lf
abruptly. He stared at his old friend and business enemy, wondering if
he could have heard aright. Hope began to creep back into Mr. Brewster's
heart, like a shamefaced dog that has been away from home hunting for a
day or two.

"You'll what!"

"I'll send the men back to-morrow! That song was sent to guide me, Dan!
It was meant! Thirty years ago last October me dear old mother--"

Mr. Brewster bent forward attentively. His views on Mr. Connolly's dear
old mother had changed. He wanted to hear all about her.

"'Twas that last note that girl sang brought it all back to me as if
'twas yesterday. As we waited on the platform, me old mother and I, out
comes the train from the tunnel, and the engine lets off a screech the
way ye'd hear it ten miles away. 'Twas thirty years ago--"

Archie stole softly from the table. He felt that his presence, if it had
ever been required, was required no longer. Looking back, he could see
his father-in-law patting Mr. Connolly affectionately on the shoulder.

Archie and Lucille lingered over their coffee. Mr. Blumenthal was out
in the telephone-box settling the business end with Wilson Hymack. The
music-publisher had been unstinted in his praise of "Mother's Knee."
It was sure-fire, he said. The words, stated Mr. Blumenthal, were gooey
enough to hurt, and the tune reminded him of every other song-hit he had
ever heard. There was, in Mr. Blumenthal's opinion, nothing to stop this
thing selling a million copies.

Archie smoked contentedly.

"Not a bad evening's work, old thing," he said. "Talk about birds with
one stone!" He looked at Lucille reproachfully. "You don't seem bubbling
over with joy."

"Oh, I am, precious!" Lucille sighed. "I was only thinking about Bill."

"What about Bill?"

"Well, it's rather awful to think of him tied for life to that-that
steam-siren."

"Oh, we mustn't look on the jolly old dark side. Perhaps--Hallo, Bill,
old top! We were just talking about you."

"Were you?" said Bill Brewster, in a dispirited voice.

"I take it that you want congratulations, what?"

"I want sympathy!"

"Sympathy?"

"Sympathy! And lots of it! She's gone!"

"Gone! Who?"

"Spectatia!"

"How do you mean, gone?"

Bill glowered at the tablecloth.

"Gone home. I've just seen her off in a cab. She's gone back to
Washington Square to pack. She's catching the ten o'clock train back
to Snake Bite. It was that damned song!" muttered Bill, in a stricken
voice. "She says