in her brougham, Mr. Daggett he
sizes up the costume she wore and shakes his head kind of regretful.

"That's the way Marthy should have been dressed," says he. "She'd have
liked it. And she'd liked a hat such as that one we saw back there; that
is, if it's the right kind. I've been buying 'em kind of careless,
maybe."

"How's that?" says I.

"Oh!" says he, "I didn't finish telling you about my fool idea. I've been
getting one every spring, the best I could pick out in Chicago, and
carrying it up there on the knoll where Marthy is--and just leaving it.
Go on now, Mr. McCabe; laugh if you want to. I won't mind. I can almost
laugh at myself. Of course, Marthy's beyond caring for hats now. Still, I
like to leave 'em there; and I like to think perhaps she does know, after
all. So--so I want to get that purple one, providing it would be the
right shade. What do you say?"

Talk about your nutty propositions, eh? But honest, I didn't feel even
like crackin' a smile.

"Daggett," says I, "you're a true sport, even if you have got a few bats
in the loft. Let's go back and get quotations on the lid."

"I wish," says he, "I could see it tried on that manicure young woman
first. Suppose we go down and bring her up?"

"What makes you think she'll come?" says I.

"Oh, I guess she will," says he, quiet and thoughtful. "We'll try,
anyway."

And say, right there I got a new line on him. I could almost frame up how
it was he'd started in as a bacon borrowin' homesteader, and got to be
the John D. of his county. But I could see he was up against a new deal
this trip. And as it was time for me to be gettin' down towards 42d-st.
anyway, I goes along. As we strikes the hotel barber shop I hangs up on
the end of the cigar counter while Daggett looks around for the young
woman who'd put the chappy polish on his nails.

"That's her," says he, pointing out a heavyweight Titian blonde in the
far corner, and over he pikes.

I couldn't help admirin' the nerve of him; for of all the l'ongoline
queens I ever saw, she's about the haughtiest. Maybe you can throw on the
screen a picture of a female party with a Lillian Russell shape, hair
like Mrs. Leslie Carter's, and an air like a twelve-dollar cloak model
showin' off a five hundred-dollar lace dress to a bookmaker's bride.

Just as Daggett tiptoes up she's pattin' down some of the red puffs that
makes the back of her head look like a burnin' oil tank, and she swings
around languid and s