his wife.

O, to be sure, John Henry Menton said. I haven’t seen her for some time. She was a finelooking woman. I danced with her, wait, fifteen seventeen golden years ago, at Mat Dillon’s in Roundtown. And a good armful she was.

He looked behind through the others.

What is he? he asked. What does he do? Wasn’t he in the stationery line? I fell foul of him one evening, I remember, at bowls.

Ned Lambert smiled.

Yes, he was, he said, in Wisdom Hely’s. A traveller for blottingpaper.

In God’s name, John Henry Menton said, what did she marry a coon like that for?

She had plenty of game in her then.