ckwin, yet he does not lose a word.

"Then she cool off a considerable, and ask me for to excuse her. 'Oh,
it is all right,' says I, a little tart. 'That will be all right.'

"Then she fall right on her knees, and pray to David Lockwin to forgive
her for even thinking he isn't dead.

"Now it was only Wednesday that a duck in this town knocked me out at
the primaries--played the identical West Side car-barn game on me!
Yes, sir, fetched over 500 street-sweepers to my primaries--machine
candidate and all that--oh! he's a jim-dandy!"

"I'm sorry for you, Corkey," the wretched husband says, and thus
escapes for a moment from his own terror.

"Yes, it was bad medicine. So I wasn't taking much off anybody. I
gets up pretty stiff--this way, and says: 'Good day, Mrs. Lockwin. I
guess I can't be no more use to you, nohow.' And just as I was pulling
my hat off the peg there comes the very duck that knocked me out--right
there! And she chipper to him as sweet as if David Lockwin had been
dead twenty years. And he as sweet on her, and right before me! Ugh!"

"Weren't you mistaken, Corkey!" feebly asks the man in the bandages.

"Wasn't I mistaken? Oh, yes! I suppose I can't tell a pair that wants
to bite each other! She that was a giving me the limit a minute before
was as cunning as a kitten to that rooster. Ugh! it makes me ill!"

"Who is he?" asks David Lockwin.

"He's Mister George Harpwood," cries Corkey bitterly, "and if he aint
no snooker, then you needn't tell me I ever see one!"

CHAPTER II

HAPPINESS AND PEACE

Esther Lockwin looks upon George Harpwood as her savior.

"I wanted to be happy," she smiles. "I did not believe I could exist
in that desolate state. You came to me! You came to me!"

"Emerson declares that all men honor love because it looks up, not
down; aspires, not despairs," says Harpwood. The friend of Esther's
widowhood has quoted to her nearly every consolatory remark of the
philosophers.

"Shall we live here?" she asks, willing to go to Sahara.

"Certainly. Here I have the best future. You are a helpful soul,
Esther. I shall rely upon you."

"We are too sad to be true lovers," she sighs. "Yet I could wish to
have you all to myself."

The man is flattered. He, too, is in love. "I will go with you if you
would be happier amid other scenes," he suggests.

"I have nothing to be ashamed of, have I?" she asks proudly, thinking
of her noble David and his fragran