rser form life, a
little fatigued after dusting the parlor.

She was a creature, lovely and delicate, who played croquet as the
extreme of exercise and never even watched more violent sports. She did
not golf; she did not swim or shoot. She was, in a word, one hundred per
cent. feminine--and about the most scandalous thing that could be
suggested about her was that she savored, even one per cent., of the
masculine.

So, while another type of citizen, possessed of all the facts, might
have thrown up his hands in glee and laughed merrily at the sight of
Johnson Boller sitting there on the floor, Anthony Fry merely stood
frozen.

Minute by minute, he was understanding more fully just what manner of
individual his insistence had inducted into his chaste home. She was a
female in sex only! She was no timid little thing, swooning and weeping
at her terrible predicament; she was the sort that dons trousers and
goes to prize-fights--but what was infinitely worse, if one judged by
that resounding whack, she was herself a prize-fighter!

Anthony, you see, was a mild enthusiast about the fighting game; when he
saw a genuine short-arm jab he recognized it instantly.

And going further--for he could not help doing that--what was to be the
end of the mess? Last night, could his addled head but have permitted
it, she would have gone away gladly as a boy. Now that the truth was
out, she was making no effort to escape; far worse, just at this minute,
she seemed bent on continuing the fistic battle, for she stood and
fairly glared down at Johnson Boller.

Ten seconds had passed since the resounding thump which proclaimed that
heavy gentleman's meeting with the floor, and still he had not risen.
Five of them he spent in staring blankly up at David; three he spent in
gathering a scowl; the final two found his plump countenance turning to
an angry red--and Johnson Boller was struggling to his feet, breathing
hard.

"Say, kid----" he began gustily and threateningly.

Anthony Fry came to life and, with a bound, was between them.

"Let this thing stop right here, Johnson!" he said ringingly. "No more
of it--do you understand? No more!"

"No more, your eye!" panted Johnson Boller. "Get out of the way before I
knock you out!"

"Johnson, I refuse to permit you----" Anthony cried, and with both lean
hands pushed back on Mr. Boller's heaving chest.

"Look here, Anthony," said Johnson Boller, with plainly forced calm;
"when a dirty l