done;--you're done brown," Jim went on relentlessly,
"and it serves you darned well right."

"But, Jim,--you been a lawyer. She can't go make me marry her?"

"Yes she can!"

"But she lie to me. She send me picture of nice girl and say it
her and she Betty Jornsen. I tell her to come to me, from her
picture,--see!"

"You big, blue-eyed, innocent baby! You're done;--you're in the
soup;--your goose is cooked. Take it from me,--she's got you, and got
you good.

"Didn't you send her my photo and say it was yours?"

Sol stood aghast.

"Aw,--that just a joke!" he persisted.

"Hadn't she a perfect right to do the same thing to you? Well--evidently
she has done it. Poor Sol!"

"But--but----"

"It's no good. There aren't any _buts_ to this. She is here. She is
expecting Sol Hanson to be a fine looking fellow like me, and the poor
thing is going to get a pie-faced, slop-eyed individual like
yourself.

"Now, you're expecting a pretty little blonde and you're
getting,--well,--something totally different."

Jim slapped Sol on the back.

"Too bad! Take your medicine, though, old man! Be a sport! You're
distinctly up against it."

Phil was metaphorically in knots by the furnace fire.

Sol rushed for his coat.

"No dam-fear!" he cried. "I go to coop first. She ain't been going to
run any bluff on Sol Hanson,--see! You tell her, and her carrots-hair,
and her one eye, and her three dam-kids, to go plumb toboggan to
hell.

"I come back sometime--maybe."

Sol made a dart for the front door. Then he changed his mind and made
for the back one. But he guessed the wrong one--or, perhaps after
all, it was the right one.

As he was going out, Betty Jornsen, with her two grips, came in and
blocked up his exit.

She had evidently wearied of waiting at the corner, and had determined
to investigate matters for herself.

Sol made to brush past. Suddenly he stopped. He looked at Betty. He
stared. His eyes became big and nearly popped out of his head in his
amazement.

Betty looked up at him in surprise.

They gaped thus at each other for a few seconds, then Sol staggered to
the side of the door and leaned against it, breathing hard as if he
had run a mile.

At last he found his tongue and himself, and straightened up.

"Betty,--by gosh! Betty,--little Betty, by Yiminy!" he exclaimed,
throwing his long arms about her, knocking her grips aside and sending
her hat awry. He lifted her up high and kissed her fair on the