the railroad
yards, and it's only two blocks to a restaurant."

"Not on your life. I ain't marryin' Saxon to take in lodgers. If I can't
take care of her, d'ye know what I'll do? Go down to Long Wharf, say
'Here goes nothin',' an' jump into the bay with a stone tied to my neck.
Ain't I right, Saxon?"

It was contrary to her prudent judgment, but it fanned her pride. She
threw her arms around her lover's neck, and said, ere she kissed him:

"You're the boss, Billy. What you say goes, and always will go."

"Listen to that!" Bert gibed to Mary. "That's the stuff. Saxon's onto
her job."

"I guess we'll talk things over together first before ever I do
anything," Billy was saying to Saxon.

"Listen to that," Mary triumphed. "You bet the man that marries me'll
have to talk things over first."

"Billy's only givin' her hot air," Bert plagued. "They all do it before
they're married."

Mary sniffed contemptuously.

"I'll bet Saxon leads him around by the nose. And I'm goin' to say, loud
an' strong, that I'll lead the man around by the nose that marries me."

"Not if you love him," Saxon interposed.

"All the more reason," Mary pursued.

Bert assumed an expression and attitude of mournful dejection.

"Now you see why me an' Mary don't get married," he said. "I'm some big
Indian myself, an' I'll be everlastingly jiggerooed if I put up for a
wigwam I can't be boss of."

"And I'm no squaw," Mary retaliated, "an' I wouldn't marry a big buck
Indian if all the rest of the men in the world was dead."

"Well this big buck Indian ain't asked you yet."

"He knows what he'd get if he did."

"And after that maybe he'll think twice before he does ask you."

Saxon, intent on diverting the conversation into pleasanter channels,
clapped her hands as if with sudden recollection.

"Oh! I forgot! I want to show you something." From her purse she drew
a slender ring of plain gold and passed it around. "My mother's wedding
ring. I've worn it around my neck always, like a locket. I cried for it
so in the orphan asylum that the matron gave it back for me to wear. And
now, just to think, after next Tuesday I'll be wearing it on my finger.
Look, Billy, see the engraving on the inside."

"C to D, 1879," he read.

"Carlton to Daisy--Carlton was my father's first name. And now, Billy,
you've got to get it engraved for you and me."

Mary was all eagerness and delight.

"Oh, it's fine," she cried. "W to S, 1907."

Billy considere