But, say, you should see the joint we fetches up at out on the south shore of Long Island that afternoon. Figurin' on a basis of seventy-five per, I was expectin' some private boardin' house where Merry has the second floor front, maybe, with use of the bath. But listen,--a clipped privet hedge, bluestone drive, flower gardens, and a perfectly good double-breasted mansion standin' back among the trees. It's a little out of date so far as the lines go,--slate roof, jigsaw work on the dormers, and a cupola,--but it's more or less of a plute shack, after all. Then there's a real live butler standin' at the carriage entrance to open the hack door and take my bag. "Gee!" says I. "Say, Merry, who belongs to all this?" "Oh! Hadn't I told you?" says he. "You see, I live with my aunt. She is--er--somewhat peculiar; but----" "I should worry!" I breaks in. "Believe me, with a joint like this in her own name, I wouldn't kick if she had her loft full of hummin' birds. Who's next in line for it?" "Why, I suppose I am," says J. Meredith, "under certain conditions." "Z-z-zin'!" says I. "And you hangin' onto a cheap skate job at the Corrugated!" Well, while he's showin' me around the grounds I pumps out the rest of the sketch. Seems butlers and all that was no new thing to Merry. He'd been brought up on 'em. He'd lived abroad too. Studied music there. Not that he ever meant to work at it, but just because he liked it. You see, about that time the fam'ly income was rollin' in reg'lar every month from the mills back in Pawtucket, or Fall River, or somewhere. Then all of a sudden things begin to happen,--strikes, panics, stock grabbin' by the trusts. Father's weak heart couldn't stand the strain. Meredith's mother followed soon after. And one rainy mornin' he wakes up in Baden Baden, or Monte Carlo, or wherever it was, to find that he's a double orphan at the age of twenty-two, with no home, no cash, and no trade. All he could do was to write an S. O. S. message back to Aunt Emma Jane. If she hadn't produced, he'd been there yet. But Aunty got him out of pawn. Panics and so on hadn't cleaned out her share of the Stidler estate--not so you'd notice it! She'd been on the spot, Aunt Emma had, watchin' the market. Long before the jinx hit Wall Street she'd cashed in her mill stock for gold ballast, and when property prices started tumblin' she dug up a lard pail from under the syringa bush and begun investin' in bargain counter real estate. Now she owns business blocks, villa plots, and shore frontage in big chunks, and spends her time collectin' rents, makin' new deals, and swearin' off her taxes.