position in the Evergreen, because she would have to go to her new kingdom. She spoke a little regretfully of leaving the Evergreen, and Mr. Kingley understood perfectly. He knew he would hate to leave the store even for a throne. Tessie was to see her lawyer at half-past five.

"After hours," she hastily told Mr. Kingley, so that he would know that she was not going to take advantage of her new honor and ask any favors.

"Faithful little thing," beamed Mr. Kingley. "You'll make a good queen. And you're going to the islands at once? Not alone, I hope?"

"My brother John will go with me. He's a Boy Scout!" It would have cheered Johnny's heart to have heard the pride in Tessie's voice.

"But you will need more support than a Boy Scout. The natives of those Pacific islands are[Pg 20] cannibals!" Mr. Kingley was shocked to think that Tessie contemplated going to them without an army to aid her. "At least, I read somewhere once that they were cannibals," he said hurriedly when Mr. Bill looked at him in surprise because he did know something about the Pacific islands. He flushed slightly and seemed annoyed.

[Pg 20]

"Johnny's a good Boy Scout," insisted Tessie. "And Granny will go with us, of course. And the cannibals are reformed, Mr. Kingley. Uncle Pete didn't allow them to eat anybody!"

"I should hope not! Bless me! This is strange! I never expected anything like this to happen in the Evergreen. I suppose the newspapers will give us the front page for such a story. I wonder what the Bon Ton and the Mammoth will say! The world, as well as Waloo, will be interested." He was forgetting Tessie in his delight in the situation, for, as has been said, he was the owner of the Evergreen before he was any one else. "I don't suppose, Miss Gilfooly," he said slowly, as if he were following a train of thought which was dashing through his mind, "I don't suppose you would want to hold a little sale here some day soon, after the Gazette has published the story? Of aluminum, perhaps? I mean—" as his son gave a shocked exclamation, "Dad!"—"for one of the charities of the Sunshine Islands? It would help both of us. But that can be arranged later. I don't deny it would help the Evergreen as much[Pg 21] as it would increase, say—the shoe fund of your new kingdom."

[Pg 21]

"If it would help you, Mr. Kingley, I'd be glad to do it," Tessie told him obligingly, 

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