and realized that he had
struck the biggest snag he'd ever struck in any courting career, past or
present. He laughed violently for a second or two, tried to hang his
hat on both knees at the same time, and finally sank his voice to a
confidential undertone:--

"Now, widdy, that's the woman's way o' puttin' it. They've been jealous o'
you all 'long, fur they knew where my mind was sot. I wouldn't married one
o' them women for nothing," added the widower, with another hitch toward
the ironing board.

"Huh!" responded the widow, losing a trifle of her warlike cast of
countenance. "S'pose all them women hadn't refused you, Hull Parsons, what
then?"

"They didn't refuse me, widdy," returned the widower, trying to look
sheepish, and dropping his voice an octave lower. "S'pose I hadn't oughter
tell on 'em, but--er--can you keep a secret, widdy?"

"I ain't like the woman who can't," remarked the widow, shortly.

"Well, then, I was the one who did the refusin'--the hull gang went fer me
right heavy, guess 'cause 'twas leap year, or they was tryin' on some o'
them new women's ways, or somethin' like that. But my mind was sot all
along, d'ye see, widdy?"

And the Widow Perkins invited Widower Parsons to stay to dinner, because
she thought she saw.

+Theme LXXVII.+--_Complete the story on pages 79-80,
or one of the following:_--

THE AUDACIOUS REPORTER

Soon after Fenimore Dayton became a reporter his city editor sent him to
interview James Mountain. That famous financier was then approaching the
zenith of his power over Wall Street and Lombard Street. It had just been
announced that he had "absorbed" the Great Eastern and Western Railway
System--of course, by the methods which have made some men and some
newspapers habitually speak of him as "the Royal Bandit." The city editor
had two reasons for sending Dayton--first because he did not like him;
second, because any other man on the staff would walk about for an hour
and come back with the report that Mountain had refused to receive him,
while Dayton would make an honest effort.

Seeing Dayton saunter down Nassau Street--tall, slender, calm, and
cheerful--you would never have thought that he was on his way to interview
one of the worst-tempered men in New York, for a newspaper which that man
peculiarly detested, and on a subject which he did not care to discuss
with the public. Dayton turned in at the Equitable Building and went up to
the floor occupied by Mount