Dick turned red. “Anyone would have,” he said. “It was the only thing to do.” 

 She nodded slowly as if an impression had been confirmed to her satisfaction. 

 “As for this,” he continued, looking from her to the greenback, and striving to speak calmly, when his heart was a-thrill with the desire to tell her how altogether lovely and lovable she was, “if it’s intended as a reward of merit, I’ll turn it over to Miss Johnston.” 

 “Wasn’t she magnificent?” cried the girl. “I’ll slay Helga!” she added with a sudden change of tone. “She’s a beast of the field. She knew about the—the bill and she never told me.” 

 “That’ll cost her just twenty dollars,” declared Colton judicially, “because now I won’t turn it over to her.” 

 “Give it back to me, please,” said the girl, holding out a tanned and slender hand. 

 “Give it back?” cried Colton in assumed chagrin. “Why, I already had spent that twenty in imagination.” 

 “On what?” asked the girl rather impatiently. 

 “It’s a long list,” replied Colton cunningly. “You’d better sit down while I tell it over.” He threw his coat over a rock, and she perched herself on it daintily. 

 “First, a hundred packages of plug tobacco. All coast-guards use plug, I believe. Then five dollars’ worth of prints of prominent actors and actresses in gaudy colours. The rest in Mexican lottery tickets,” he concluded lamely, his invention giving out. 

 “It wasn’t worth sitting down for,” she said disparagingly. “If you had intended to get something really useful, I might have let you keep it. Please!” The little hand went forth again. 

 Hastily he produced a ten-dollar bill and two fives. “You don’t mind having it in change?” he said anxiously. “You see, this is the first money I ever earned outside of my profession, and I mean to frame it.” 

 “If twenty dollars means so little to you that you can have it hanging around framed——” 

 “This particular twenty means a great deal to me,” he interrupted. 

 She rose. “I was going down to try a cast or two,” she said. 

 Prev. P 27/120 next