“I wanted to fix you--fix you safe,” he said when he told Miss Alicia about it. “I guess no one can take it away from you, whatever old thing happens.” “What could happen, dear Mr. Temple Barholm?” said Miss Alicia in the midst of tears of gratitude and tremulous joy. “You are so young and strong and--everything! Don't even speak of such a thing in jest. What could happen?” “Anything can happen,” he answered, “just anything. Happening's the one thing you can't bet on. If I was betting, I'd put my money on the thing I was sure couldn't happen. Look at this Temple Barholm song and dance! Look at T. T. as he was half strangling in the blizzard up at Harlem and thanking his stars little Munsberg didn't kick him out of his confectionery store less than a year ago! So long as I'm all right, you're all right. But I wanted you fixed, anyhow.” He paused and looked at her questioningly for a moment. He wanted to say something and he was not sure he ought. His reverence for her little finenesses and reserves increased instead of wearing away. He was always finding out new things about her. “Say,” he broke forth almost impetuously after his hesitation, “I wish you wouldn't call me Mr. Temple Barholm.” “D-do you?” she fluttered. “But what could I call you?” “Well,” he answered, reddening a shade or so, “I'd give a house and lot if you could just call me Tem.” “But it would sound so unbecoming, so familiar,” she protested. “That's just what I'm asking for,” he said--“some one to be familiar with. I'm the familiar kind. That's what's the matter with me. I'd be familiar with Pearson, but he wouldn't let me. I'd frighten him half to death. He'd think that he wasn't doing his duty and earning his wages, and that somehow he'd get fired some day without a character.” He drew nearer to her and coaxed. “Couldn't you do it?” he asked almost as though he were asking a favor of a girl. “Just Tem? I believe that would come easier to you than T. T. I get fonder and fonder of you every day, Miss Alicia, honest Injun. And I'd be so grateful to you if you'd just be that unbecomingly familiar.” He looked honestly in earnest; and if he grew fonder and fonder of her, she without doubt had, in the face of everything, given her whole heart to him. “Might I call you Temple--to begin with?” she asked. “It touches me so to think of your asking me. I will begin at once. Thank you--Temple,” with a faint gasp. “I might try the other a little later.” It was only a few evenings later that he told her about the flats in Harlem. He had sent to New York for a large bundle of newspapers, and when he opened them he read aloud an advertisement, and showed her a picture of a large building given up entirely to “flats.”