_BY MEREDITH NICHOLSON_ BEST LAID SCHEMES THE MAN IN THE STREET BLACKSHEEP! BLACKSHEEP! LADY LARKSPUR THE MADNESS OF MAY THE VALLEY OF DEMOCRACY _CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS_ BEST LAID SCHEMES BEST LAID SCHEMES BY MEREDITH NICHOLSON “_The best laid schemes o’ mice and men Gang aft a-gley_” --ROBERT BURNS NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1922 COPYRIGHT, 1919, 1922, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS COPYRIGHT, 1912, 1913, 1914 BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING CO. COPYRIGHT, 1916 BY P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1921 BY THE MCCLURE PUBLICATIONS INC. Printed in the United States of America Published April, 1922 TO WILL H. HAYS WHOSE FRIENDSHIP IS MORE TO BE PRIZED THAN MUCH FINE GOLD CONTENTS PAGE THE SUSINESS OF SUSAN 3 THE GIRL WITH THE RED FEATHER 34 THE CAMPBELLS ARE COMING 74 ARABELLA’S HOUSE PARTY 115 THE THIRD MAN 167 WRONG NUMBER 197 BEST LAID SCHEMES THE SUSINESS OF SUSAN I Susan Parker was twenty-six and nothing had ever happened. To speak more accurately, plenty of things had happened, but Man had never happened. As a college girl and afterward, Susie had, to be sure, known many men; but they had all passed by on the other side. A young man of literary ambitions had once directed a sonnet at Susie, but she was not without critical judgment and she knew it for a weak effort. This young man afterward became the sporting editor of a great newspaper, and but for Susie’s fastidiousness in the matter of sonnets she might have shared his prosperity and fame. A professor of theology had once sent her a sermon on the strength of a chance meeting at a tea; but this, though encouraging, was hardly what might be called a thrilling incident. Still, the young professor had later been called to an important church, and a little more enthusiasm for sermons on Susie’s part might have changed the current of her life. The brother of one of Susie’s Vassar classmates had evinced a deep interest in Susie for a few months, spending weekends at Poughkeepsie that might much better have been devoted to working off his conditions at New Haven; but the frail argosy of their young affections had gone to smash with incredible ease and swiftness over a careless assertion by Susie that, after all, Harvard was the greatest American university. All universities looked alike to her, and she had really been no more interested in Harvard than in the academic centers of Wyoming or Oklahoma. Now this young gentleman was launched successfully as a mining engineer and had passed Susan by for another of his sister’s classmates, who was not nearly so interesting or amusing as Susie.