DEAR DAD,-Your affectionate letter, with the kind offer to take charge of a siding out in the Dakotas, is at hand. I would like to help you along with your business, but "Upward and onward" is my motto, and you'll have to raise that salary a bit. I am drawing two hundred and twenty-five dollars a month at present, quarters furnished and promotion promised. I have made some good investments, and there are no debts to settle. Enclosed find my last bank statement, which will doubtless prove a great disappointment to you. If you need a good Master of Transportation, I would be pleased to consider an offer at any time, provided the salary is satisfactory, but your proposal to edit my acquaintances is out of the question. My decency and self respect are doing well, thank you, and I like the climate. Outside my window a mocking-bird sings nightly, and I have a tame rabbit with ears like a squirrel and baby-blue eyes--also a Jamaican negro boy who, I fear, could not stand our harsh Northern winters. The salary would have to be about six thousand a year. As always, Your devoted and obedient son, KIRK. P.S.--I would not care to locate farther west than Buffalo. My wife might not like it. "If he survives the first part, that tag line will put him down for the count," mused the writer, with a grin. "And, yet, something tells me he will not embrace my offer. Ah, well! Promotion is slow." He whistled blithely as he sent Allan off to the post-office. Kirk lost no time in calling at the bank, but was disappointed to learn that Senor Andres Garavel had left the city for an unexpected business tour of the Provinces and would not return for at least two weeks. At first he was inclined to doubt the truth of this statement, but a casual inquiry from Mrs. Cortlandt confirmed it, and, cursing his luck, he sought distraction where he could most easily find it. In the days that followed he saw nothing of Gertrudis, but a good deal of Edith Cortlandt. She had redeemed her promise of getting him a good horse-something rare in this country-and he was grateful for the exercise, which came as a welcome relief from his indoor toil. They rode almost daily; he dined at her house, and once again made one of her party at the opera. Soon their old friendly intercourse was going on as if it had never been interrupted.