d weapons of sermon and prayer and the law.

And I thought extremely well of myself and of my pistols that June
afternoon, as I was hurrying uptown the moment the day's settlement on
'Change was finished. I had sent out my daily letter to investors, and
its tone of confidence was genuine--I knew that hundreds of customers
of a better class would soon be flocking in to take the places of
those I had been compelled to teach a lesson in the vicissitudes of
gambling. With a light heart and the physical feeling of a football
player in training, I sped toward home. Home! For the first time since
I was a squat little slip of a shaver the word had a personal meaning
for me. Perhaps, if the only other home of mine had been less
uninviting, I should not have looked forward with such high beating of
the heart to that cold home Anita was making for me. No, I withdraw
that. It is fellows like me, to whom kindly looks and unbought
attentions are as unfamiliar as flowers to the Arctic--it is men like
me that appreciate and treasure and warm up under the faintest show or
shadowy suggestion of the sunshine of sentiment. I'd be a little
ashamed to say how much money I handed out to servants and beggars and
street gamins that day. I had a home to go to!

As my electric drew up at the Willoughby, a carriage backed to make
room for it. I recognized the horses and the driver and the crests.
"How long has Mrs. Ellersly been with my wife?" I asked the elevator
boy, as he was taking me up.

"About half an hour, sir," he answered. "But Mr. Ellersly--I took up
his card before lunch, and he's still there."

Instead of using my key, I rang the bell, and when Sanders opened, I
said: "Is Mrs. Blacklock in?" in a voice loud enough to penetrate to
the drawing room.

As I had hoped, Anita appeared. Her dress told me that her trunks had
come--she had sent for her trunks! "Mother and father are here," said
she, without looking at me.

I followed her into the drawing room and, for the benefit of the
servants, Mr. and Mrs. Ellersly and I greeted each other courteously,
though Mrs. Ellersly's eyes and mine met in a glance like the flash of
steel on steel. "We were just going," said she, and then I felt that I
had arrived in the midst of a tempest of uncommon fury.

"You must stop and make me a visit," protested I, with elaborate
politeness. To myself I was assuming that they had come to "make up
and be friends"--and resume their places at the trough.