thousand
dollars?"

"Charge it to life insurance," he said shortly.

He felt almost gay as he threaded his way through the crowds along
Broadway. Somehow a tremendous load had been lifted from his shoulders
He would no longer be obliged to lead a sneaking, surreptitious
existence. He felt like shouting with joy now that he could look the
world frankly in the face. The genuine agony he had endured during the
past three weeks loomed like a sickness behind him. He had been a
fool--and there was no fool like an old one. Just let him get back to
his old Abigail and there'd be no more wandering-boy business for him!
Abigail might not have the figure or the complexion that Georgie had,
but she was a darn sight more reliable. Henceforth she could have him
from five p.m. to nine a.m. without reserve. As for kicking over the
traces, sowing wild oats and that sort of thing, there was nothing in it
for him. Give him Friend Wife.

He stopped at the florist's and, having paid a bill of thirty-six
dollars for Georgie's flowers, purchased a double bunch of violets and
carried them home with him. Abigail was watching for him out of the
window. Something warm rushed to his heart at the sight of her. Through
the lace curtains she looked quite trim.

"Hello, old girl!" he cried, as she opened the door. "Waiting for me,
eh? Here's a bunch of posies for you."

And he kissed her on the cheek.

"That's more than I ever did to Georgie," he said to himself.

"Why, Samuel!" laughed Abigail with a faded blush. "What's ever got into
you?"

"Dunno!" he retorted gaily. "The spring, I guess. What do you say to a
little dinner at a restaurant and then going to the play?"

She bridled--being one of the generation who did such things--with
pleasure.

"Seems to me you're getting rather extravagant." she objected. "Still--"

"Oh, come along!" he bullied her. "One of my clients collected five
thousand dollars this afternoon."

Tutt summoned a taxi and they drove to the brightest, most glittering of
Broadway hostelries. Abigail had never been in such a chic place before.
It half terrified and shocked her, all those women in dresses that
hardly came up to their armpits. Some of them were handsome though. That
slim one at the table by the pillar, for instance. She was really quite
lovely with that mass of yellow-golden hair, that startlingly white
skin, and those misty China-blue eyes. And the gentleman with her, the
tall man with the pink chee