"I'm glad of that, 'cause I sure am cramped fer hands. I'll let Fallon break you into sawin' an put Stromberg to teamin'; he's too pot-gutted fer a sawyer." Moncrossen produced a bottle as the others seated themselves. "What--don't drink?" he exclaimed, as Bill passed the bottle to Dunnigan. "That's so; b'lieve I did hear some one say you didn't use no booze. Well, every man to his own likin'. Me--about three good, stiff jolts a day, an' a big drunk in the spring an' fall, is about my gait. Have a _see_gar." Bill accepted the proffered weed and bit off the end. "How!" he said, with a short sweep of the arm; then, scratching a match on the rung of his chair, lighted the unsavory stogie. Thus each man took measure of the other, and Daddy Dunnigan tilted the bottle and drank deep, the while he took shrewd measure of both. * * * * * It was in the early afternoon of the following day that Bill Carmody tossed aside his magazine and yawned drowsily. Alone in the bunk-house, his glance roved idly over the room, with its tiers of empty bunks and racks of drying garments. It rested for a moment upon his bandaged foot propped comfortably upon Fallon's bunk, directly beneath his own, and strayed to the floor where just under its edge, still wrapped in the soiled newspaper, sat the gallon jug that Fallon suggested in case the greener saw fit to heed his warning. Bill smiled dreamily. Unconsciously his lips spelled out the words of some head-lines that stared at him from the rounded surface of the jug: POPULAR MEMBERS OF NEW YORK'S FOUR HUNDRED TO WED. "Wonder who?" thought Bill. Reaching for his crutch, he slipped the end through the handle of the jug and drew it toward him. He raised it to his lap and the words of the succeeding line struck upon his brain like an electric shock: _Engagement of Miss Ethel Manton and Gregory St. Ledger Soon to be Announced._ Feverishly his eyes devoured the following lines of the extended heading: _Time of Wedding Not Set. Will Not Take Place Immediately, 'Tis Said. Prospective Bridegroom to Sail for Europe in Spring._ And then the two lines of the story that appeared at the very bottom, where the paper folded under the edge of the jug: NEW YORK, February 1. (Special to _Tribune_.)--As a distinct surprise in elite circles will come the announcement of the engage He tilted the jug in frenzied eagerness to absorb every detail of the bitter news, and was confronted by the rough, stone bottom which had worn through the covering, leaving mangled shreds of paper, whose rolled and mutilated edges were undecipherable. Vainly he tried to restore the tattered remnants, but soon abandoned the hopeless task and sat staring at the head-lines. Over and over again he read them as if to grasp their significance, and then, with a full realization of their import, he closed his eyes and sat long amid the crumbled ruin of his hopes.