was going to
say something, but she didn't say nothing. And Andy, he didn't say
nothing, neither. He just looked, and she just looked.

And then he sort of stumbles across the room, and goes down on his
knees, and gets his arms around her.

'Oh, my kid' he says.

* * * * *

And I seen I wasn't wanted, so I shut the door, and I hopped it. I went
and saw the last half of a music-hall. But, I don't know, it didn't
kind of have no fascination for me. You've got to give your mind to it
to appreciate good music-hall turns.

ONE TOUCH OF NATURE

The feelings of Mr J. Wilmot Birdsey, as he stood wedged in the crowd
that moved inch by inch towards the gates of the Chelsea Football
Ground, rather resembled those of a starving man who has just been
given a meal but realizes that he is not likely to get another for many
days. He was full and happy. He bubbled over with the joy of living and
a warm affection for his fellow-man. At the back of his mind there
lurked the black shadow of future privations, but for the moment he did
not allow it to disturb him. On this maddest, merriest day of all the
glad New Year he was content to revel in the present and allow the
future to take care of itself.

Mr Birdsey had been doing something which he had not done since he left
New York five years ago. He had been watching a game of baseball.

New York lost a great baseball fan when Hugo Percy de Wynter
Framlinghame, sixth Earl of Carricksteed, married Mae Elinor, only
daughter of Mr and Mrs J. Wilmot Birdsey of East Seventy-Third Street;
for scarcely had that internationally important event taken place when
Mrs Birdsey, announcing that for the future the home would be in
England as near as possible to dear Mae and dear Hugo, scooped J.
Wilmot out of his comfortable morris chair as if he had been a clam,
corked him up in a swift taxicab, and decanted him into a Deck B
stateroom on the _Olympic_. And there he was, an exile.

Mr Birdsey submitted to the worst bit of kidnapping since the days of
the old press gang with that delightful amiability which made him so
popular among his fellows and such a cypher in his home. At an early
date in his married life his position had been clearly defined beyond
possibility of mistake. It was his business to make money, and, when
called upon, to jump through hoops and sham dead at the bidding of his
wife and daughter Mae. These duties he had been performing
con