ld Dutch if he weren't a man
made of substantial flesh and blood, his brain as healthy and his heart
as warm as exercise and oxygen can make them?--Well, perhaps he could, if
he were one of your pale and scholarly ghosts, but I doubt it."

"This idea of living out here in winter--" Max went off on a new
tack--"it's seemed to me absolute foolishness. But if Neil Chase is so,
confoundedly anxious to move in before we can move out--"

"Neil Chase!"

"Yes. He practically made me an offer for the place to-night."

"Well, well!" Jarvis's eyes gleamed with satisfaction in the darkness. So
old Neil was helping the thing along, was he? Nothing could have been
better. "Going to consider it?"

"Hardly! See here, could we keep warm in that barracks this winter?"

"You don't have to live all over it. With those fireplaces and waste wood
enough in your lot up there to run a blast-furnace, I don't see why you
should have any fear of freezing."

"Our little stock of furniture wouldn't go anywhere in furnishing."

"It would furnish a certain amount of space. Keep the rest shut up till
you could furnish it."

"I shouldn't think of the thing for a minute," said Max, in the tone of
one who explains the inconsistency of so sudden a change of attitude, "if
I hadn't this day been notified that the price of our flat is to go up
ten dollars a month on the first of November. It's an outrage!"

"It's an extraordinary piece of luck," said Jarvis to himself. But aloud
he admitted that it was a good deal of a jump, and a pretty high price
for the flat.

At this moment some one looked out of the kitchen window, and then asked
Mary Ann inside if she had seen anything lately of Mr. Max.

"I suppose we'll have to go back to the crowd," admitted Max, and they
returned just in time to see the first guests taking their leave.

When all had gone, Jarvis hunted up Sally. He found her in one of the
dressing-rooms, extinguishing candles which had nearly burned to the
bottoms of the lanterns, and were threatening their inflammable
surroundings.

"Here, don't touch those things, with your thin clothes on!" Jarvis
cried. "We fellows must go round and make all safe--no taking any chances
with the house full of dry corn-stalks. But first--have you had a good
time to-night?"

"A glorious time. All the evening I've felt as if I lived here--it looked
so furnished, somehow, with all the lights and decorations."

"It made you want to live here more th