nd Vera will be delighted to meet her."

Bones choked his gratitude and wrung the other's hand for fully two
minutes.

He spent the rest of the week in displaying to Hamilton the frank
ambitions of his mind toward Miss Marguerite Whitland. Whenever he had
nothing to do--which seemed most of the day--he strolled across to
Hamilton's desk and discoursed upon the proper respect which all
right-thinking young officers have for old typewriters. By the end of
the week Hamilton had the confused impression that the very pretty girl
who ministered to the literary needs of his partner, combined the
qualities of a maiden aunt with the virtues of a grandmother, and that
Bones experienced no other emotion than one of reverential wonder,
tinctured with complete indifference.

On the sixty-fourth lecture Hamilton struck.

"Of course, dear old thing," Bones was saying, "to a jolly old brigand
like you, who dashes madly down from his mountain lair and takes the
first engaging young person who meets his eye----"

Hamilton protested vigorously, but Bones silenced him with a lordly
gesture.

"I say, to a jolly old rascal like you it may seem--what is the word?"

"'Inexplicable,' I suppose, is the word you are after," said Hamilton.

"That's the fellow; you took it out of my mouth," said Bones. "It
sounds inexplicable that I can be interested in a platonic, fatherly
kind of way in the future of a lovely old typewriter."

"It's not inexplicable at all," said Hamilton bluntly. "You're in love
with the girl."

"Good gracious Heavens!" gasped Bones, horrified. "Ham, my dear old
boy. Dicky Orum, Dicky Orum, old thing!"

Sunday morning brought together four solemn people, two of whom were
men, who felt extremely awkward and showed it, and two of whom behaved
as though they had known one another all their lives.

Bones, who stood alternately on his various legs, was frankly astounded
that the meeting had passed off without any sensational happening. It
was an astonishment shared by thousands of men in similar
circumstances. A word of admiration for the car from Vera melted him
to a condition of hysterical gratitude.

"It's not a bad old 'bus, dear old--Miss Vera," he said, and tut-tutted
audibly under his breath at his error. "Not a bad old 'bus at all,
dear old--young friend. Now I'll show you the gem of the collection."

"They are big, aren't they?" said Vera, properly impressed by the lamps.

"They never go out," sai