invitation.

At the gate, Miss Sherwood extended her hand to him and said politely,
and with some flavor of mockery: "Good-night, Mr. Harkless. I do not
leave to-morrow. I am very glad to have met you."

"We are going to keep her all summer if we can," said Minnie, weaving
her arm about her friend's waist. "You'll come in the morning?"

"Good-night, Miss Sherwood," he returned, hilariously. "It has been such
a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for saving my life. It was
very good of you indeed. Yes, in the morning. Good-night--good-night."
He shook hands with them all again, including Mr. Todd, who was going
with him.

He laughed most of the way home, and Mr. Todd walked at his side in
amazement. The Herald Building was a decrepit frame structure on Main
Street; it had once been a small warehouse and was now sadly in need of
paint. Closely adjoining it, in a large, blank-looking yard, stood a low
brick cottage, over which the second story of the warehouse leaned in an
effect of tipsy affection that had reminded Harkless, when he first saw
it, of an old Sunday-school book wood-cut of an inebriated parent under
convoy of a devoted child. The title to these two buildings and the
blank yard had been included in the purchase of the "Herald"; and the
cottage was Harkless's home.

There was a light burning upstairs in the "Herald" office. From the
street a broad, tumble-down stairway ran up on the outside of the
building to the second floor, and at the stairway railing John turned
and shook his companion warmly by the hand.

"Good-night, William," he said. "It was plucky of you to join in that
muss, to-night. I shan't forget it."

"I jest happened to come along," replied the other, drowsily; then, with
a portentous yawn, he asked: "Ain't ye goin' to bed?"

"No; Parker wouldn't allow it."

"Well," observed William, with another yawn, which bade fair to expose
the veritable soul of him, "I d'know how ye stand it. It's closte on
eleven o'clock. Good-night."

John went up the steps, singing aloud:

"For to-night we'll merry, merry be,
For to-night we'll merry, merry be,"

and stopped on the sagging platform at the top of the stairs and gave
the moon good-night with a wave of the hand and friendly laughter. At
that it suddenly struck him that he was twenty-nine years of age;
that he had laughed a great deal that evening; that he had laughed and
laughed over things not in the least humorous,