lace."

"I'm amazed at your wearing such fripperies," teased the man; "but you
must look simply ravishing."

The widow was bomb-proof against humorous attack. Drawing herself to
her full height, as she might clad in full regalia of purple and gold,
she mouthed:--

"'I loath, abhor, my very soul with strong disgust is stirred, when
e're I see, or hear, or tell ov the dark bev'rage ov hell.'"

The dumpy little figure, swelling like a pouter pigeon's, was so
irresistibly ludicrous that Shelby forgot his troubles and threw back
his head in a gust of laughter.

"Think it's funny, I s'pose." Her face was vinegar. "'Tain't to be
expected a boy brung up in a distillery 'ud know better."

Shelby sobered.

"Confine yourself to facts, please," he interposed. "My grandfather's
entirely respectable distilling business was closed out before I was
born."

"'Twa'n't b'fore your pa was made a drunkard, Ross Shelby."

He went red with impotent anger.

"By God!" he swore. "If--if you were a man--"

"There you go a-swearin' at a poor weak female."

"Let me pass," he choked. "Let me pass. I don't know what I may say
to you."

She stepped aside.

"Go," she said, with a fat little gesture. "Mebbe you've got pressin'
business. Mebbe you want to write billy-doos to Mrs. Hilliard. Mebbe
them opery glasses needs dustin' off s'more."

He fled lest she say worse.

Clearly William Irons had been wax in the widow's hands, and on his
auburn head would have fallen the accumulated spleen of weeks had not
the youth met his employer at the office door with a telegram whose
portentous message engulfed all lesser cares.

CHAPTER VII

Shelby read, pondered, and finally roused from his preoccupation to
meet the bovine stare of his clerk.

"Railway guide, William," he ordered sharply.

"Yep."

"And call up the station agent. Have him wire for a lower berth on the
Lehigh to-night."

William Irons waited.

"Go on, go on," called the politician, crossly, glancing up from his
time-table. "Have you foundered halfway?"

"Nope. You didn't say where to."

"New York, New York."

"Yep," said William, placidly. "What train?"

Shelby left off staring at his blotter for an instant, to fling him the
information. William Irons rubbed one long leg against its fellow as
he leaned to the telephone and ruminated the mystery of this impending
flight into what was for him the great unknown. This air of suppressed
excite