at once!" she
exclaimed. "I can not any longer restrain my impatience."

His own voice quavering emotions of several sorts, Wallingford
introduced them, and Mrs. Moozer shook ecstatically the hand which
had just caressed the dear swamp.

"And so this is the great Matteo!" she exclaimed. "Signor, as acting
president of the Women's Culture Club, I claim you for an address upon
your sublime art next Saturday afternoon. Let business claim you
afterward."

"I hav'a--not da gooda Englis," said Blackie Daw, with an
indescribable gesture of the shoulders and right arm, "but whata
leetle I cana say, I s'alla be amost aglad to tella da ladees."

Never did man enjoy himself more than did Blackie Daw. Blakeville went
wild over this gifted, warmly temperamental foreigner. They dined him
and they listened to his soul-satisfying, broken English with vast
respect, even with veneration; the women because he was an artist, and
the men because he represented vast money-earning capacity. Even the
far-away president of the Women's Culture Club heard of his advent
from a faithful adherent, an anti-Moozer and pro-Forsythe member, and
on Saturday morning J. Rufus Wallingford received a gushing letter
from that enterprising lady.

MY DEAR MR. WALLINGFORD:

I have been informed that the great event has happened, and
that the superb artist has at last arrived in Blakeville;
moreover, that he is to favor the Women's Culture Club, of
which I have the honor to be president, with a talk upon
his delightful art. I simply can not resist presiding at
that meeting, and I hope it is not uncharitable toward Mrs.
Moozer that I feel it my duty to do so; consequently I
shall arrive in time, I trust, to introduce him; moreover,
to talk with him in his own, limpid, liquid language. I
have been, for the past month, taking phonograph lessons in
Italian for this moment, and I trust that it will be a
pleasant surprise to him to be addressed in his native
tongue.

Wallingford rushed up-stairs to where Blackie was leisurely getting
ready for breakfast.

"Old scout," he gasped, "your poor old mother in Italy is at the point
of death, so be grief-stricken and hustle! Get ready for the next
train out of town, you hear? Look at this!" and he thrust in front of
Blackie's eyes the fatal letter.

Blackie looked at it and comprehended its significance.

"What time does the first train leave