go catch um. Li Ho catch um good. All light--tomolla."

"You mean you can manage him and he'll be all right tomorrow?" I said.
"But--what is it!"

The Celestial shrugged.

"Muchy devil maybe. Muchy moon-devil, plaps. Velly bad."

"There's a knife in that umbrella, Li Ho."

But though his eyes looked blandly into mine, I couldn't tell whether
this was news to Li Ho or not....

Well, that's the story. I've written it down while it's fresh, sparing
comment. Desire sang as we crossed the Inlet; little, low snatches of
song with a hint of freedom in them. She had made her choice and it is
never her way to look back. The old "Tillicum" rattled and chugged and
the damp crept in around our feet. But the water was a path of gold and
the sky a bowl of silver--and as an example of present day elopements
it had certainly been fairly exciting.

Yours, Benis.

CHAPTER XIII

Desire Spence bent earnestly over the writing pad which lay open upon
her knee.

"Mrs. Benis Hamilton Spence," she wrote. And then:

"Mrs. B. Hamilton Spence."

And then:

"Mrs. Benis H. Spence."

Over this last she sucked her pencil thoughtfully.

"One more!" prompted her husband encouragingly. "Don't decide before
you inspect our full line of goods."

"Initials, only, lack character," objected Desire. "There is nothing
distinctive about 'Mrs. B. H. Spence'. It doesn't balance well, either.
I think I'll decide upon the 'Benis H.' I like it--although I have
never heard of 'Benis' as a name before."

"You are not supposed to have heard of it," explained its owner
complacently. "It is a very exclusive name, a family name. My mother's
paternal grandmother was a Benis."

Desire was not attending. "Your nickname, too, is odd," she mused. "How
on earth could anyone make 'Beans' out of 'Benis Hamilton?'"

"Very easily--but how did you know that anyone had?"

"Oh, from a touching inscription on one of your books, 'To Beans--from
Bones.'"

"Well--there's a whole history in that. It happened by a well defined
process of evolution. When I went to school I had to have a name. A
school boy's proper name is no good to him. Proper names are simply not
done. But the christening party found my combination rather a handful.
No one could do anything with Benis and the obvious shortening of
Hamilton was considered too Biblical. 'Ham', however, suggested
'Piggy'. This might have done had there not already existed a 'Piggy'
with a prior right. 'Piggy