u allowed me to talk to you under a false impression.
I am not absolutely lacking in grey matter," she added, while a smile
curled her lips, "and I think you owe it to me to tell me why you became
a Candy Man."

"In return for the Fairy Godmother idea?" he asked mischievously.

Miss Bentley's brows drew together. "If you knew how bitterly I have
regretted all the foolish things I said that day, you would not laugh,"
she cried.

"Do not say that, please, Miss Bentley. I beg your pardon, and I am not
laughing. I could not. If you only knew what it all meant to me. How
I----"

His distress was so genuine that Margaret Elizabeth was touched. "Well,
never mind now. It can't be helped, and I am willing to have it in
return for the Fairy Godmother nonsense, if you choose to put it so."

And now perforce the Candy Man must explain himself.

"You see," he began, "I had been knocked out of everything through
a bad accident that occurred at my home near Chicago--a runaway.
Speaking of grey matter, there was some doubt for a time whether mine
was not permanently injured. However, I gradually recovered, but I was
still forbidden for another six months at least to do any brain work,
and ordered by my doctor to loaf in the fresh air. Doing nothing when
you are longing to get to work is no easy job. I left home with the
intention of going South, and stopped off here for no particular reason.
Perhaps I should have said that I have no family. My father died
something over a year ago. Oddly enough, in front of the station here
I met an Irish woman, once a servant in my father's house. She was
overjoyed to see me, and poured out her troubles. Her son, who ran a
candy wagon, had been taken ill with fever, and his employers would not
promise to keep the place for him, and altogether she was in hard lines,
this boy being the main support of a large family. So now you see how
the idea occurred to me. To amuse myself and keep the boy's place. And
having no family or friends to be disgraced----"

"No one has intimated there was any disgrace about it," Miss Bentley
interrupted. "At worst it can be called eccentric. It was also very,
very kind."

"Oh, now, Miss Bentley, thank you, but I can't let you overrate that.
Any help I have given was merely by the way. You must remember I was
in need of some occupation, and I assure you it has been very much of
a lark."

"Yes?" said Miss Bentley. "Then no doubt before long you will be writing
'T