Johnathan had remained rather wild-eyed for a moment. Then he found his voice and started cursing. Not content with cursing, he waited until his son’s back was turned and then dealt him a blow in the shoulder which sent Nathan smashing against the table. He knocked off crockery with a crash and sent a coffee pot into the front of a near-by china closet. Mrs. Forge came running, and as usual, joined in the altercation. Johnathan’s cursing included his wife. His wife turned livid at a particularly vile epithet and hurled a plate. Johnathan dodged the plate and it went neatly through a pane of heavy glass. Then Johnathan picked up a chair and threw it. It hit the dome above the dining table and dropped its glass in a shower, leaving the brass shell swaying ludicrously. Mrs. Forge shrieked and Johnathan bellowed. On the night of the son’s majority a pleasant time was had by all! Nathan was unhurt. He walked from the room, got his hat and coat. He passed out the front door and left his father and mother having their last quarrel,—while he was an occupant of their house. He came to me. “Any mail, Bill?” he asked anxiously. I was punching away at my typewriter in the sitting room. I recollect that I took a long moment to fill my pipe and relight it before I answered. But there was no way out—for me. I had been working, trying subconsciously to evolve a way to break the news to my friend gently. “No, Nat,” I said at length. “There’s no mail come for you—directly. But mother gave me a newspaper when I came home—an Ohio paper, addressed to me.” “A paper!” cried the boy. “What’s the big idea?” There was no way out, indeed. The paper was lying on my desk. An item in the “Social and Personal” column was marked in red ink. I handed it across. COLE-GARDNER A pretty home wedding was solemnized at the residence of Mr. and Mrs. P. H. Gardner on Temple Street last evening, when Mr. Gardner’s daughter Carol was joined in matrimony to Mr. Blodgett Cole, son of Mr. and Mrs. Roger Cole of Union Place. The marriage was the outcome of a boy-and-girl romance begun in the graded schools of East Gilead, when ... I don’t think my friend ever quite finished reading that item. The paper dropped through his fingers, through his knees, down with a sharp plop! to the carpet. “Bill!” cried my friend hoarsely, “Bill!” “Hard luck, Nat!” was all I could say. “But don’t you let it upset you. If she’s that kind of girl, she wasn’t worth waiting for in the first place.” V The boy stumbled down our front steps. By the time I had spoken to my mother and secured hat and coat, he had disappeared. Where he went no one knows. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter. Around eight o’clock he appeared at the box-shop. He unlocked the office door and groped his way inside.