iberally with the rich gravy. Then he cut and buttered two
thick slices of bread and laid them on the plate.

"Sit down, sit down, man!" urged Macauley, as his host rose to his feet.
"We're waiting to see you enjoy this magnificent result of your cookery.
It's the best steak I've had in a blue moon."

"If you'll excuse me, I'm going to take mine in the office," Burns
explained. "Can't leave my patient just yet." And he went away again,
carrying his plate, napkin over his arm.

Five minutes later Macauley, putting down his empty plate, got up and
strolled out into the hall. A moment afterward he was heard abruptly
closing the office door, saying, "Oh, I beg pardon!" Then he returned to
the company. He was whistling softly as he came, his hands in his pockets
and his eyebrows lifted.

"He _is_ dippy," he said, solemnly. "No man in his senses would act like
that."

"You eavesdropper, what did you see?" Winifred Chester looked at him
expectantly.

"I saw the worst-looking specimen of tramp humanity who has come under my
observation for a year, with a bandage over one eye. He is sitting in
that big chair with a plate and napkin in his lap, and his ugly mouth is
full of beefsteak."

"And isn't Red having any?" cried Martha, with a glance at the empty
platter.

"Not a smell. He's standing up by the chimney-piece, looking the picture
of contentment--the idiot. But he modified his benevolent expression
long enough to give me a glare, when he saw me looking in. That's the
second glare I've had from him to-night, and I'm going home. I can't
stand incurring his displeasure a third time in one day. Come, Martha,
let's get back to our happy home--what there is left of it after the
fray. We'll send over a plate of little cakes for the master of the
house. A couple of dozen of them may fill up that yawning cavity of his.
Of all the foolishness!"

CHAPTER IV

A RED HEAD

"Marriage," said James Macauley, looking thoughtfully into his coffee
cup, as he sat opposite his wife, Martha, at the breakfast-table, "is
supposed to change a man radically. The influence of a good and lovely
woman can hardly be overestimated. But the question is, can the temper
of a red-headed explosive ever be rendered uninflammable?"

"What are you talking about?" Martha inquired, with interest. "Ellen and
Red? Red _is_ changed. I never saw him so dear and tractable."

"Dear and tractable, is he? Have you happened to encounter him in the
l