"I'll see you hanged first," he retorted vehemently, and clenched his fists. "What is Miss Monk to you?" "I have never met her, Mr. Striver, so calm yourself. But you display such heat at my apparently simple question, that I must ask, what is she to you?" Striver stared at me and his eyes were as hard as a piece of jade. "I love her," he said defiantly. I was taken aback by this statement, and flushed in my turn, making the not very polite reply, "Nonsense!" "And why nonsense," shouted Striver, who had by this time completely lost his temper, "how dare you say that? Even though I am a gardener I have the feelings of a human being." "But your difference in rank," I exclaimed hotly. "Love levels all ranks." "Indeed. Then I take it that Miss Monk favors your suit?" "Mind your own business, Mr. Vance." "I intend to make it my business," I snapped, now as angry as he was, for it did seem ridiculous that this Claud Melnotte, handsome as he was, should aspire to the apple on the topmost bough. "You're talking damned rot and damned insolence. If you have never seen Miss Monk, you can't possibly be in love with her," he raged furiously. "I said nothing about love. But that photograph took my fancy, and I wish to buy it if possible." Striver snatched the photograph, silver frame and all, off the mantelpiece to cram it roughly into his pocket. "There," he cried vehemently, "that's all you'll ever see of it." "Then I must seek out the original," said I, walking into the shop. He was after me in a moment. "If you dare to come interfering," he growled in a voice thick with passion, "I'll break your neck." "That is easier said than done," I jeered, now being content that the young man was my rival and a dangerous one at that. "Let me pass." Striver paused irresolutely, then did as he was asked. I left the shop leisurely, and glanced back when some distance down the road. Mr. Joseph Striver drew the photograph out of his pocket and insolently kissed it, apparently to intimate that I was odd man out. CHAPTER VII. A FRIEND IN NEED