' I'd give a dollar and a half--"

"If you had it?"

"Oh, well, if I had it--to know just what it was we have discovered."

Suddenly Blix caught his arm.

"Condy, here they come!"

"Who? Who?"

"Our objects, Captain Jack and K. D. B."

"Of course, of course. They couldn't stay. The restaurant shuts up at
eight."

Blix and Condy had been walking slowly in the direction of Pacific
Street, and K. D. B. and her escort soon overtook them going in the
same direction. As they passed, the captain was saying:

"--jumped on my hatches, and says we'll make it an international
affair. That didn't--"

A passing wagon drowned the sound of his voice.

"He was telling her of his adventures!" cried Blix. "Splendid!
Othello and Desdemona. They're getting on."

"Let's follow them!" exclaimed Condy.

"Should we? Wouldn't it be indiscreet?"

"No. We are the arbiters of their fate; we MUST take an interest."

They allowed their objects to get ahead some half a block and then fell
in behind. There was little danger of their being detected. The
captain and K. D. B. were absorbed in each other. She had even taken
his arm.

"They make a fine-looking couple, really," said Blix. "Where do you
suppose they are going? To another restaurant?"

But this was not the case. Blix and Condy followed them as far as
Washington Square, where the Geodetic Survey stone stands, and the
enormous flagstaff; and there in front of a commonplace little house,
two doors above the Russian church with its minarets like inverted
balloons K. D. B. and the captain halted. For a few moments they
conversed in low tones at the gate, then said good-night, K. D. B.
entering the house, the captain bowing with great deference, his hat in
his hand. Then he turned about, glanced once or twice at the house,
set his hat at an angle, and disappeared across the square, whistling a
tune, his chin in the air.

"Very good, excellent, highly respectable," approved Blix; and Condy
himself fetched a sigh of relief.

"Yes, yes, it might have been worse."

"We'll never see them again, our 'Matrimonial Objects,'" said Blix,
"and they'll never know about us; but we have brought them together.
We've started a romance. Yes, I think we've done a good day's work.
And now, Condy, I think we had best be thinking of home ourselves. I'm
just beginning to get most awfully sleepy. What a day we've had!"

A sea fog, or rather THE sea fog--San Francisco's old and