"Bill Saunders," said I, thinking to take off my hat.

"I sound almost as honest as you," said she. "I'm Mary Smith."

It was almost a shock to think she was Mary Smith. Since then it would be a shock to think of her as Eulalie Rosalinde De Montmorency. She didn't need it. Plain Mary Smith told of what was beneath her loveliness,—and, I'm forced to admit, her side-stepping and buck-jumping, once in a while. Oh, she could cut loose for fair, if stirred, but you could always remember with perfect faith Mary Smith.

It wasn't five minutes after we started talking that Arthur Saxton came along. The girl knew him, and said good morning in that civil, hold-off fashion a good woman uses to a man she thinks may come to liking her too well, or that she may come to like too well, when the facts are against any happy result. So there was three of us, that took our little share of what followed, gathered together early in the game.

I liked Saxton from the jump. He had more faults than any other man I ever seen. He was the queerest, contrariest cuss, and yet such a gentleman; he had such a way, and such talents, that when you were mad enough to kill him, you couldn't help but feel glad you knew him to get mad at. Somehow, he steered clear of meanness. There was a sort of nobility in his capers, even when his best friends would have to admit they didn't seem to be of a size for a full-grown man. I don't know how to express myself. He often played a poor part; but darned if he didn't carry it off well, because it was him; I think that's the nearest I can come to it; good or bad, large or small, he was always Saxton, never attempting to put on anything different. And vain! Well, Heaven preserve us! And, on the other hand, not vain, neither. 'Twas like this. Among the things he did well enough to be high-class was playing the violin. He had a style and a go in it all his own, but he hadn't spent the time to learn some of the stunts that go with the trade. All the same, his natural gifts got him a job to play in concerts. The boss of the affair was a German, the kind of a man who had a soul to realize that Saxton made music, but had a head to go crazy over his slam-dashery. Now, Saxton grew excited whilst playing, and cut loose on his own hook, letting the poor perspiring Dutchman and the rest of the orchestra keep up to his trail the best they could. At these opportunities the Dutchman went home in a cab, frothing at the mouth. You see, he understood it was great stuff, as far as Saxton was concerned, so he cussed the cab-driver and the cab-horse, and the people on the street, being 

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