ty this morning?"
asked Billy, when they had left the house.

"Peculiar?" said Mr. Fenelby. "No, I don't think so."

"Well, I don't want to make trouble, Tom," said Billy, "but I think
I ought to speak about this thing. If it wasn't serious I wouldn't
mention it at all, but I think you ought to know what is going on in
your own house. I think you ought to know what kind of a girl Miss
Kitty is, so that you can be on your guard. Now, you went down to
get that collar for me, didn't you?"

"I wish you wouldn't mention that," said Mr. Fenelby with some
annoyance.

"Oh, I know all about that," said Billy, warmly. "You say that
because you don't like to be thanked for all these nice, thoughtful
things you do for a fellow. But I do thank you--just as much as if
you had found the collar and had brought it up to me. That was all
right. You would have paid the duty on it, and that would have been
all right. But what do you think Miss Kitty did? Why do you think
you could not find that collar? Do you know what she did? She
brought that collar into the house--smuggled it in--and she had the
nerve, the actual nerve, to give it to me. And I took it. I couldn't
do anything else, could I, when a girl offered it to me? I couldn't
say I wouldn't take it, could I? I had to be a gentleman about it.
And then she tried to get me into trouble by telling you I would
come down to breakfast wearing that collar. She tried to make out
that I was a smuggler."

"I suppose it was just a bit of fun," said Mr. Fenelby. "Girls are
that way, some of them."

"Well, I want it understood that that collar is in the house, and
that I didn't bring it in," said Billy, "and that if this Domestic
Tariff business is to be carried out fairly it is Miss Kitty's
business to pay the duty on it. I want to set myself right with you.
But the thing I wanted to speak about was far more serious. Do you
know what she had on this morning?"

"What she had on?" asked Mr. Fenelby. "What did she have on?"

"She had on a pink shirt-waist," said Billy fiercely. "That is what
she had on. Right at breakfast there, in plain sight of everyone. A
pink shirt-waist!"

"Well, that's all right, isn't it?" asked Mr. Fenelby, doubtfully.
"It's proper to wear a pink shirt-waist at breakfast, isn't it? I
think Laura wears shirt-waists at breakfast sometimes. I'm sure it's
all right. An informal home breakfast like that."

"But it was pink," insisted Billy. "I looked right at it, a