Oh, by the way, old fellow, I have met the most charming girl it has ever been my good luck to run across. I’m not going to try to describe her, because I simply lack command of language to do so, and by this confession alone you can see that she has me going some. Her name is Janet Harting, and she is the daughter of a hard-shell parson whose pet aversion is baseball――a man who, according to report, believes all baseball players must be either children, fools, or ruffians. Janet, however, has attended boarding school, and she’s a thoroughbred fan, though her father raises such a rumpus about it that she doesn’t get out to many games. Benton King, son of the man who has metamorphosed Kingsbridge from a four-corners settlement into a hustling, rip-roaring young city-to-be, is mightily interested in Miss Janet. Judging by appearances, she is not exactly averse to his attentions, which, considering his prospects and the fact that he seems to have anything around here in the eligible-young-man line left at the post, is no source for wonderment. Sometimes I think I’d like to see if I couldn’t give him a run for his money, but――well, you know how I’m situated, and――what’s the use! “Not a bit of use, young man――not a bit,” muttered Bob Hutchinson. “When I get through with you, it isn’t likely you’ll have a reputation that’ll make you particularly attractive to a discriminating young lady.” Hutchinson was much disappointed when he came to the abrupt breaking off of the unfinished letter in the middle of the last page, and failed to find anything in it that would prove that Locke and Hazelton of Princeton were one and the same. He decided at once to purloin the final page, leaving the others as he had found them. He would relock the desk when he departed from the room, and Locke, missing the final sheet, might fancy that somehow it had slipped from the others and been tossed into the near-by wastebasket, to be carried off by the maid. In one of the pigeonholes were two letters. Both were addressed on the envelopes to “Mr. Tom Locke.” The first one opened contained only the post-card picture of a strikingly pretty young girl, who was laughingly exhibiting some fetching dimples. Across the bottom of the picture was written: “To ‘Big Bub,’ with love, from ‘Tid.’” A look of understanding drifted across Hutchinson’s face as he gazed at the picture, and, returning it to the envelope, he observed: “So that’s how you’re ‘situated,’ Mr. Tom Locke; that’s the reason why you are refraining from trying to give King a run for his money with the parson’s daughter. If you were going to hang around this town long enough, I’ll guarantee you would forget about ‘Tid’ and make an effort to get into the running, just the same. It may be lucky for King that you’ll be going away very soon.”