o dinner with you."

CHAPTER XXVII.

POINTS OUT HER BROTHER'S DUTY.

In the afternoon of the day that followed the publication of the
confession Flummers minced his way into the Press Club. He wore a suit
of new clothes, and although the weather was warm, he carried a
silk-faced overcoat. Before any one took notice of him he put his coat
and hat on the piano, and then, with a gesture, he exclaimed:

"_Wow!_"

"Why, here's Kittymunks! Helloa, Kit!" one man shouted. "Have you
identified Brooks?" some one else cried, and a roar followed.

For a moment Flummers stood smiling at this raillery; then suddenly,
and as though he would shut out a humiliating scene, he pressed his
hands across his eyes. But his hands flew off into a double
gesture--into a gathering motion that invited every one to come into
his confidence, and solemnly he pronounced these words:

"He made a monkey of me."

"I should say he did!" Whittlesy cried. "Oh, you'll hold me in the
hollow of your hand, will you?"

Flummers looked at Whittlesy and scalloped the forerunner of a
withering speech; but, thoughtful enough suddenly to remember that at
this solemn time his words and his eyes belonged not to one man, but
to the entire company, he withdrew his gaze from Whittlesy, and in
his broad look included every one present.

"He made a monkey of me. He stopped me on the street one evening--I
had boned him for an advertisement when I was running _The Art of
Interior Decoration_--and was so polite that I said to myself: 'Papa,
here's another flip man thirsting for recognition. Put him on your
staff.' Well, we had a bowl or two at Garry's, and the first thing I
knew he began to remind me that I remembered a fellow who must be
Kittymunks, and I said, 'Hi, gi, here's a scoop.' And it was. Oh, it's
a pretty hard matter to scoop papa"--(tapping his head). "Papa knows
what the public wants, and he serves it up. Some of you dry-dock
conservative ducks would have let it go by, but papa is nothing if not
adventurous. Papa knows that without adventure you make no
discoveries. But, wow! he did make a monkey of me. Just think of a
floor-walker making a monkey of papa!" He pressed his hand to his
brow. "Why, a floor-walker has been my especial delicacy--he has been
my appetizer, my white-meat--but, wow! this fellow was a gristle."

"Mr. Flummers," said McGlenn, "we all love you."

"Say, John, I owe you two dollars."

"No, Mr. Flummers, you don't owe m