Dalton, waiting in the dressing room, at once asked for details of what had happened in the manager’s office. More for sport than any other reason, Lefty kept him on the anxious seat all the way back to the hotel, fully intending to tell him while they were having dinner together. That thought, as well as every other, was driven out of his head, however, by a penciled message the desk clerk handed him as he passed through the lobby. “Call Miss Harting, at 10224 Morris,” it read; and the six commonplace words brought a rush of vivid crimson to the pitcher’s face, a sparkle of amazed delight into his eyes. “Janet in town!” he muttered, as he eagerly sought a telephone booth, leaving Dalton to stare blankly after him. “Well, wouldn’t that get you! Not a word about it in her last letter. I suppose she wanted to work a surprise. She’s sure put one over, all right.” Hurriedly giving the operator the number, he entered the booth, and, a few minutes later, heard the familiar tones of the “only girl in the world” clearly over the wire. Just what they said is neither here nor there. The door of the booth was tightly closed, and if the operator listened she did not betray the fact by a sign. Lefty and Janet Harting, who lived with her father in a thriving New England town, had been very good friends indeed for something more than a year. Though they corresponded with extreme regularity, their positions made actual meetings tantalizingly infrequent. Given these premises, the reader may reconstruct their conversation to suit himself. Suffice it to say that Janet had come on to the city for a two weeks’ visit to an aunt, leaving her father, who was better than he had been in a good many years, in the care of a distant cousin, who had volunteered that office so that the daughter might take a brief vacation. After retailing this information, Miss Harting hinted delicately that she would be at home all evening. “I’ll be there with my hair in a braid!” Lefty returned promptly. Then he stopped abruptly, stung by sudden recollection. “Sh!” reproved Janet, as a sibilant vibration reached her attentive ears. “On the ’phone, too! What’s the matter? Have you thought of an engagement?” “Beg pardon,” apologized Lefty contritely. “It slipped out. Why, yes. You see, some of the boys planned a little theater party to-night to see ‘The Girl from Madrid,’ and they’ve got the tickets. It doesn’t matter a bit, though. I’ll just tell ’em I can’t go.” “You’ll do nothing of the sort.” Miss Harting’s tone was emphatic. “I’m not going to have you breaking engagements and throwing over your friends for me. There’s plenty of time. You can come and see me to-morrow.” The young man protested vehemently, but Janet remained quite firm. In the end she had her way, though she compromised to some extent by saying that Lefty could come up the next day and take her out to lunch.