"Ah, that's the talk. But wait a second. We got to be tricky about this." She was excited and tremendously in earnest. "If she gets to know I've been holding out the hat to you, we're wasting time. Give me the money, see? I'll make up a peach of a story about how it came to me,--the will of a rich uncle in Wisconsin or something, you know,--and ask her to come and help me blow it in somewhere on the coast, see? She gave me three weeks' holiday once. It's my turn now, me being in luck.... But perhaps you don't trust me?" "You trust me," said Martin, and gave her one of his honest smiles. He caught sight of a bottle of ink on the window sill. There was a pen of sorts there also. He brought them to the table and made out a check in the name of his fellow conspirator. He was just as anxious as she was to put "a bit of pep" into the little waif who had sat beneath the portrait of his father. There was no blotting paper, so he waved it in the air before handing it over. A rush of tears came to Irene's eyes when she saw what he had written. She held out her hand, utterly giving up an attempt to find words. "Thank you for calling up," said Martin, doing his best to be perfectly natural and ordinary. "I wish you'd done so sooner. Poor old Tootles. Write to the Devon Yacht Club, Long Island, and let me know how you get on. We've all three been up against some rotten bad luck, haven't we? Good-by, then. I'll go up to Tootles now." "No, no," she said, "don't. That'd bring my old uncle to life right away. She'd guess you was in on this, all right. Slip off and let me have a chance with my movie stuff." With a mixture of emotion and hilarity she suddenly waved the check above her head. "Can you imagine the fit the receiving teller at my little old bank'll throw when I slip this across as if it meant nothing to me?" And then she caught up one of Martin's hands and did the most disconcerting thing of all. She pressed it to her lips and kissed it. Martin got as red as a beet. "Well, then, good-by," he said, making for the door. "Good luck." "Good-by and good luck to you. My word, but you've made optimism sprout all over my garden, and I thought the very roots of it were dead." For a few minutes after Martin was gone, she danced about her appalling room, and laughed and cried and said the most extraordinary things to her dogs. The little pink beast became hysterical again, and the Chow leaped into a bundle of under-clothing and worried the life out of it. Finally, having hidden the check in a safe place, the girl ran upstairs to break the good news of her uncle's death to Tootles. Why, they could do the thing like ladies, the pair of them. It was immense, marvellous, almost beyond belief! That old man of Wisconsin deserved a place in Heaven.... Heaven--Devon.