"Pudgy-wudgy!" cried the lady, and flew directly into Johnson Boller's arms! Anthony Fry steadied himself, mentally and physically, and the little smile that came to his lips was more than half sneer--because Johnson Boller and his lovely wife were hugging each other and babbling senselessly, and the best that Anthony could make of it at first was something like: "And was it lonely? Oh, Pudgy-wudgy, was it lonely?" Whereat Johnson Boller burbled: "Lonely, sugar-plum? Lonely, sweetie? Oh, Beetie-girl, if Pudgy-wudgy could tell you how lonely----" Here they kissed again, three times, four times, five times! "Hell!" said Anthony Fry. "And did it come back?" the imbecile that had been Johnson Boller gurgled. The dark, exquisite head burrowed deep on Boller's shoulder. "Oh, Pudgy!" a muffled voice protested, almost tearfully. "I couldn't do it! I thought I could, but I couldn't, sweetest!" "And so it came back to its Pudgy-wudgy!" Johnson Boller oozed ecstatically. "So it turned around and came back to its Pudgy!" Mrs. Boller regarded him solemnly, holding him off for a moment. "At some awful, awful place north of Albany," she said. "I couldn't go any farther and I--I was going to wire you to come for me, Pudgy! And then I thought I'd stay at their terrible hotel and come down and surprise you, and you weren't home and they said you'd come here!" "Yes!" Johnson Boller agreed. "How could you leave our home, Pudgy-wudgy?" his darling asked reprovingly. "If I had stayed there another hour without my little chicky-biddy, I'd have shot myself!" said Pudgy-wudgy. "Ask Anthony!" And here he looked at Anthony and demanded: "Ain't we silly? Like a couple of kids!" "You certainly are!" Anthony Fry rasped. "You don't have to screw your face all up when you say it!" Mr. Boller informed him, disengaging himself. Beatrice laughed charmingly. "You'll overlook it, Mr. Fry?" said she. "We've never been separated before in all the----" "Six months!" beamed Johnson Boller. "--that we've been married!" finished his wife, squeezing his hand. Followed a pause. Anthony had nothing whatever to say; after witnessing an exhibition like that he never had anything to say for an hour or more that a lady could hear. He stood, a cold, stately, disgusted figure, surging internally, thanking every star in the firmament that he had never laid himself open to a situation of that kind--and after a time the inimical radiations from him reached Beatrice, for she laughed uneasily. "May I--may I fix my hair?" she asked. "And then we'll go home, Pudgy?" "Yes, my love," purred Johnson Boller. "Which is your room, pigeon-boy?" his bride asked. So far as concerned Johnson Boller, Mary had been wafted out of this world; all aglow with witless happiness, he pointed at the door as he said: "That one, Beetie-chicken."