“But there isn't time,” insisted Hattie. “Connie is having a party to-night.” “A party?” The Doctor's brows lifted. “Yes,” broke in Connie. “Miss Lady said she didn't think you'd mind, and she persuaded Myrtella to let us dance in here. You won't mind the noise, just this one night, will you, Father?” The Doctor considered the matter gravely. After all, his reading would be interrupted by Mr. Gooch, so he might as well assent. He seldom objected to any plan that did not interfere with his own actions. His absorption in the race precluded an interest in mere family matters. “They are not pressing you into service, I hope?” he asked, glancing at Miss Lady. “Indeed we are!” cried Connie. “She's going to play for us to dance, when she isn't dancing herself. Of course we want her with us.” “You forget, Constance, that there are other claims upon her. Mr. Gooch and I would like to have her with us in the study.” Miss Lady looked up in pleased surprise. “That settles it, Connie,” she said; “you girls can play for yourselves. Come on and go to bed, Kiddie,” and with Bertie at her heels, the new mistress of Queerington raced down the hall. For ten years Doctor Queerington and Mr. Gooch had played pinochle every Friday evening. The Doctor did not especially enjoy it, except as one of those incidents that grows acceptable by long repetition. He was a born routinist, regarding a well-regulated world as a place where everything ran in the same grooves to eternity. One of his chief sources of satisfaction in regard to his second marriage was that it promised not to interfere with those established laws which regulated his day, from the prompt breakfast at 7:15 to the long hours with his books in the evening. In short, Doctor Queerington was a sort of well-regulated human clock, announcing his opinions as irrevocably as the striker announces the hours, and ticking along so monotonously between times that one almost forgot he was there. If the Friday evening game was to him merely a habit, to Mr. Gooch it was an occasion. Having once seated himself, and glanced around to make sure his hand was not reflected in a mirror, he spread his cards gingerly in his palm with only the corners visible, squared his jaw and proceeded with solemnity to observe the full rigor of the game. There was no trifling with points, or replaying of tricks. The marriage of kings and queens was solemnized without rejoicing, and even the parade of a royal sequence brought no flush of triumph to his cheek, but moved him only to chronicle it in small, precise figures in a red morocco note-book which he always brought with him for the purpose.