ry regarded me with grim but whimsical defiance.

"The little blister never got a blamed one of 'em, Missis!" she said.

CHAPTER VII

THE PRICE OF QUIET

Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie were among our frequent visitors in the new
apartment. Jimmie can never realize that I am really married, and in
view of our manifold travelling experiences together he regards the
Angel with an eye in which sympathy and apprehension are mingled.

His congratulations at the wedding were unique. "I'd like to
congratulate you, old man," he said, wringing the Angel's hand, "but
honestly I think you are up against it."

To me at their first call he said:

"What will you do with such a man--you, who have gone scrapping through
life, browbeating gentle souls like myself into giving you your own way
on every point, and letting you ride rough-shod over us without a
protest? _He_ requires consideration and tact and a degree of
courtesy--none of which you possess. And you can't drag him away from
his writing to go to the morgue or a pawn-shop with you the way you did
me in Europe. And most of all he must have quiet. Gee whiz! There
will be hours together when you must hold your tongue. You'll die!"

"No, I won't," I declared. "You don't know him. He is an Angel." And
with that the argument closed, for Jimmie went off into such a fit of
laughter that he choked, and his wife came in a fright to find me
pounding him on the back with unnecessary force.

"But why," said Jimmie, when order had been restored, "did you take an
apartment, when Aubrey's chief requirement is absence of noise!
Furthermore, why do you live in New York, that city which reigns
supreme in its accumulation of unnecessary bedlam?"

"Ah, we have thought of all those things," I said, proudly. "First, we
avoided a street paved with cobblestones. Second, we took the top
floor. Third, there are no houses opposite--only the Park."

"But best of all," said the Angel, speaking for the first time, as
Jimmie noted, "it is in the lease that no children are allowed, for
children, after all, are the most noise-producing animals which exist.
So if an apartment can be noise-proof--"

"Exactly," cut in Jimmie. "If!"

"That's what I say--if it can," said the Angel, "this one should prove
so. Faith and I certainly took sufficient pains in selecting it."

"Well, I don't want to discourage you," said Jimmie, and then, after
the manner of those who begin their sentences in tha