at young woman's
jewelry, because you found part of it in his pocket. Certainly you will
not move the pictures. How do you know that the young gentleman who said
he found it there didn't have it up his sleeve?"

She looked around triumphantly, and Max glowered. Dallas soothed her,
however.

"Exactly so," he said. "How do we know that Max didn't have the clasp
up his sleeve? My dear lady, neither my wife nor I care anything for the
pearls, as compared with the priceless pearl of peace. I suggest tea on
the roof; those in favor--? My arm, Miss Caruthers."

It was all well enough for Jim to say later that he didn't dare to have
the canvases moved, for he had stuck behind them all sorts of chorus
girl photographs and life-class crayons that were not for Aunt Selina's
eye, besides four empty siphons, two full ones, and three bottles of
whisky. Not a soul believed him; there was a a new element of suspicion
and discord in the house.

Every one went up on the roof and left him to his mystery. Anne drank
her tea in a preoccupied silence, with half-closed eyes, an attitude
that boded ill to somebody. The rest were feverishly gay, and Aunt
Selina, with a pair of arctics on her feet and a hot-water bottle at her
back, sat in the middle of the tent and told me familiar anecdotes of
Jimmy's early youth (had he known, he would have slain her). Betty and
Mr. Harbison had found a medicine ball, and were running around like
a pair of children. It was quite certain that neither his escape from
death nor my accusation weighed heavily on him.

While Aunt Selina was busy with the time Jim had swallowed an open
safety pin, and just as the pin had been coughed up, or taken out of
his nose--I forget which--Jim himself appeared and sulkily demanded the
privacy of the roof for his training hour.

Yes, he was training. Flannigan claimed to know the system that had
reduced the president to what he is, and he and Jim had a seance every
day which left Jim feeling himself for bruises all evening. He claimed
to be losing flesh; he said he could actually feel it going, and he and
Flannigan had spent an entire afternoon in the cellar three days before
with a potato barrel, a cane-seated chair and a lamp.

The whole thing had been shrouded in mystery. They sandpapered the
inside of the barrel and took out all the nails, and when they had
finished they carried it to the roof and put it in a corner behind the
tent. Everybody was curious, but Flanni