“Your dad's the right sort,” he said, his eyes gleaming with the infant fires of avarice. “One only has to know how to understand him. The size of this check is out of all reason, but if I can do what he wishes to-morrow, I'll not only accept it, but I'll put it to a glorious use. Carson, there is a young woman in this town whom I'll ask to marry me, and I'll buy a home with this to start life on.” “Ida Tarpley?” said Carson. “She's the one,” Garner said, with a bare touch of rising color. “I think she would take me, from a little remark she dropped, and it was through you that I found her.” “Through me?” Dwight said. “Yes, it was in talking of your ups and downs that I first saw into her wonderfully sweet and sympathetic nature. Carson, if you get your walking-papers in the morning, I won't wait ten minutes before I pop the question. The lack of means was the only thing that kept me from proposing the last time I saw her.” CHAPTER XLV. [Illustration: 0398] HE next morning when Garner reached the office, he found Carson surrounded by “the gang,” Blackburn was just leaving, his mild eyes fixed gloomily on the sidewalk, and Wade Tingle, Keith Gordon, and Bob Smith sat about the office with long-drawn, stoical faces. “I was just telling Carson that it will be a walkover in court this morning,” Wade was saying, comfortingly, as Garner sat down at his desk, his great brow clouded. “Don't you think so, Garner?” “Well, I'll tell you _one_ thing, boys,” Garner answered, irritably, “it's too important a matter to make light over, and I want you fellows to clear out so we can get to work. I've got to talk to Carson, and I can't do it with so many here. I'm not accustomed to thinking with a crowd around.” “You bet we'll skedaddle, then, old man,” said Keith; “but we'll be at the--the hearing.” When they had gone droopingly out, Carson came from the window at which he had been standing and looked Garner over, noting with surprise that the lower parts of the legs of his partner's trousers were dusty and his boots unpolished. The shirt Garner wore had sleeves that were too long for his arms, and a pair of soiled cuffs covered more than half of the small hands. His standing collar had become crumpled, and his ever-present black silk necktie, with its unshapely bow and brown, frayed edges, had slipped out of place. His hair was awry, his whole manner nervous and excitable. “Keith says you didn't sleep at the den last night,” Dwight said, tentatively. “Did you go out to your father's?” Garner seemed to hesitate for an instant, then he crossed his dusty legs and began to draw upon and tie more firmly the loose strings of his worn and cracked patent-leather shoes. “Look here, Carson,” he said, when he had fumblingly tied the last knot, “you are too strong and brave a man to be treated in the wishy-washy way a woman's treated. Besides, you'll have to know the truth sooner or later, anyway, and you may as well be prepared for it.”