let me just show that to the boys the first night I go to Shandy's?'
I knew she'd tell me if it wasn't all right to do it. She'd know I'd
want to be told. And she just laughed and said: 'I don't mind at all. I
like "the boys." Here is a message to them. "Good luck to you all."'"

"She said that?" from Nick Baumgarten.

"Yes, she did, and she meant it. Look at this."

This was the letter. It was quite short, and written in a clear,
definite hand.

"DEAR FATHER: This will be brought to you by Mr. G. Selden, of whom I
have written to you. Please be good to him.

"Affectionately,

"BETTY."

Each young man read it in turn. None of them said anything just at
first. A kind of awe had descended upon them--not in the least awe of
Vanderpoel, who, with other multi-millionaires, were served up each week
with cheerful neighbourly comment or equally neighbourly disrespect, in
huge Sunday papers read throughout the land--but awe of the unearthly
luck which had fallen without warning to good old G. S., who lived like
the rest of them in a hall bedroom on ten per, earned by tramping the
streets for the Delkoff.

"That girl," said G. Selden gravely, "that girl is a winner from
Winnersville. I take off my hat to her. If it's the scheme that some
people's got to have millions, and others have got to sell Delkoffs,
that girl's one of those that's entitled to the millions. It's all right
she should have 'em. There's no kick coming from me."

Nick Baumgarten was the first to resume wholly normal condition of mind.

"Well, I guess after you've told us about her there'll be no kick
coming from any of us. Of course there's something about you that royal
families cry for, and they won't be happy till they get. All of us boys
knows that. But what we want to find out is how you worked it so that
they saw the kind of pearl-studded hairpin you were."

"Worked it!" Selden answered. "I didn't work it. I've got a good bit of
nerve, but I never should have had enough to invent what happened--just
HAPPENED. I broke my leg falling off my bike, and fell right into
a whole bunch of them--earls and countesses and viscounts and
Vanderpoels. And it was Miss Vanderpoel who saw me first lying on the
ground. And I was in Stornham Court where Lady Anstruthers lives--and
she used to be Miss Rosalie Vanderpoel."

"Boys," said Bert Johnson, with friendly disgust, "he's been up to his
neck in 'em."

"Cheer up. The worst is yet to come," chaffed Tom