ur mother's
limb, what did you do with the caster?"

I laughed, I cried. Oh, yes, of course I made a fool of myself. For this
dear lad came out of Wonderland, this heedless ruffian who knew of my
second marriage, who had such a tale to tell of "Madame Scotson." Oh,
haven't you heard? Her precious Baby David is illegitimate! Couldn't I
hear my neighbor, Mrs. Pollock, telling that story at the Scandal Club?
Then a discreet paragraph from Magpie in _Home Truths_ would be libel
enough to brand a public singer. My mother would suggest ever so gently
that in the interests of the family, my retirement to a warmer
climate--say Italy, would be so _suitable_. And madame's illegitimate
son would be barred from decent schools. Oh, I could see it all!

With his pea-jacket thrown open, wiping his flushed face with a red
handkerchief, shifting from one foot to the other in torment of
uneasiness, blowing like some sea beast come up from the deeps to
breathe, Billy consented not to run away from my hysterics.

Feeling ill-bred and common, I begged Billy's pardon, made him sit down,
tried ever so hard to put him at his ease. Poor lad! His father
condemned as a felon, his mother such a wicked old harridan, his life,
to say the very least, uncouth. Yet somehow out of that rough savage
face shone the eyes of a gentleman, and there was manliness in all he
said, in everything he did. After that great journey for my sake, how
could I let him doubt that he was welcome?

"I know I'm rough," he said humbly, "but you seem to understand. You
know I'm straight. You won't mind straight talk unless you're changed,
and you're not changed--at least not that way, mum."

Changed! Ah, how changed! The looking-glass had bitter things to tell
me, and crying makes me such a frump. I never felt so plain. And the
eyes of a young man are often brutally frank to women.

"Don't mind about me, Billy. Say what you've come to tell me."

"Been gettin' it ready to say ever since I started for England. Look
here, mum, _I_ want to go back to the beginning, to when I was a kid,
an' mother kep' that hash house in Abilene. D'ye mind if I speak--I mean
about this here Polly?"

I set my teeth, and hoped he would be quick.

"Well, ye see, mum, she only done it for a joke, and the way Jesse
treated her--"

"I can't hear this."

"You don't mind if I say that mother and me haven't no use for Jesse?"

"I know that."

"Well, mother put her up to the idea. To get shu