they were pretty good; but I never thought any one would appreciate my poetry like that.”

“Poetry! Do you—do that, too?”

“That’s all I do. I am devoting my life to it; that’s why my family take me a little—flippantly.”

A faint streak of hope shot through Patsy’s mind. “Would you mind telling me your name?”

“Why, I thought you knew. I thought you said that was why you wanted to—to—Hang it all! my name’s Peterson-Jones—Wilfred Peterson-Jones.”

Patsy was on her feet, clasping her hands in a shameless burst of emotion while she dropped [Pg 47]into her own tongue. “Oh, that’s a beautiful name—a grand name! Don’t ye ever be changing it! And don’t ye ever give up writing poetry; it’s a beautiful pastime for any man by that name. But what—what, in the name of Saint Columkill, ever happened to Billy Burgeman!”

[Pg 47]

“Billy Burgeman? Why, he came down on the train with me and went back to Arden.”

Patsy threw back her head and laughed—laughed until she almost feared she could not stop laughing. And then she suddenly became conscious of the pompous manager standing beside her, a yellow sheet of paper in his hand.

“Will you kindly explain what this means?” and he slapped the paper viciously.

“I’ll try to,” said Patsy; “but will you tell me just one thing first? How far is it to Arden?”

“Arden? It’s seven miles to Arden. But what’s that got to do with this? This is a wire from Miss St. Regis, saying she is ill and will be unable to fill her engagement here to-night! Now, who are you?”

“I? Why, I’m her understudy, of course—and—I’m—so happy—” Whereupon Patricia O’Connell, late of the Irish National Players and later of the women’s free ward of the City Hospital, crumpled up on the veranda floor in a dead faint.

[Pg 48]

[Pg 48]

V

A TINKER POINTS THE ROAD

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