him, Fletcher?"

About then I begins to get a glimmer of what it was all about, and by
the time she'd gone on for four or five minutes I had the whole story.
Maria was the ex-Mrs. Fletcher Dawes. Little Bertie was a grandson;
and grandma wanted Bertie to come and live with her in the big Long
Island place that Fletcher had handed her when he swapped her off for
one of the sextet, and settled up after the decree was granted.

Hearin' that brought the whole thing back, for the papers printed pages
about the Daweses; rakin' up everything, from the time Fletcher run a
grocery store and lodgin' house out to Butte, and Maria helped him sell
flour and canned goods, besides makin' beds, and jugglin' pans, and
takin' in washin' on the side; to the day Fletcher euchred a prospector
out of the mine that gave him his start.

"You were satisfied with the terms of the settlement, when it was
made," says Mr. Dawes.

"I know," says she; "but I didn't think how badly I should miss Bertie.
That is an awful big house over there, and I am getting to be an old
woman now, Fletcher."

"Yes, you are," says he, his mouth corners liftin' a little. "But
Bertie's in school, where he ought to be and where he is going to stay.
Anything more?"

I looks at Maria. Her upper lip was wabblin' some, but that's all.
"No, Fletcher," says she. "I shall go now."

She was just about startin', when there's music on the other side of
the draperies. It sounds like Corson was havin' his troubles with
another female. Only this one had a voice like a brass cornet, and she
was usin' it too.

"Why can't I go in there?" says she. "I'd like to know why! Eh,
what's that? A woman in there?"

And in she comes. She was a pippin, all right. As she yanks back the
curtain and rushes in she looks about as friendly as a spotted leopard
that's been stirred up with an elephant hook; but when she sizes up the
comp'ny that's present she cools off and lets go a laugh that gives us
an iv'ry display worth seein'.

"Oh!" says she. "Fletchy, who's the old one?"

Say, I expect Dawes has run into some mighty worryin' scenes before
now, havin' been indicted once or twice and so on, but I'll bet he
never bucked up against the equal of this before. He opens his mouth a
couple of times, but there don't seem to be any language on tap. The
missus was ready, though.

"Maria Dawes is my name, my dear," says she.

"Maria!" says the other one, lookin' some staggered.