bridges, you see;--and he laughed at
me. I haven't told that to any one but you.--All the same, if he thinks,
from that, that he can go on accumulating--millstones ..."

"Tell me where you are planning to live," Wallace said, getting back as
he was always glad to do, to firm ground again. "Not too far away, I
hope, for us to go on seeing a lot of you."

"Oh, it's very sad about that," she told him. "I was hoping to live with
him in his secret lair over the Italian grocery. No, but it was really
delightful. One big room, bigger than this, with dormers and dusty beams
and an outside stair. He's had it for years. It's not half a mile from
here--and Paula could never find out where it was! But, unexpectedly,
he's being turned out. I could have wept when he told me."

"Unexpectedly!" quoted Wallace, the professional real estate man in
him touched by this evidence of lay negligence. "March hadn't any
lease, I suppose."

"He didn't need any," said Mary. "He owned it."

"If he owns it how can they turn him out--unexpectedly?"

"What he owned was the second story. Well, he still does, of course. But
when they tear the first floor and the basement out from under him, as
they're going to do next week, his second story won't do him much good."

"But, good gracious, they can't do that!" Wallace cried. "They must
leave him his floor and his ceiling just where they are now. And his
light. They can build above and below--I suppose that's what they're
tearing the old building down for--but that layer of space, if he
really bought it and has got anything to show that he really bought it,
belongs to him."

"Do you mean seriously," she demanded, "that it's possible to buy the
second story of a building? It's like Pudd'n-'head Wilson's joke about
buying half a dog and killing his half."

"Of course I mean it," he insisted. "An easement like that cost our
estate thousands of dollars only a year or two ago. Serious! I should
think it was! Ask Rodney Aldrich. See what he says.--Of course, it's
nothing unless he can show some instrument that proves his title. But if
he can it might be worth ... Well, it's just a question how badly they
happen to need that particular bit of land. Those people we fell foul of
managed to hold us up for a tidy sum."

She was looking at him thoughtfully, a faint, rather wry smile just
touching her lips. "A minute ago," she said, "I was about to fling myself
upon your neck and thank you for so wonderful a