"Now, colonel," said Mr. Betts, "there's a chance for you. Here's Mrs. Betts wants an extra dollar, and here are you, just the man to make it for her. No gentleman can resist the appeal of a female in distress. Send my henchman for ink and paper." He drew a stub of pencil from his pocket and began writing on the back of an envelop, reading as he wrote: "Colonel Reed, the multi-millionaire, will before the present witnesses sign a contract to make for the hereinbefore-mentioned Mary Louise Betts the sum of one dollar, the same payable on--" He paused with raised pencil. "What date did you say?" The colonel rose. He was pale and almost gasping with anger. He had at last realized that these barbarians were making sport of him. "I did not state any date," he said slowly; "nor did I--that I can remember--say that I would make any specified sum of money for any one here. But since you seem to insist that I did so, I will fulfil my obligations without any more unnecessary talk. Here is the dollar." He drew a dollar from his pocket and flung it on the table with the gesture of one throwing a bone to a dog. "Ladies," he said, bowing deeply to the two women, "I have the honor to wish you good evening." There was a moment of silence after his withdrawal, during which they all sat staring rather foolishly at the dollar. But if he had thought to humiliate them, he had mistaken his audience. "There, now!" was the opening remark, contributed by Mrs. Betts; "you've gone and rubbed him up the wrong way. And I don't see what satisfaction you get from it." "Well," said Mr. Betts, "I'll get the dollar, anyway." He made a playfully frenzied lunge for the coin. But Charley Ryan had anticipated the movement, and his hand struck it first. An animated tussle ensued, during which Miss Mercer averted a catastrophe by removing the lamp. "Lord! Lord!" cried Mrs. Betts, querulously, "what under the canopy possesses them? It's like living in a bear-garden." The struggle ended with the triumph of Charley Ryan, who, with an exaggerated bow and an affectation of the colonel's manner, presented his trophy to Mrs. Betts. She took it, threw it into her work-basket, and said snappishly: "The old man gets that to-morrow. I ain't goin' into the hold-up business." After this the colonel's attitude toward his fellow-boarders was of the stillest and most repelling sort. They were a good deal surprised at it at first; then, as days passed and it did not soften, they came to regard it as a joke, and though by tacit consent he was let alone, they seemed to harbor no ill feeling toward him. He, on his side, was filled with unappeasable rage. He often passed a meal without speaking to one of them, and never again spent an evening in the parlor.