"What, 'Puffy' Biggles!" says I. "Not that old prune face with the shiny dome and the baggy eyes?"

Vee says he's the one. He's been hoverin' 'round, like an old buzzard, for three or four years now, playin' chess with the old man while he lasted, but always with his pop-eyes fixed on Marion. And since she's been left alone he'd been callin' reg'lar once a week, urging her to be his tootsy-wootsy No. 3. He was the main wheeze in some third-rate life insurance concern, I believe, and fairly well off, and he owned a classy place over near the Country Club. But he had a 44 belt, a chin like a pelican, and he was so short of breath that everybody6 called him "Puffy" Biggles. Besides, he was fifty.

6

"A hot old Romeo he'd make for a nice girl like that," says I. "Is he her best bet? Ain't there any second choice?"

"There was another," says Vee. "Rather a nice chap, too—that Mr. Ellery Prescott, who played the organ so well and was some kind of a broker. You remember?"

"Sure!" says I. "The one who pulled down a captain's commission at Plattsburg. Did she have him on the string?"

"They had been friends for a long time," says Vee. "Were as good as engaged once; though how he managed to see much of Marion I can't imagine, with Mr. Gray so crusty toward him. You see, he didn't play chess. Anyway, he finally gave up. I suppose he's at the front now, and even if he ever should come back—— Well, Marion seldom mentions him. I'm sure, though, that they thought a good deal of each other. Poor thing! She was crazy to go across as a canteen worker. And now she doesn't know what to do. Of course, there's always Biggles. If we could only save her from that!"

At which remark I grows skittish. I didn't like the way she was gazin' at me. "Ah, come, Vee!" says I. "Lay off that rescue stuff. Adoptin' female orphans of over thirty, or matin' 'em up appropriate is way out of my7 line. Suppose we pass resolutions of regret in Marion's case, and let it ride at that?"

7

"At least," goes on Vee, "we can do a little something to cheer her up. Mrs. Robert Ellins has asked her for dinner tomorrow night. Us too."

"Oh, I'll go that far," says I, "although the last I knew about the Ellinses' kitchen squad, it's takin' a chance."

I was some little 

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