nd I
want you to help me."

"Don't you mix in, Beauty," admonished the hired mother, but the
Beauty was thoughtful for a while. "Mother" was there to give good
advice, but the Beauty only took it if she liked it.

"I really can't afford it," she said, by and by; "but I've got some
principles about me, and I don't like to see a good sport like you
take a rough dose from a lot of cheaps like them; so you show me how
and I'll mix in just this once."

Wallingford hesitated in turn.

"How do you like Block?" he inquired.

Beauty Phillips sniffed her dainty nose in disdain.

"He won't do," she announced with decision. "I've found out all about
him. He's got enough money to star me in a show of my own for the next
ten years, but he's not furnished with the brand of manners I like.
I'll never marry a man I can't stand. I've got a _few_ principles
about me! Why, yesterday he tried to treat me real lovely, but do you
know, he wouldn't give me the name of a horse, even when he put a
hundred down for me in the third race? There I sat, with a string of
'em just prancing around the track, and not one to pull for. Then
after the race is over he comes and tosses me five hundred dollars. 'I
got you four to one on the winner,' says he. Why, it was just like
_giving me money_! Jimmy, I'm going out to dinner with him to-night,
then I'm going to turn him back into the paddock, and you can pal
around with me again until I find a man with plenty of money that I
could really love."

"Don't spill the beans," advised Wallingford hastily. "Block thinks
you're about the maple custard, don't he?"

"He's crazy about me," confessed the Beauty complacently.

"Fine work. Well, just you string him along till he gives you the
name of a sure winner in advance; jolly it out of him."

"Not on your three-sheet litho!" negatived the Beauty. "I never yet
worked one mash against another. I guess you'd expect to play even on
that tip, eh?"

"Sure, we'll play it," admitted Wallingford; "but better than that,
I'll shred this Harry Phelps crowd so clean they'll have to borrow car
fare."

She thought on this possibility with sparkling eyes. She was against
the "Phelps crowd" on principle. Also--well, Wallingford had always
been a perfect gentleman.

"Are you sure you can do it?" she wanted to know.

"It's all framed up," he asserted confidently; "all I want is the name
of that winner."

The Beauty considered the matter seriously, and in the end