There is this peculiar quality about tears--that they can wash away in a moment the animosity of a lifetime. For years Willoughby Braddock had been on terms of distant hostility with this girl. Even apart from the fact that that affair of the onion had not ceased to rankle in his bosom, there had been other causes of war between them. Mr. Braddock still suspected that it was Claire who, when on the occasion of his eighteenth birthday he had called at Midways in a top hat, had flung a stone at that treasured object from the recesses of a shrubbery. One of those things impossible of proof, the outrage had been allowed to become a historic mystery; but Willoughby Braddock had always believed the hidden hand to be Claire’s, and his attitude toward her from that day had been one of stiff disapproval. But now, seeing her weeping and broken before him, with all the infernal cheek which he so deprecated swept away on a wave of woe, his heart softened. It has been a matter of much speculation among historians what Wellington would have done if Napoleon had cried at Waterloo. “I say,” said Mr. Braddock, “what’s the matter? Anything up?” The sound of his voice seemed to penetrate Claire’s grief. She sat up and looked at him damply. “Oh, Mr. Braddock,” she moaned, “I’m so wretched! I am so miserable, Mr. Braddock!” “There, there!” said Willoughby Braddock. “How was I to know?” “Know what?” “I couldn’t tell.” “Tell which?” “I never had a notion he would act like that.” “Who would like what?” “Hash.” “You’ve spoiled the hash?” said Mr. Braddock, still out of his depth. “My Hash--Clarence. He took it the wrong way.” At last Mr. Braddock began to see daylight. She had cooked hash for this Clarence, whoever he might be, and he had swallowed it in so erratic a manner that it had choked him. “Is he dead?” he asked in a hushed voice. A piercing scream rang through the kitchen. “Oh! Oh! Oh!” “My dear old soul!” “He wouldn’t do that, would he?” “Do what?” “Oh, Mr. Braddock, do say he wouldn’t do that!” “What do you mean by ‘that’?” “Go and kill himself.” “Who?” “Hash.” Mr. Braddock removed the perfectly folded silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and passed it across his forehead. “Look here,” he said limply, “you couldn’t tell me the whole thing from the beginning in a few simple words, could you?” He listened with interest as Claire related the events of the day. “Then Clarence is Hash?” he said. “Yes.” “And Hash is Clarence?” “Yes; everyone calls him Hash.” “That was what was puzzling me,” said Mr. Braddock, relieved. “That was the snag that I got up against all the time. Now that is clear, we can begin to examine this thing in a calm and judicial spirit. Let’s see if I’ve got it straight. You read this stuff in the paper and started testing him--is that right?” “Yes. And instead of jousting, he just turned all cold-like and broke off the engagement.”