s, for luck had crowned his skill and at least a dozen fish
lay stiffening in the basket, and when we reached the iron grille
Jerry emitted a deep sigh of satisfaction, drew out his pipe and sank
on a rock to smoke it. I lay back beside him, my hat over my eyes.
Nothing stimulates confidences so much as indifference. Jerry glanced
at me once or twice, but I made no sign and after awhile he began
talking. Whenever he paused I put in a grunt which encouraged him to
go on. That is how I happened to hear about Jerry's ride home with Una
Habberton.

It seems that when they got into the machine Una was very quiet and
answered his questions only in mono-syllables, but Jerry was patient
and all idea of Marcia's party being out of his head, he drove slowly
so that he would not reach the city until everything was clear and
friendly between them again. Her profile was very sober and demure, he
said. He wasn't quite sure for a long time whether she was going to
burst into anger, tears, or to laugh. Jerry must have looked sober too
and for awhile it couldn't have been a very cheerful ride, but at last
the boy saw Una looking at him slantwise and when he turned toward
her she burst into the merriest kind of a laugh.

"Oh, Jerry, is it home you're driving me to, or just a funeral?"

He gasped in relief at her sudden change of mood. "I was just
waiting," he said quietly. "I didn't want to intrude, Una."

"But you _do_ look _so_ like the undertaker's assistant," she smiled.
"You have no right to be glum. I have. I'm the corpse. A corpse
_might_ laugh in sheer relief when the lid was screwed down and
everything comfortable."

"Una! I don't see anything so funny--"

"My reputation! A trifling thing," she said coolly, "still, I value
it."

"_Your_ reputation! That's absurd--nothing could hurt _you_. I don't
understand."

"I can't quite see yet how it all came out," she went on thoughtfully,
"how Marcia knew that I had been inside the wall. Why, Jerry, unless
she learned it recently, since I saw you in New York--" she paused.

"No," protested Jerry uncomfortably. "It was last summer--"

"But I had no name to you then--I was merely Una--"

"And I blurted it out, Una, the only name I knew, never thinking that
you and Marcia were acquaintances."

"Oh, I see," and she smiled a little. "If my name had been plain Jane
or even Mary, my reputation would have been safe."

"What rubbish, Una! Can't a fellow and a girl have a chat with