grow up and be the idol of a nation.

But a little later he was again thinking of her as "Chubbins," wishing
he had called her that, wishing she had stayed longer out in the scented
night--the wonderful smoothness of her yielding cheek! Her little tricks
of voice and manner came back to him, her quick little patting of
Grandma's back at unexpected moments, the tilting of her head like a
listening bird, that inexplicable look as her eyes enveloped him, a tiny
scar at her temple, mark of an early fall from her pony.

He became sentimental to a maudlin degree. She would go on in her
shallow way of life, smashing windows, voting, leading perfectly decent
young men to do things they never meant to do; but he, the tender, the
true, the ever-earnest, he would not recover from the wound that frail
one had so carelessly inflicted. He would be a changed man, with hair
prematurely graying at the temples, like Gordon Dane's, hiding his hurt
under a mask of light cynicism to all but persons of superior insight.
The heartless quip, the mad jest on his lips! And years afterward, a
deeply serious and very beautiful woman would divine his sorrow and win
him back to his true self.

The wedding! The drive from the church! The carriage is halted by a
street crowd. A stalwart policeman appears. He has just arrested two
women, confirmed window-smashers--Grandma, the Demon, and the flapper.
The flapper gives him one long look, then bows her head. She sees all
the nobility she has missed. Serve her right, too!

Noon came and he was about to leave the office. He was still the changed
man of quip and jest. Desperately he jested with old Metzeger, who was
regretfully, it seemed, relinquishing his adored ledgers from Saturday
noon until Monday morning.

"Say, I want to borrow nineteen thousand eleven hundred and eighty-nine
dollars and thirty-seven cents until the sixteenth at seven minutes to
eleven."

Old Metzeger repeated the numbers accurately. He looked wistful, but he
knew it was a jest.

"Telephone for Boston Bean!" cried an office boy, dryly affecting to be
unconscious of his wit.

He rushed nervously for the booth. No one in the great city had ever
before found occasion to telephone him. He thought of Professor
Balthasar. Balthasar would warn him to fly at once; that all was
discovered.

He held the receiver to his ear and managed a husky "Hello!"

At first there were many voices, mostly indignant: "I want the manager!"
"Get