y aLone in that pitiful conDition. Can you ever forGive me?"

When Mr. Budlong came home for luncheon, Mrs. Budlong told him the
whole story. He glared at her with an I-give-you-up expression and
growled:

"And when she said all that, what did you say?"

"I don't know." Mrs. Budlong faltered. "All I know is that she's
coming over this afternoon with a lot of that wine jelly I gave her
the receipt for."

"And what do you intend to do this time?" Mr. Budlong demanded. The
skeptic in his tone stung her to revolt. She could usually be strong
in the presence of her husband. She looked at least like Mrs.
Boadicea as she said:

"I intend to tell Sally Swezey what you told me to. And I will
accept no apologies, none whatever."

When Mr. Budlong came home to dinner she avoided his gaze. She
confessed that she had changed her program. She hadn't the heart to
insult poor Sally, and she had admitted that she was a hit dizzy and
qualmish and she had--well, she--she--

Mr. Budlong finished for her fiercely:

"I know! You ate a lot of her wine jelly, and you told her she was a
love and you kissed her good-by, and would she excuse you from coming
to the door because you were still a little wobbly."

Mrs. Budlong looked at him in surprise: "She told you!"

"Nah! I haven't seen her."

"Then how on earth did you ever guess?" she babbled.

"It was my womanly intuition!" he snarled, and that evening he went
down town and sat in the hotel lobby for a couple of hours. He
usually did this anyway--in summer he sat on the sidewalk--but this
evening, he did it with a certain implication of escape. He
expressed renunciation in the mere shutting of the door.

On the way home Mr. Budlong was busy with schemes. His mind turned
again to his son.

In a smallish town, a growing boy is an unfailing source of _casus
belli_.

As an inciter of feuds there was something almost Balkan or Moroccan
about Ulysses Budlong Junior. Nearly every day he had come charging
into the house with bad news in some form or other. Some rock or
snowball he had cast with the most innocent of intentions had gone
through a window or a milk wagon or somebody's silk hat. Or he had
pulled a small girl's hair, or taken the skates away from a helpless
urchin. He had bad luck too in picking victims with belligerent big
brothers.

Mr. Budlong recognized these desperado traits and he fully expected
Ulysses Junior to make him the father of a convic