the
sun. It seemed as if every electric light in the house found some kind of a
refractor in the thousands of gems of which it was composed, and many of the
brilliant light effects of the stage were dimmed in their lustre by the
persistent intrusion of Mrs. Burlingame's glory upon my line of vision.

Hence in was that, when I picked up my morning paper and read in great
flaring head-lines on the front page that Mrs. Burlingame's diamond
stomacher had been stolen from her at her Onyx Cottage at Newport, I smiled
broadly, and slapped the breakfast-table so hard in my satisfaction that
even the shredded-wheat biscuits flew up into the air and caught in the
chandelier.

"Thank Heaven for that!" I said. "Next season I shall be able to enjoy my
opera undisturbed."

"I little thought, at that blissful moment, how closely indeed were my own
fortunes to be connected with that wonderful specimen of the jeweler's
handicraft, but an hour later I was made aware of the first link in the
chain that, in a measure, bound me to it. Breakfast over, I went to my desk
to put the finishing touches to a novel I had written the week before, when
word came up on the telephone from below that a gentleman from _Busybody's
Magazine_ wished to see me on an important matter of business.

"Tell him I'm already a subscriber," I called down, supposing the visitor to
be merely an agent. "I took the magazine, and a set of Chaucer in a
revolving bookcase, from one of their agents last month and have paid my
dollar."

In a moment another message came over the wire.

"The gentleman says he wants to see you about writing a couple of full-page
sonnets for the Christmas number," the office man 'phoned up.

"Show him up," I replied, instantly.

Two minutes later a rather handsome man, with a fine eye and a long, flowing
gray beard, was ushered into my apartment.

"I am Mr. Stikes, of _Busybody's,_ Mr. Jenkins," he said, with a twinkle in
his eye. "We thought you might like to contribute to our Christmas issue. We
want two sonnets, one on the old Christmas and the other on the new. We
can't offer you more than a thousand dollars apiece for them, but--"

Something caught in my throat, but I managed to reply. "I might shade my
terms a trifle since you want as many as two," I gurgled. "And I assume you
will pay on acceptance?"

"Certainly," he said, gravely. "Could you let me have them, say--this
afternoon?"

I turned away so that he would not see the