"Your telegram," reminded Garry, "said 'O.K. Kenny.' And I'm chuck
full of curiosity and questions. Sit down. Every chair in the
studio's on a furlough."

"So I see."

"You left the studio in something of a mess. Sid tried to straighten
it out and nearly had brain fever. Got to babbling and wringing his
hands and we sent for Haggerty. She went on an order bust for two
days."

"The old shrew! I suppose everything in the place is under something."

He found cigarettes and a chair and settled back with an air of lazy
comfort.

Garry made no attempt to disguise his impatience.

"Kenny," he said, "you're the limit. If I'd ever telephoned into your
slumber and asked you to find four thousand ragged dollars and mail
them to me, and if I'd said I'd accidentally acquired a ward and was
bringing her back with me, you wouldn't sit there in patience and wait
for facts. Mind, old dear, I want the truth. It's likely to be a lot
queerer than anything you can make up."

Kenny sighed--and told the truth. Garry listened in amazement.

"Kenny," he said slowly, "you've roamed off before and gotten yourself
into some extraordinary messes and I honestly thought that summer in
China had taught you a lesson. But this tale of Adam Craig and the
miser money is the king-pin of them all. You've absolutely got to
house-clean that instinct for melodrama out of existence. It's a
peril; and furthermore expensive."

"Don't rub it in," said Kenny. "Whatever you can think to say, I've
already told myself. Though," he added pensively, "it's queer, Garry.
Wherever I go, things begin to thicken up before I've had a chance to
be at fault in any way. And I'm so darned sick of anticlimaxes."

"You keep yourself keyed up to such a pitch that anything normal's got
to be an anticlimax! Think of you digging dots when you knew there
wasn't any money! Think of you with a ward! Oh, my Lord!" finished
Garry with a gasp. "It's incredible. It--it really is."

Kenny flushed and gnawed nervously at his lips. Could he tell Garry of
Samhain?

"And think of you," said Garry, his voice changing, "salting the old
man's fireplace with your own money so that his niece could come down
here and study French and music! You wonderful, soft-hearted Irish
lunatic! I love you for it!"

Kenny rose at once and began to bluster around the studio, damning
Haggerty. There was something disturbingly warm and honest in Garry's
eyes. Then with a sud