ure that his forehead was again covered with
perspiration.

"Great Willies! I can't go in like this--if I only had a
handkerchief--what am I to do?"

But just at the moment when he had improvised into a towel the most
available part of his shirt, his heart stood still at hearing above him
the following conversation:

"Mimi, you're a witch," said the voice of his sister, "I never would
have believed it."

"Well, my dear, you wanted me to wake him up. I've done it. Goodness, I
never saw any one go down so quickly. I really believe he's going to
propose! If you could have seen his funny eyes when he told me that
there was something he just _had_ to say to me."

"For heaven's sake keep it up. It's better than soap, Mimi. One look at
his hands and I knew he was in love."

"My dear, what do you think--he's had my photograph for weeks--the one I
gave you, of course. Now if that isn't a real romance. . . ."

"He ought to be spanked, that boy--stealing away from school!"

"My dear, he's told me all about his life's ambitions."

"What's that?"

"It's something about a bathtub--some sort of an invention that's going
to revolutionize the bathtub industry."

"Then it must be the outside of a bathtub," said Clara with a sisterly
laugh. "Mimi, I just must hear his proposal."

"You'll laugh and spoil it all."

"On my honor!"

Ten minutes later, Miss Mimi Lafontaine put on her kindliest smile as
ushered in by the maid Mr. John C. Bedelle came magnificently into the
room, spick and span, cool as the cucumber is credited to be at any
temperature; an immaculate purple tie blooming under an unsullied
collar, with only a slight pollen on the carefully-divided hair. How was
she to know that, in five minutes, under the sting of betrayed
confidence and broken illusions, a complete moral transformation had
made of the urchin a man in the embryo, fired by the burning impulses of
the deadliest hatred?

He did not stumble or wind himself up in the curtain or upset the bowl
of goldfish on the slight etagere by the sofa. He came in with a manner
that was so completely nonchalant that Miss Mimi was manifestly
impressed.

[Illustration: "Really, Jack, I'm beginning to suspect you're an old
hand." _Page 140_]

"Why, Jack, you don't look as though you had _run_ at all," she said
encouragingly.

"Oh, I picked up a buggy and took it easy," he said, seating himself and
arranging the trouser crease with nicety. Then having perceived