does she say?"

"Everything--and then some," was the grim response. "Don't laugh!" he
ordered. "Here's one of the last of them." Grogan took a dark blue
envelope from his pocket, extracted a single sheet of the same color and
read.

"Michael Grogan:--Do you remember what your old Irish mother said to you
when you left Old Erin to seek your fortune in the new world? She said:
'Mike, me boy, don't soil your hands with dirty money.' Mary Randall."

"Don't soil your hands with dirty money," repeated Miss Masters.

"That's a nice billy dux to find beside your plate at breakfast, ain't it
now?" demanded Grogan. Then after a pause he murmured half to himself,

"Me old Irish mother, God bless her, with her white hair and her sweet
Connemara face! I can see her now, just as she stood there that day in
the door of our cabin when I went off up the road, a slip of a boy, with
a big bag of oatmeal over me shoulder--one shirt and me Irish fighting
spirit. That was me capital in life, that and her blessing. She's
sleeping there now, and the shamrock is growing over her--"

Grogan stopped. His voice had grown husky.

"Say," he demanded turning on Miss Masters abruptly, "why don't you make
me stop? Don't you see I'm breaking me heart?"

The girl had really been moved. "I can't," she said, "because--" She got
out her powder puff and proceeded hastily to decorate her nose. She was
still engaged in this operation when the telephone rang. Grogan started.

"What's that?" he demanded.

"Why, it's only the telephone. What is the matter with you, Mr. Grogan?"

"I dunno," responded Grogan despondently, "I'm as nervous as a girl in a
peek-a-boo waist."

The telephone rang again.

"Why don't you answer that?" demanded Grogan sharply.

"I will," replied the girl, "but there's no great rush, is there?"

"Yes there is," insisted Grogan, "I can't bear the suspense."

The young woman laughed and picked up the receiver.

"Lake City Electrical Company," she said. "What? Who is it, please."

Grogan, who had continued pacing up and down the office, stopped and made
wild gestures to Miss Masters. Covering the mouthpiece of the instrument
so she would not be heard, the girl asked.

"What is it, Mr. Grogan?"

"Whist!" replied Grogan, "If that is Mary Randall on the wire there, I've
gone to Alaska. I've given all me money away and I'm living on snow
balls."

Miss Masters smiled and replied with assurance: "This isn't Mary
Randall."