"Better get up! better come down!" Billy chanted monotonously. "Lose your job if you don't. Boss says he's most as sick of you as he wants to be: Jim Shute's been seekin' round for the job the past month. Better get up! here's your pants! better come down! here's your shirt! I'll wait downstairs." It was thus that Billy won his battles; he never lost one. Everybody did what Billy told him to. Nobody could analyze his power; Mr. Mallow opined that it was because he didn't open his head except when there was something doin'. "His gun's always lo'ded, but he don't pull it more'n once or twice a year." I think it was really because of his ignoring opposition. He never seemed to hear anything that was said on the other side; he simply went ahead and did what he had to do. Destiny in checks, Kitty called him. His weakness seemed to be for the largest and loudest checks imaginable, especially in his trousers. I always fancied he was in love with Melissa, but--well, no matter! I feel as if I ought to pause here to apologize for this utterly one-sided story, with hardly a sound, much less a sight of the hero. Of course every reader who knows anything at all knows that Tom Lee is neither dead nor false, and that he is bound to appear at some point. But Cyrus could not know this; even Kitty could not be sure of it, at least not always, when she was tired. So far as I can make out, Tom at about this time, the time of Madam Flynt's party, was taking leave of the Emperor of China (there were emperors in those days) and receiving from certain officers of that potentate large sums of gold. Filling his pockets with a small proportion of this gold, Tom strolled happily through the streets of Peking, looking in at all the bazaars, and buying everything he thought Kitty might like. Oh! the pale green kimono with the gold dragons! ah! the rose-colored crape showered over with cherry blossoms! How Cyrus was to sigh and clasp its hands over them! And the _parure_ of moonstones and aquamarines, which only a princess or Kitty in her bloom could possibly wear! And then, if that boy did not think of everybody in Cyrus, or almost everybody! and buy pink coral for Miss Egeria and red coral for Miss Almeria (coral was "in" then!) and tortoise-shell for Sarepta, and ebony and sandalwood boxes for all the rest of us, till his trunks could hold no more! Then he sat down and wrote to Kitty out of his faithful heart; saying it was a dog's age since he had heard from her, but the mails were rum in these parts, too rum for him, so he was coming home, coming for keeps. This had been a big job, and he had got big pay for it. In fact, he had made his pile, Kitty: not that he would ever stop working, she wouldn't have anything to say to him if he did that; but he meant to settle down and take expert jobs as they came along. They wanted him in ----, but he would rather live in dear old Cyrus, if Kitty was agreeable, and he fancied she would be.