head and
tell her about 'Rosie.'"

"Why, I tell you it wasn't anything so specially interesting,"
protested the Traveling Salesman diffidently. "We simply got jollying
a bit in the first place about the amount of perfectly senseless,
no-account truck that'll collect in a fellow's pockets; and then some
sort of a scorched piece of paper he had, or something, got him
telling me about a nasty, sizzling close call he had to-day with a
live wire; and then I got telling him here about a friend of
mine--and a mighty good fellow, too--who dropped dead on the street
one day last summer with an unaddressed, typewritten letter in his
pocket that began 'Dearest Little Rosie,' called her a 'Honey' and a
'Dolly Girl' and a 'Pink-Fingered Precious,' made a rather foolish
dinner appointment for Thursday in New Haven, and was signed--in the
Lord's own time--at the end of four pages, 'Yours forever, and then
some. TOM.'--Now the wife of the deceased was named--Martha."

Quite against all intention, the Youngish Girl's laughter rippled out
explosively and caught up the latent amusement in the Young
Electrician's face. Then, just as unexpectedly, she wilted back a
little into her seat.

"I don't call that an 'indiscreet letter'!" she protested almost
resentfully. "You might call it a knavish letter. Or a foolish letter.
Because either a knave or a fool surely wrote it! But 'indiscreet'?
U-m-m, No!"

"Well, for heaven's sake!" said the Traveling Salesman.
"If--you--don't--call--that--an--indiscreet letter, what would you
call one?"

"Yes, sure," gasped the Young Electrician, "what would you call one?"
The way his lips mouthed the question gave an almost tragical purport
to it.

"What would I call an 'indiscreet letter'?" mused the Youngish Girl
slowly. "Why--why--I think I'd call an 'indiscreet letter' a letter
that was pretty much--of a gamble perhaps, but a letter that was
perfectly, absolutely legitimate for you to send, because it would be
your own interests and your own life that you were gambling with, not
the happiness of your wife or the honor of your husband. A letter,
perhaps, that might be a trifle risky--but a letter, I mean, that is
absolutely on the square!"

"But if it's absolutely 'on the square,'" protested the Traveling
Salesman, worriedly, "then where in creation does the 'indiscreet'
come in?"

The Youngish Girl's jaw dropped. "Why, the 'indiscreet' part comes
in," she argued, "because you're not able to pro