States or he may land in the penitentiary yet."

[Pg 54]

Just here the front door slammed, and Jathrop's voice was heard calling, "Where are you, mother?"

He didn't wait for an answer, but came straight through the kitchen. Entering there, what he saw startled him so much that he came to a sudden halt.

"We've been telling your—" began Mrs. Macy.

"—mother about your wife," finished up Susan.

Jathrop looked at all three in great astonishment. "About my wife!" he repeated. "Did you say 'my wife'?"

"Yes," said Susan, absolutely undaunted. "I think it would have been kinder in you to have broke it to her yourself; but anyhow, we've done it now."

"Oh, Jathrop, my son, my son!" wailed[Pg 55] poor Mrs. Lathrop in heart-wringing Biblical paraphrase.

[Pg 55]

"But I haven't got any wife," said Jathrop. "What under the sun do you mean?"

There was a clammy pause; Susan and Mrs. Macy clasped hands.

"What made you think I had one?" Jathrop asked, quite bewildered. "Who said I had one?"

Susan rose with dignity and coughed. Mrs. Macy rose, too, looking at Susan. Poor Mrs. Lathrop seemed fairly terror-stricken.

"I think I'll go now," said Susan. "I hope I needn't board her much longer, that's all. Even if she's only using the floor, it's a floor as has been sacred to my dead father up to now, and a dead father is not to be lightly took in vain by a heathen Chinee."

"But what does it all mean?" asked Jathrop, appearing genuinely bewildered. "I don't understand. What are you talking about?"

Susan moved toward the door; Mrs. Macy[Pg 56] faltered. "Maybe it was all right in the Klondike," she began, trying to put a brace under the situation.

[Pg 56]

"Maybe what was all right in the Klondike?" asked Jathrop.

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