"Well, let's have it; out with it!" insisted Marny. "What would I want? Why just what I've got. An easy chair, a pipe, a dog once in a while, some books, a wood fire, and you on the other side, old man," and he laid his hand affectionately on Marny's shoulder. "Anything more?" asked Boggs, who had been eying his friend closely. "Yes; a picture that really satisfied me, instead of the truck I'm turning out." "And you can think of nothing else?" asked Boggs, still keeping his eyes on Mac, his own face struggling with a suppressed smile. "No--" Then catching the twinkle in Boggs's eyes--"What?" "A climbing millionnaire to buy it and a swell Murray Hill palace to hang it up in," laughed Boggs. Mac smiled faintly and leaned forward in his chair, the glow of the fire lighting up his kindly face. For some minutes he did not move; then a half-smothered sigh escaped him. Instantly there rose in my mind the figure of the girl in the steamer chair, the roses in her lap. "Was there nothing more?" I asked myself. PART VIII _In Which Murphy and Lonnegan Introduce Some Mysterious Characters._ The Old Building was being treated to a sensation, the first of the winter, or rather the first of the spring, for the squatty Japanese bowl standing on top of Mac's mantel was already filled with pussy-willows which the great man had himself picked on one of his strolls under the Palisades. Strange things were going on downstairs. Outside on the street curb stood a darkey in white cotton gloves, in the main door stood another, the two connected by a red carpet laid across the sidewalk; at the end of the dingy corridor stood a third, and inside the room on the right a fourth and fifth--all in white gloves and all bowing like salaaming Hindoos to a throng of people in smart toilettes. Woods was having a tea!