going to prayer-meeting, but she delayed "putting
on her things" to hear the tale. The news that the engagement was off
and that her grandson was not, after all, to wed the daughter of the
Honorable Fletcher Fosdick, shocked and grieved her not a little.

"Oh, dear!" she sighed. "I suppose you know what's best, Albert, and
maybe, as you say, you wouldn't have been happy, but I DID feel sort of
proud to think my boy was goin' to marry a millionaire's daughter."

Captain Zelotes made no comment--then. He asked to be told more
particulars. Albert described the life at the Fosdick home, the
receptions, his enforced exhibitions and readings. At length the recital
reached the point of the interview in Fosdick's office.

"So he offered you to take you into the firm--eh, son?" he observed.

"Yes, sir."

"Humph! Fosdick, Williamson and Hendricks are one of the biggest
brokerage houses goin', so a good many New Yorkers have told me."

"No doubt. But, Grandfather, you've had some experience with me as a
business man; how do you think I would fit into a firm of stockbrokers?"

Captain Lote's eye twinkled, but he did not answer the question. Instead
he asked:

"Just what did you give Fosdick as your reason for not sayin' yes?"

Albert laughed. "Well, Grandfather," he said, "I'll tell you. I said
that I appreciated his kindness and all that, but that I would not
draw a big salary for doing nothing except to be a little, damned
tame house-poet led around in leash and shown off at his wife's club
meetings."

Mrs. Snow uttered a faint scream. "Oh, Albert!" she exclaimed. She might
have said more, but a shout from her husband prevented her doing so.

Captain Zelotes had risen and his mighty hand descended with a stinging
slap upon his grandson's shoulder.

"Bully for you, boy!" he cried. Then, turning to Olive, he added,
"Mother, I've always kind of cal'lated that you had one man around this
house. Now, by the Lord A'Mighty, I know you've got TWO!"

Olive rose. "Well," she declared emphatically, "that may be; but if both
those men are goin' to start in swearin' right here in the sittin' room,
I think it's high time SOMEBODY in that family went to church."

So to prayer meeting she went, with Mrs. Ellis as escort, and her
husband and grandson, seated in armchairs before the sitting room stove,
both smoking, talked and talked, of the past and of the future--not as
man to boy, nor as grandparent to grandson, but for the firs