, leaving Harvey to
ruminate alone.

The joint presence of these two gentlemen of Tarrytown in the city
requires an explanation. You may remember that Nellie's husband
resented Butler's habit of ignoring him. Well, there had come a time
when Butler had thought it advisable to get down from his high horse.
His wife had gone to Cleveland to visit her mother for a week or two.
It was a capital time for him to get better acquainted with Miss
Duluth, to whom he had been in the habit of merely doffing his hat in
passing.

The morning of his wife's departure, which was no more than eight
hours prior to their appearance at the box office, he made it a point
to hail Harvey in a most jovial manner as he stood on his side porch,
suggesting that he come over and see the playroom he had fixed up for
his children and Phoebe.

"We ought to be more neighbourly," he said, as he shook hands with
Harvey at the steps. Later on, as they smoked in the library, he
mentioned the fact that he had not had the pleasure of seeing Miss
Duluth in the new piece.

Harvey was exalted. When any one was so friendly as all this to him he
quite lost his head in the clouds.

"We'll go in and see it together," said he, "and have a bit of supper
afterward."

"That's very good of you," said Butler, who was gaining his point.

"When does Mrs. Butler return?" asked Harvey.

Butler was startled. "Week or ten days."

"Well, just as soon as she's back we'll have a little family
party----"

His neighbour shook his head. "My wife's in mourning," he said,
nervously.

"In mourning?" said Harvey, who remembered her best in rainbow
colours.

"Yes. Her father."

"Dead?"

"Certainly," said Butler, a trifle bewildered. He coughed and changed
the current of conversation. It was not at all necessary to say that
his wife's father had been dead eleven years. "I thought something of
going in to the theatre to-night," he went on. "Just to kill time. It
will be very lonely for me, now that my dear wife's away."

Harvey fell into the trap. "By jinks!" he exclaimed, "what's the
matter with me going in, too? I haven't been in town at night for six
weeks or more."

Butler's black eyes gleamed.

"Excellent! We'll see a good play, have a bite to eat, and no one will
know what gay dogs we are." He laughed and slapped Harvey on the
back.

"I'll get seats for Nellie's show if you'd like to see it," said
Harvey, just as enthusiastically, except that he slapped th