been dining with royalty, she
would still have called him--if she could have got the address.

"Henry," she said acidly. "I've just found out what kind of a building
it was your uncle deeded you. Theodore Mix told me. _I_ didn't know
your uncle was ever messed up in that kind of a thing. He never told
me. Good reason he didn't, too. I certainly hope you aren't going to
spread this news around town, Henry--it's scandalous enough to have it
in the family, even. Of all the hellish influences we've got to
contend with in this day and generation--"

"Well," said Henry, "it isn't any of it _my_ fault, is it?"

"That remains to be seen. Are you going to _run_ that--dive?"

"Why--I don't know. If I didn't--"

"Oh, yes, you're probably thinking how selfish I am. You wouldn't
recognize a pure motive if you met one in the street. But to think of
a Devereux--almost the same thing as a Starkweather--"

"What's your idea? To have me be a jolly little martyr?"

"There's this much to say, Henry--at least I'd put John's money to a
nobler use than you ever would."

Henry grimaced. "Your League?"

"Yes, what else?"

He was an impulsive young man, and sometimes he made up his mind by
contraries. "I wouldn't count too much on it," he said cheerfully. "I
might astonish you."

"You--Henry Devereux! Am I going to see my own sister's son in a
polluted enterprise like--"

"You're going to see your own grandfather's great-grandson make P. T.
Barnum look a Kickapoo medicine man--if necessary," said Henry. "Only
don't you worry about any pollution. That's where I draw the line. I'm
not going to stage one single pollute."

"You _are_ going to operate that place?"

"Why certainly," said Henry. "And speaking of operations, I've got a
hunch the patient's going to recover. I've just been holding a
clinic.... Well--good-bye, Aunt Mirabelle." He turned back to his wife
and his friend Standish. "So _that's_ settled," said Henry, and
grinned, a trifle apprehensively. "We're off in a cloud of dust....
Waiter, where's those two portions of crow I ordered four months ago?
The service in this place is getting something rotten."

CHAPTER VI

Mr. Theodore Mix, sprawled in his desk chair, gazed with funereal
gloom at the typewritten agreement which lay before him, unsigned. It
was barely twenty minutes ago that Mr. Mix had risen to welcome the
man who was to save his credit and his reputation; but during those
twenty minutes Mr. Mix,