ould have taken her she saw the shirt-waist safely ironed, and ironed
as well as she could have done it, as Martin made her grant.

"I could work faster," he explained, "if your irons were only hotter."

To her, the irons he swung were much hotter than she ever dared to use.

"Your sprinkling is all wrong," he complained next. "Here, let me teach
you how to sprinkle. Pressure is what's wanted. Sprinkle under pressure
if you want to iron fast."

He procured a packing-case from the woodpile in the cellar, fitted a
cover to it, and raided the scrap-iron the Silva tribe was collecting for
the junkman. With fresh-sprinkled garments in the box, covered with the
board and pressed by the iron, the device was complete and in operation.

"Now you watch me, Maria," he said, stripping off to his undershirt and
gripping an iron that was what he called "really hot."

"An' when he feenish da iron' he washa da wools," as she described it
afterward. "He say, 'Maria, you are da greata fool. I showa you how to
washa da wools,' an' he shows me, too. Ten minutes he maka da
machine--one barrel, one wheel-hub, two poles, justa like dat."

Martin had learned the contrivance from Joe at the Shelly Hot Springs.
The old wheel-hub, fixed on the end of the upright pole, constituted the
plunger. Making this, in turn, fast to the spring-pole attached to the
kitchen rafters, so that the hub played upon the woollens in the barrel,
he was able, with one hand, thoroughly to pound them.

"No more Maria washa da wools," her story always ended. "I maka da kids
worka da pole an' da hub an' da barrel. Him da smarta man, Mister Eden."

Nevertheless, by his masterly operation and improvement of her kitchen-
laundry he fell an immense distance in her regard. The glamour of
romance with which her imagination had invested him faded away in the
cold light of fact that he was an ex-laundryman. All his books, and his
grand friends who visited him in carriages or with countless bottles of
whiskey, went for naught. He was, after all, a mere workingman, a member
of her own class and caste. He was more human and approachable, but, he
was no longer mystery.

Martin's alienation from his family continued. Following upon Mr.
Higginbotham's unprovoked attack, Mr. Hermann von Schmidt showed his
hand. The fortunate sale of several storiettes, some humorous verse, and
a few jokes gave Martin a temporary splurge of prosperity. Not only did
he partially