into the closet and puts on the cheapest dress Mrs. Brown had bought for me—it’s the one I’ve got on now—not so bad for $75, is it? I’d left all my own clothes in my sister’s flat in Brooklyn.

“ ‘Mrs. Brown, formerly “Aunt Maggie,” ’ says I to her, ‘I am going to extend my feet alternately, one after the other, in such a manner and direction that this tenement will recede from me in the quickest possible time. I am no worshipper of money,’ says I, ‘but there are some things I can’t stand. I can stand the fabulous monster that I’ve read about that blows hot birds and cold bottles with the same breath. But I can’t stand a quitter,’ says I. ‘They say you’ve got forty million dollars—well, you’ll never have any less. And I was beginning to like you, too,’ says I.

“Well, the late Aunt Maggie kicks till the tears flow. She offers to move into a swell room with a two- burner stove and running water.

“ ‘I’ve spent an awful lot of money, child,’ says she. ‘We’ll have to economize for a while. You’re the most beautiful creature I ever laid eyes on,’ she says, ‘and I don’t want you to leave me.’

“Well, you see me, don’t you? I walked straight to the Acropolis and asked for my job back, and I got it. How did you say your writings were getting along? I know you’ve lost out some by not having me to typewrite ’em. Do you ever have ’em illustrated? And, by the way, did you ever happen to know a newspaper artist—oh, shut up! I know I asked you before. I wonder what paper he works on? It’s funny, but I couldn’t help thinking that he wasn’t thinking about the money he might have been thinking I was thinking I’d get from old Maggie Brown. If I only knew some of the newspaper editors I’d—”

The sound of an easy footstep came from the doorway. Ida Bates saw who it was with her back-hair comb. I saw her turn pink, perfect statue that she was—a miracle that I share with Pygmalion only.

“Am I excusable?” she said to me—adorable petitioner that she became. “It’s—it’s Mr. Lathrop. I wonder if it really wasn’t the money—I wonder, if after all, he—”

Of course, I was invited to the wedding. After the ceremony I dragged Lathrop aside.

“You an artist,” said I, “and haven’t figured out why Maggie Brown conceived such a strong liking for Miss Bates—that was? Let me show you.”

The bride wore a simple white dress as beautifully draped as the costumes of the ancient Greeks. I took some leaves from one of the decorative wreaths in the little parlour, and made a chaplet of them, and placed them on née Bates’s shining chestnut hair, and made her turn her profile to her husband.

“By jingo!” said he. “Isn’t Ida’s a dead ringer for the lady’s head on the silver dollar?”