ly wild Scot!"

"Onward, Christian soldier, marching as to war!" cried Mr. Daney, and,
seizing his hat from the table, he fled into the night.

XXXVII

Upon reaching his home, Mr. Daney telephoned to Mrs. McKaye.

"It is important," he informed her, "that you, Miss Jane and Miss
Elizabeth come down to my office to-morrow for a conference. I would
come up to The Dreamerie to see you, but Donald is home now, and his
father will be with him; so I would prefer to see you down-town. I
have some news of interest for you."

The hint of news of interest was sufficient to secure from Mrs. McKaye
a promise to call at his office with the girls at ten o'clock the
following morning.

"What is this interesting news, Andrew?" Mrs. Daney asked, with
well-simulated disinterestedness. She was knitting for the French
War-Relief Committee a pair of those prodigious socks with which
well-meaning souls all over these United States have inspired many a
poor little devil of a _poilu_ with the thought that the French must
be regarded by us as a Brobdingnagian race.

"We're arranging a big blowout, unknown to The Laird and Donald, to
celebrate the boy's return to health. I'm planning to shut down the
mill and the logging-camps for three days," he replied glibly. Of late
he was finding it much easier to lie to her than to tell the truth,
and he had observed with satisfaction that Mrs. Daney's bovine brain
assimilated either with equal avidity.

"How perfectly lovely!" she cooed, and dropped a stitch which later
would be heard from on the march, in the shape of a blister on a
Gallic heel. "You're so thoughtful and kind, Andrew! Sometimes I
wonder if the McKayes really appreciate your worth."

"Well, we'll see," he answered enigmatically and went off to bed.

It was with a feeling of alert interest that he awaited in his office,
the following morning, the arrival of the ladies from The Dreamerie.
They arrived half an hour late, very well content with themselves and
the world in general, and filling Mr. Daney's office with the perfume
of their presence. They appeared to be in such good fettle, indeed,
that Mr. Daney took a secret savage delight in dissipating their
nonchalance.

"Well, ladies," he began, "I decided yesterday that it was getting
along toward the season of the year when my thoughts stray as usual
toward the Sawdust Pile as a drying-yard. So I went down to see if Nan
Brent had abandoned it again--and sure enough,