and
began butting perfect strangers all over the place."

"Oh," said she, "it's the commonest little story in the world. All
landladies can tell them to you by the hour. This man has been at Aunt
Jennie's nearly a month, and what's the color of his money she hasn't
the faintest idea. Such is the way our bright young men carve out their
fortunes--the true Gothic architecture! Possibly Aunt Jennie has thrown
out one or two delicate hints, carefully insulated to avoid hurting his
feelings. You know the way our ladies of the old school do--the worst
collectors the world has ever seen. So she telephoned me this
morning--I'm her business woman, you see--asking me to come and advise
her, and I'm coming, and after supper--"

"Well, what'll you do?"

"I'm going to talk with him, with the man. I'm simply going to _collect
that money_. Or if I can't--"

"What's the horrid alternative?"

"I'm going to _fire_ him!"

West laughed merrily. His face always looked most charming when he
smiled. "Upon my word I believe you can do it."

"I _have_ done it, lots of times."

"Ah! And is the ceremony ever attended by scenes of storm and violence?"

"Never. They march like little lambs when I say the word.
Hay-foot--straw-foot!"

"But then your aunt loses their arrears of board, I suppose."

"Yes, and for that reason I never fire except as a last desperate
resort. Signs of penitence, earnest resolves to lead a better life, are
always noted and carefully considered."

"If you _should_ need help with this customer to-night--not that I think
you will, oh no!--telephone me. I'm amazingly good at handling bright
young men. This is your aunt's, isn't it?"

"No, no--next to the corner over there. O heavens! Look--_look!_"

West looked. Up the front steps of Miss Weyland's Aunt Jennie's a man
was going, a smallish man in a suit of dusty clothes, who limped
as he walked. The electric light at the corner illumined him
perfectly--glinted upon the spectacles, touched up the stout volume in
the coat-pocket, beat full upon the swaybacked derby, whereon its owner
had sat what time Charlotte Lee Weyland apologized for the gaucherie of
Behemoth. And as they watched, this man pushed open Aunt Jennie's front
door, with never so much as a glance at the door-bell, and stepped as of
right inside.

Involuntarily West and Miss Weyland had halted; and now they stared at
each other with a kind of wild surmise which rapidly yielded to
ludicrous certai