f up with a jerk. "I'm
innocent, whatever it is."

"It's from your wife," said Mrs. Davis, shaking the envelope in his
face. "Read it! Read the awful thing!"

"From--from Nellie?" he gasped.

"Yes, Eller! Read it!"

"Hold it still! I can't read it if you jiggle it around----"

She held the envelope under his nose.

"Do you see who it's addressed to?" she grated out. "To me, as your
wife. She thinks I'm already married to you. Read that name there,
Harvey."

He read the name on the envelope in a sort of stupefaction. Then she
whisked the message out and handed it to him, plumping herself down in
a chair to fan herself vigorously while the prescription clerk
hastened to renew his ministrations with the ammonia bottle, a task
that had been set to him some time prior to the advent of Harvey.

Suddenly Harvey gave a squeal of joy and instituted a series of hops
and bounds that threatened to create havoc in the narrow,
bottle-encircled space behind the prescription wall. He danced up and
down, waving the telegram on high, the tails of his half-finished
wedding garment doing a mad obbligato to the tune of his nimble legs.

"Harvey!" shrieked Mrs. Davis, aghast.

"Yi-i-i!" rang out his ear-splitting yell. Pedestrians half a block
away heard it and felt sorry for Mrs. Wiggs, the unhappy wife of the
town sot, who, it went without saying, must be on another "toot."

"Harvey!" cried the poor lady once more.

"She's going to faint!" shouted the prescription clerk in
consternation.

"Let her! Let her!" whooped Harvey. "It's all right, Joe! Let her
faint if she wants to."

"I'm not going to faint!" exclaimed Mrs. Davis, struggling to her feet
and pushing Joe away. "Keep quiet, Harvey! Do you want customers to
think you're crazy? Give me that telegram. I'll attend to that. I'll
answer it mighty quick, let me tell you. Give it to me."

Harvey sobered almost instantly. His jaw fell. The look in her face
took all the joy out of his.

"Isn't--isn't it great, Minerva?" he murmured, as he allowed her to
snatch the message from his unresisting fingers.

She glared at him. "Great? Why, you don't think for a moment that I'll
have the brat in my house, do you? Great? I don't see what you can be
thinking of, Harvey. You must be clean out of your head. I should say
it ain't great. It's perfectly outrageous. Where's the telegraph
office, Joe? I'll show the dreadful little wretch that she can't shunt
her child off on me for su