to my question, but here
you are."

"Thanks." Fillmore pocketed the bill. "I'll let you have it back next
week. I want to take Miss Winch out to lunch."

"If that's what you want it for, don't look on it as a loan, take it as
a gift with my blessing thrown in." She looked over her shoulder at
Miss Winch, who, the cares of rehearsal being temporarily suspended, was
practising golf-shots with an umbrella at the other side of the stage.
"However did you have the sense to fall in love with her, Fill?"

"Do you like her?" asked Fillmore, brightening.

"I love her."

"I knew you would. She's just the right girl for me, isn't she?"

"She certainly is."

"So sympathetic."

"Yes."

"So kind."

"Yes."

"And she's got brains enough for two, which is the exact quantity the
girl who marries you will need."

Fillmore drew himself up with as much hauteur as a stout man sitting in
a low chair can achieve.

"Some day I will make you believe in me, Sally."

"Less of the Merchant Prince, my lad," said Sally, firmly. "You just
confine yourself to explaining how you got this way, instead of taking
up my valuable time telling me what you mean to do in the future. You've
lost all your money?"

"I have suffered certain reverses," said Fillmore, with dignity, "which
have left me temporarily... Yes, every bean," he concluded simply.

"How?"

"Well..." Fillmore hesitated. "I've had bad luck, you know. First I
bought Consolidated Rails for the rise, and they fell. So that went
wrong."

"Yes?"

"And then I bought Russian Roubles for the fall, and they rose. So that
went wrong."

"Good gracious! Why, I've heard all this before."

"Who told you?"

"No, I remember now. It's just that you remind me of a man I met at
Roville. He was telling me the story of his life, and how he had made a
hash of everything. Well, that took all you had, I suppose?"

"Not quite. I had a few thousand left, and I went into a deal that
really did look cast-iron."

"And that went wrong!"

"It wasn't my fault," said Fillmore querulously. "It was just my
poisonous luck. A man I knew got me to join a syndicate which had
bought up a lot of whisky. The idea was to ship it into Chicago in
herring-barrels. We should have cleaned up big, only a mutt of a
detective took it into his darned head to go fooling about with a
crowbar. Officious ass! It wasn't as if the barrels weren't labelled
'Herrings' as plainly as they could be," said Fillmore with h