rd,
Bud, for five minutes, say. We'll call you. And it's just possible that
we can--can arrange matters."

Half an hour later, Jerry Billings succeeded a second time in getting
the city editor of the Call on the long-distance wire.

"Hello, Mr. Watts! Say, about that engagement of young Fox, Mr. Watts,"
he began.

"Well, what's the matter with it?" came back the editor's voice,
sharply.

"Nothing's the matter with it," said Jerry, "only it's better than I
thought! It's--it's old Fox that Miss Mix is going to marry! Old A.F.
himself!"

"Who said so?" snapped the other.

"Fox did."

"FOX?"

"Yes, sir. He just telephoned to me. Gave me the whole thing. Said he
wanted it to be published straight."

There was a pregnant silence for a few moments, then:

"This is no jolly, Billings? It's big stuff if it's true, you know."

"Oh, it's true enough," said Jerry, trying to control his voice.

"Well, we've got his picture--I'm sure!" said Mr. Watts, calmly. Then
in obedience to Mr. Watts' curt "Hold the wire!" Jerry, with the
receiver pressed to his ear, heard the city editor's voice on another
telephone on his desk talking presumably to the make-up man on the next
floor.

"Hello, Frank!" said Watts. "Tell Mike Williams to run that suffragette
stuff on the third page. I've got a big story. I want room for a double
cut and a column on the front!"

Then: "Hello, Billings! You telephone me six hundred words on this
thing inside of an hour. No frills you understand. Just give me the
straight facts. We'll fix the yarn up here."

SHANDON WATERS

"For mercy's sakes, here comes Shandon Waters!" said Jane Dinwoodie, of
the post-office, leaving her pigeonholes to peer through the one small
window of that unpretentious building. "Mother, here's Shandon Waters
driving into town with the baby!" breathed pretty Mary Dickey, putting
an awed face into the sitting-room. "I declare that looks terrible like
Shandon!" ejaculated Johnnie Larabee, straightening up at her wash-tubs
and shading her eyes with her hand. "Well, what on earth brought her up
to town!" said all Deaneville, crowding to the windows and doorways and
halting the march of the busy Monday morning to watch a mud-spattered
cart come bumping up and down over the holes in the little main street.

The woman--or girl, rather, for she was but twenty--who sat in the cart
was in no way remarkable to the eye. She had a serious, even sullen
face, and a magnificen