tie said. 'We simply couldn't
do that. There's no one but me to look after him, poor old man. How
could I run away like that and get married? What would become of him?'

'You wouldn't be away long,' urged Mr Brady, a man of many parts, but
not a rapid thinker. 'The minister would have us fixed up inside of
half an hour. Then we'd look in at Mouquin's for a steak and fried,
just to make a sort of wedding breakfast. And then back we'd come,
hand-in-hand, and say, "Well, here we are. Now what?"'

'He would never forgive me.'

'That,' said Ted judicially, 'would be up to him.'

'It would kill him. Don't you see, we know that it's all nonsense, this
idea of his; but he really thinks he is the king, and he's so old that
the shock of my disobeying him would be too much. Honest, Ted, dear, I
couldn't.'

Gloom unutterable darkened Ted Brady's always serious countenance. The
difficulties of the situation were beginning to come home to him.

'Maybe if I went and saw him--' he suggested at last.

'You _could_,' said Katie doubtfully.

Ted tightened his belt with an air of determination, and bit resolutely
on the chewing-gum which was his inseparable companion.

'I will,' he said.

'You'll be nice to him, Ted?'

He nodded. He was the man of action, not words.

It was perhaps ten minutes before he came out of the inner room in
which Mr Bennett passed his days. When he did, there was no light of
jubilation on his face. His brow was darker than ever.

Katie looked at him anxiously. He returned the look with a sombre shake
of the head.

'Nothing doing,' he said shortly. He paused. 'Unless,' he added, 'you
count it anything that he's made me an earl.'

In the next two weeks several brains busied themselves with the
situation. Genevieve, reconciled to Katie after a decent interval of
wounded dignity, said she supposed there was a way out, if one could
only think of it, but it certainly got past her. The only approach to a
plan of action was suggested by the broken-nosed individual who had
been Ted's companion that day at Palisades Park, a gentleman of some
eminence in the boxing world, who rejoiced in the name of the Tennessee
Bear-Cat.

What they ought to do, in the Bear-Cat's opinion, was to get the old
man out into Washington Square one morning. He of Tennessee would then
sasshay up in a flip manner and make a break. Ted, waiting close by,
would resent his insolence. There would be words, followed by blows.

'See