comedy sketch we put on
sometimes when we got a good house."

Casey banged the door and said something exceedingly stage-driverish which
a lady should by no means overhear.

Sounds from the rear of the garage indicated that Casey's Ford was r'arin'
to go, as Casey frequently expressed it. Voices were jumbled in the tones
of suggestions, commands, protest. Casey heard the show lady's clear
treble berating Jack dear with thin politeness. Then the car came snorting
forward, paused in the wide doorway, and the show lady's voice called out
clearly, untroubled as the voice of a child after it has received that
which it cried for.

"Well, good-by, Mister! You certainly are a godsend to give us the loan of
your car!" There was a buzz and a splutter, and they were gone--gone clean
out of Casey's life into the unknown whence they had come.

Bill opened the door gently and eased into the office, sniffing liniment.
The painted hollows under Casey's eyes gave him a ghastly look in the
lamp-light when he lifted his face from examining a chafed and angry knee.
Bill opened his mouth for speech, caught a certain look in Casey's eyes
and did not say what he had intended to say. Instead:

"You better sleep here in the office, Casey. I've got another bed back of
the machine shop. I'll lock up, and if any one comes and rings the night
bell--well, never mind. I'll plug her so they can't ring her." The world
needs more men like Bill.

* * * * *

Even after an avalanche, human nature cannot resist digging in the
melancholy hope of turning up grewsome remains. I know that you are all
itching to put shovel into the debris of Casey's dreams, and to see just
what was left of them.

There was mighty little, let me tell you. I said in the beginning that
twenty-five thousand dollars was like a wildcat in Casey's pocket. You
can't give a man that much money all in a lump and suddenly, after he has
been content with dollars enough to pay for the food he eats, without
seeing him lose his sense of proportion. Twenty-five dollars he
understands and can spend more prudently than you, perhaps. Twenty-five
thousand he simply cannot gauge. It seems exhaustless. It is as if you
plucked from the night all the stars you can see, knowing that the Milky
Way is still there and unnumbered other stars invisible, even in the
aggregate.

Casey played poker with an appreciative audience and the lid off. Now and
then he took a dr