oked at Presley's reflection
in his mirror; "say, look around. Isn't this a nifty little room? We
refitted the whole house, you know. Notice she's all painted?"

"I have been looking around," answered Presley, sweeping the room with a
series of glances. He forebore criticism. Annixter was so boyishly proud
of the effect that it would have been unkind to have undeceived him.
Presley looked at the marvellous, department-store bed of brass, with
its brave, gay canopy; the mill-made wash-stand, with its pitcher and
bowl of blinding red and green china, the straw-framed lithographs of
symbolic female figures against the multi-coloured, new wall-paper; the
inadequate spindle chairs of white and gold; the sphere of tissue paper
hanging from the gas fixture, and the plumes of pampas grass tacked
to the wall at artistic angles, and overhanging two astonishing oil
paintings, in dazzling golden frames.

"Say, how about those paintings, Pres?" inquired Annixter a little
uneasily. "I don't know whether they're good or not. They were painted
by a three-fingered Chinaman in Monterey, and I got the lot for thirty
dollars, frames thrown in. Why, I think the frames alone are worth
thirty dollars."

"Well, so do I," declared Presley. He hastened to change the subject.

"Buck," he said, "I hear you've brought Mrs. Dyke and Sidney to live
with you. You know, I think that's rather white of you."

"Oh, rot, Pres," muttered Annixter, turning abruptly to his shaving.

"And you can't fool me, either, old man," Presley continued. "You're
giving this picnic as much for Mrs. Dyke and the little tad as you are
for your wife, just to cheer them up a bit."

"Oh, pshaw, you make me sick."

"Well, that's the right thing to do, Buck, and I'm as glad for your sake
as I am for theirs. There was a time when you would have let them all go
to grass, and never so much as thought of them. I don't want to seem to
be officious, but you've changed for the better, old man, and I guess
I know why. She--" Presley caught his friend's eye, and added gravely,
"She's a good woman, Buck."

Annixter turned around abruptly, his face flushing under its lather.

"Pres," he exclaimed, "she's made a man of me. I was a machine before,
and if another man, or woman, or child got in my way, I rode 'em down,
and I never DREAMED of anybody else but myself. But as soon as I woke up
to the fact that I really loved her, why, it was glory hallelujah all in
a minute, and, in a