," Burton said impressively, "have you forgotten that I
am a married man?"

Mr. Waddington started.

"God bless my soul!" he exclaimed. "I had forgotten that!

"A wife and one little boy," Burton continued. "We were living at
Garden Green in a small plastered edifice called Clematis Villa. My
wife is a vigorous woman, part of whose life has been spent in domestic
service, and part in a suburban dressmaker's establishment. She keeps
the house very clean, pins up the oleographs presented to us at
Christmas time by the grocer and the oil-man, and thinks I look genteel
in a silk hat when we walk out to hear the band in the public gardens on
Thursday evenings."

"I can see her!" Mr. Waddington groaned. "My poor fellow!"

"She cuts out her own clothes," Burton continued, "from patterns
presented by a ladies' penny paper. She trims her own hats with an
inheritance of feathers which, in their day have known every color of
the rainbow. She loves strong perfumes, and she is strenuous on the
subject of the primary colors. We have a table-cloth with fringed
borders for tea on Sunday afternoons. She hates flowers because they
mess up the rooms so, but she adorns our parlor with wool-work
mementoes, artificial roses under a glass case, and crockery neatly
inscribed with the name of some seaside place."

Mr. Waddington wiped the perspiration from his forehead and produced a
small silver casket from his waistcoat pocket.

"Stop!" he begged. "You win! I can see what you are aiming at. Here
is a bean."

Burton waved it away.

"Listen," he proceeded. "I have also a child--a little son. His name
is Alfred. He is called Alf, for short. His mother greases his hair
and he has a curl which comes over his forehead. I have never known him
when his hands were not both sticky and dirty--his hands and his lips.
On holidays he wears a velveteen suit with grease spots inked over, an
imitation lace collar, and a blue make-up tie."

Mr. Waddington re-opened the silver casket.

"It is Fate," he decided. "Here are two beans." Burton folded them up
in a piece of paper and placed them carefully in his waistcoat pocket.

"I felt convinced," he said gratefully, "that I should not make my
appeal to you in vain. Tell me, what do you think of doing with the
rest?"

"I am not sure," Mr. Waddington admitted, after a brief pause. "We are
confronted from the beginning with the fact that there isn't a living
soul who would believe our story. If we t