contemplation, upon the sapphire which he retained in his
grasp.

(To be continued on Dickey No. 3.)

* * * * *

"Oh, ho!" exclaimed Dennis as the exasperating phrase in italics met his
glance, "an' it's here you are again. Shure, a man would tear his shirt
to tatters for a tale like that," and with appreciative meditation over
the vexatious quandary presented by the cunning of the bosom-maker in
thus adding another ruinous possibility to the inevitable soil and wear,
he added:

"Shure, the man who put that sthory on the dickey-back knew his
business. Where the dirt laves off the guessin' begins, and betwixt the
two it's another dickey I'll be after--ah, ha, an' it's a fine thing to
have brains like that."

With this discerning tribute, Dennis turned the last dickey around and
discovered that it was protected in the rear with a sort of oiled paper,
through which the story shadowed dimly.

Here was the pinch of his dilemma.

His curiosity was sharpened and his judgment impaired.

In a variety of ways literature incapacitates a man for the exigencies
of existence.

Dennis found himself visibly enervated. At last he remembered that the
week had advanced only as far as Thursday. Between that time and the
Fabian Saturday a number of untoward events might occur.

A more seasoned applicant might present himself to the foreman upon whom
Dennis depended, or, equally grievous, the present bibulous incumbent
might be alarmed into mending his ways.

Hitherto Dennis had resisted the temptation to present himself to the
attention of the foreman in advance of the date appointed.

In order, therefore, to master the anxiety which might betray him into
some overt importunity, he decided to devote the day to a persistent
canvass of the possibilities offered by the various wholesale houses.

Unknown to himself, Dennis had learned that the secret of patience was
doing something else in the meantime.

However, the practical at last was triumphant, and Dennis, with a
resolution that demanded prompt execution for its continued existence,
adjusted the remaining chapter to his waistcoat in the early morning and
descended to the lower floor.

On this occasion his solicitous friend behind the bar insisted upon
detaining the young Irishman, who, urged by his solitary predicament and
a degree depressed by the series of rebuffs which by now had developed a
malicious habit, proceeded to the c