Polite as ever, ain’t he?" I says. "He’d been genteel if he was writin’ his will."

"Go on!" snaps Jacobs. "Hurry up."

"_Dear Sir_: When you receive this I shall have left Ostable, it may be forever. I have made a horrible discovery, which has wrecked all my hopes and my life. In accordance with Mr. Jacob’s kindly counsel, I recently summoned courage to ask Miss Pendlebury to become my wife."

Good heavens to Betsy!" I sang out, almost droppin’ the letter.

"Go on!" shouts Jacobs. "Don’t stop now."

"But he asked her to marry him!" I gasps. "In accordance with your advice—yours! Did you have the cheek to—"

"Will you go on? Of course I advised him. We’d got the Pendlebury trade, hadn’t we? Can you think of any surer way to cinch it than to have those two idiots marry each other? Go on—or give me the letter."

I went on, as well as I could, everything considered.

"She did not refuse. She was kinder than I had a right to expect. I realized my presumption, but—"

"Skip that," orders Jim Henry. "Get down to brass tacks."

I skipped some.

"She told me she must have a few days’ time to consider. I waited. To-day I received a communication from the Genealogical Society which has dashed my hopes to the ground. It was in connection with my work on the Pendlebury family tree. For some time I have been very much troubled concerning developments in that work. The later Pendleburys have been ladies and gentlemen of repute and worth, but as I delved deeper into the past and approached the early generations in this country, I—"

"Skip again," says Jacobs.

I skipped.

"And now, to my horror, I find the fact proven beyond doubt. Ezekiel Jonas Pendlebury—whose name should be inscribed upon the trunk of the tree, he being the original settler in America—was hanged in the Massachusetts Bay Colony for stealing a hog upon the Sabbath Day."

Then I did drop the letter. "My land of love!" was all I could say. And what Jacobs said was just as emphatic. We stared at each other; and then, all at once, he began to laugh, laugh till I thought he’d never stop. His laughin’ made me mad until I commenced to see the funny side of the thing; then I laughed, too, and 

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