The other customers gazed in astonishment at this unheard of publicity in entering a charge. Miss Myrtle turned from pink to crimson, and slowly back to pink,--but she philosophically concluded to drink her phosphate and think the matter out afterward. Theodore, meantime, had taken his hat, and getting the bill and some change from Mr. Brown, left the store. "The mean thing!" inwardly raged Miss Myrtle. "He meant that for a snub,--I know he did. And he never so much as glanced at me as he went out. Just wait! I'll get even with him." Out in the hot sunshine Theodore's other conscience was accusing him. "It's a mean thing to use a girl that way! But if it has to be done, I'm glad Myrtle Blanchard got it first. Yet it's all my own fault! If I hadn't treated them at the first, they wouldn't have come to expect it. But I feel as mean as a cur that's stolen another cur's bone." A walk of half a mile brought Theodore to a handsome house in a fashionable street. He ascended the steps, touched the bell, and heard a voice on the inside distinctly say, "If that's that boy from Brown's, Nora, tell him I'm not at home." The door opened and a maid in a white cap glibly repeated the message: "Mrs. Thorpe isn't at home this morning. Won't you call again?" "She expects me this morning," said Theodore, firmly,--"so with your permission, I'll wait." As he spoke, he entered and seated himself in the reception hall. "She may not be home to luncheon," faltered the maid. "If you could----" "My time is my own," interrupted Theodore. "Mrs. Thorpe expected me, so I'll wait." There was a rustle of skirts above, and a whispered consultation. In fifteen minutes' time Mrs. Thorpe descended the stairs, looking cool and beautiful in a pale blue silken wrapper. "The maid was quite mistaken," she asserted sweetly. "I was taking a little rest, and she thought I had gone out. Oh, yes,--you have that bill. How troublesome for you to have had the long walk for so small an amount! Fifteen dollars, is it? Please receipt the bill. And you have change there! May I trouble you to change this five-dollar bill for me, as well?" Theodore tucked the fifteen dollars, three crisp notes, into his pocket, with satisfaction, and receipted the bill for the silken lady. Then he counted out to her five dollars in change, and taking his hat, bowed himself out. He was flushed with pride at having outwitted the notorious Mrs. Thorpe. The other clerks at the store had tried innumerable times to collect this bill. He hurried over the hot pavements toward the store, the success of this undertaking driving Myrtle Blanchard and the other girls, for the time, from his mind. Mr. Brown was still at the desk when he reached the store. He handed in the three bills with conscious triumph. "And the five dollars in change, I gave you?" suggested Mr. Brown pleasantly.