what you said--that headache--bottles in
your closet, too! My mistake, Buddy."

"She'll take a drink, with me," the youth confessed. "Anyhow, she's
gettin' so she will. I don't see anything wrong in a woman takin' a
drink now an' then with a man she--with a man that's honorable." The
last words were voiced defiantly.

Hastily Buddy's caller averred: "Nor do I. We sha'n't come to blows
over an abstract moral issue like that. This is an age of tolerance, an
age of equality. I flatter myself that I'm quite as lawless and broad
minded as the average bachelor of our very smartest set."

"I'm--" the speaker gulped. "I'm goin' to marry her."

"Oh, fine!" Gray's enthusiasm was positively electric. He seized
Buddy's hand and crushed it. "Education, indeed! No use for that now,
is there?"

"I mean I'm goin' to, if I can; if she'll let me."

"Let you? With your money? Why, she'll jump at the chance. No doubt you
have already asked her--or she suspects--"

The lad shook his head. "She don't have to marry nobody. She's got
money--an _es_-tate. You think it's all right for me to do it?"

"Simpler men than you have asked that question, and wiser men than I
have refused to answer. As for me, I've never had the courage to take
the plunge. However, the worst you can get is a heartbreak and a
lifetime of regrets. But, of course, the woman takes some chances, too.
Tell me about her."

"Well--" Buddy beamed fatuously. "I dunno hardly where to begin." Into
his voice, as he spoke, there crept a breathless excitement, into his
eyes a dumb adoration. "She's--wonderful! She's too good for me."

"Once and a while they are."

"She's educated, too--more in your class, Mr. Gray. I dunno how she
stands for me. She's the smartest, purtiest girl--"

"She's young, eh?"

"She's--older 'n I am. I reckon she's mebbe twenty-five. I never ast
her."

"Naturally. How did you meet her? When? Where? I'm a terribly romantic
old fool." Gray hitched his chair closer and leaned forward, his face
keen with interest.

"Well, sir, it's a regular story, like in a book. I was in a restaurant
with a coupla fellers an' a feller she was with struck her--"

"Struck her?"

"Yep. He was her brother, so she told me. Anyhow, I bounced him. I sure
spoiled him up a lot. She was cryin' an' she ast me to take her home.
That's how I got to know her. I s'pose she cottoned to me for takin'
her part that-a-way. She didn't know the sort of place it was her
brother