“Read on, Tutt!” ordered Mr. Tutt.

“Um.  ’And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once.’  Um-um.”

“Yes, go on!”

“’And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head.’  Well, I’ll be hanged!” exclaimed Tutt.  “Now, I would have staked a thousand dollars on it.  But look here, you don’t win!  Delilah did cut Samson’s hair—­through her agent. ‘Qui facit per alium facit per se!’”

“Your point is overruled,” said Mr. Tutt.  “A barber cut Samson’s hair.  Let it be a lesson to you never to take anything on hearsay.  Always look up your authorities yourself.  Moreover”—­and he looked severely at Tutt—­“the cerebral fluid—­like malt extract—­tends to become cloudy with age.”

“Well, anyhow, I’m no Samson,” protested Tutt.  “And I haven’t met anyone that looked like a Delilah.  I guess after the procession of adventuresses that have trailed through this office in the last twenty years I’m reasonably safe.”

“No man is safe,” meditated Mr. Tutt.  “For the reason that no man knows the power of expansion of his heart.  He thinks it’s reached its limit—­and then he finds to his horror or his delight that it hasn’t.  To put it another way, a man’s capacity to love may be likened to a thermometer.  At twenty-five or thirty he meets some young person, falls in love with her, thinks his amatory thermometer has reached the boiling-point and accordingly marries her.  In point of fact it hasn’t—­it’s only marking summer heat—­hasn’t even registered the temperature of the blood.  Well, he goes merrily on life’s way and some fine day another lady breezes by, and this safe and sane citizen, who supposes his capacity for affection was reached in early youth, suddenly discovers to his amazement that his mercury is on the jump and presently that his old thermometer has blown its top off.”

“Very interesting, Mr. Tutt,” observed Tutt after a moment’s silence.  “You seem to have made something of a study of these things.”

“Only in a business way—­only in a business way!” Mr. Tutt assured him.  “Now, if you’re feeling stale—­and we all are apt to get that way this time of year—­why don’t you take a run down to Atlantic City?”

Now Tutt would have liked to go to Atlantic City could he have gone by himself, but the idea of taking Abigail along robbed the idea of its attraction.  She had got more than ever on his nerves of late.  But his reply, whatever it might have been, was interrupted by the announcement of Miss Wiggin, who entered at that moment, that a lady wished to see him.

“She asked for Mr. Tutt,” explained Minerva.

“But I think her case is more in your line,” and she nodded to Tutt.

“Good looking?” inquired Tutt roguishly.

“Very,” returned Miss Wiggin.  “A blonde.”