held his
wife closer, in spite of Josie's presence.

They had a merry little dinner that evening in the hotel, having the
dining room to themselves. The host was all smiles and good cheer. He
felt in a measure responsible for reuniting this interesting couple.
Had he not received with hospitality this young detective person who
was, to say the least, mysterious? Had he not told her first of the
poor soldier who had mislaid his memory? Had he not made her wise as to
the general unworthiness of Dr. Harper and his skinflint methods of
never throwing business to the hands of the local hotel keeper? Had he
not cheerfully reserved the best room in the house for days and days
for this strange little person?

And so Captain and Mrs. Waller and Josie were perfectly willing to
include him in the general festivities. Josie felt that the reunited
pair should have a tete a tete dinner but they would not hear of her
leaving them.

"Stephen must hear all you have to tell of the children," said Mrs.
Waller. "To think of the little things telling you of their porridge
and of those bowls being instrumental in restoring their father to us.
It sounds like the most romantic novel."

"Not at all," insisted Josie. "There has been too much coincidence in
this reality for it to go down as fiction. All the teachers of story
writing would tell you that. They might allow one bit of coincidence
but not so much as has occurred in this realistic plot. It wouldn't
even go down as a detective tale. I have had too much lost motion in my
plans for even that. I needn't have taken the job of canvasser in the
first place. That was plain foolishness and if I hadn't have run
against that peach of a girl, Alice Chisholm, I'd have been a total
loss to my boss, the man introducing household necessities and jeweled
novelties. I am wasting money even now in retailing that room at Mrs.
Denton's. A good detective wastes neither time nor money."

"Well, thank goodness we are real people and not characters in a
novel," laughed Captain Waller. "We are together and a dear girl
brought us together by her intelligence and diligence. If she is not
the type out of which a good detective tale can be manufactured then so
much the worse for the detective tales. Give me a live girl every time
and never mind the plot.

"The only thing I can't reconcile to reality is Chester Hunt. Why, he
has been like my own brother--at least I have felt that way about him,
ever since m