn't you say so, instead of letting me bully you! I've known
your father for twenty years. Why didn't you tell me you wanted to marry
Drusilla, instead of coming and blushing all over the premises? I'd have
told you she was too young; and she is! I'd have told you to wait; and
you'd have waited. You'd have been civil enough to wait when I explained
to you that I've already lost, by marriage, two daughters through that
accursed machine. You wouldn't entirely denude me of daughters, would
you?"

"I only want one," said John Yates, simply.

"Well, all right; I'm a decent father-in-law when I've got to be. I'm
really a good sport. You may ask all my sons-in-law; they'll admit it."
He scrutinized the young man and found him decidedly agreeable to look
at, and at the same time a vague realization of his own predicament
returned for a moment.

"Yates," he said unsteadily, "all I ask of you is to keep this terrible
n-news from my innocent d-daughters until I can f-find out what sort of a
person is f-fated to lead me to the altar!"

Yates took the offered hand with genuine e