cannot get a word out of you!"

"All I can tell you, Mrs. Abbott, is that if Jimmie does come to-night,
I've got to pay him a thousand bones--dollars, I mean. It was a sort of
a wager, and that must be what he wants to tell you about."

It was an exceedingly stout young man with a round, cherubic countenance
standing by the mantel who replied to her, and the old lady glanced at
him sharply.

"A wager? H-m! Possibly." She paused suddenly. "There's the bell."

A moment later James Tarrisford Abbott, in the most immaculate of dinner
clothes, entered and greeted his aunt, halting with a slight frown as he
encountered the beaming face of the young man who fell upon him.

"Good boy, Jimmie! You made it, after all!"

"With a few hours to spare." Jim darted a questioning glance at his
aunt, and seemed relieved at her emphatic shake of the head.

"I knew we'd lost when Mrs. Abbott told me that you had telephoned to
her from just a little way out of town to-day," Jack Trimble responded.
"I ran over on my way to the club to give her a message from my mother.
Did you have a hard time of it, old man?"

"Hard?" Jim smiled. "I've been a rough-rider in a circus----"

Mrs. Abbott groaned, but Jack Trimble's eyes opened as roundly and wide
as his mouth.

"Thundering--So it was you after all!"

"Me?" Jim demanded with ungrammatical haste.

"You--rough-rider--circus!" Jack exclaimed. "Vera said the chap looked
like you, but it never occurred to me that it could possibly be!"

"So it was Vera, was it?" Jim smiled. "I heard what she said--I mean, it
was repeated to me. You were one of that party?"

"Yes. We were with the Lentilhons in their car, and the funniest thing
happened the next day on the way home! Crusty old farmer wouldn't turn
out on the road, and Guy Lentilhon lost control and smashed straight
through his wagon!" Jack laughed. "W-what do you think it was loaded
with?"

"Eggs!" responded Jim crisply. "I happened to be on it at the time, my
boy, and your sense of humor--I hope you all got what I did! But I must
explain to Aunt Emmy here, or she will think that we are both quite
mad!"

"And I must be off to the club," Jack announced. "I'll break the news to
Billy Hollis that we've lost. See you later, and we'll all settle up.
Good evening, Mrs. Abbott."

When the stout young man had taken his departure, Mrs. Abbott turned to
her nephew between laughter and tears.

"James, this is the maddest of all mad things t