“No,” said Yates, “I won’t.  And that ends my career on Park Row.  I’m going to telephone my resignation.”

Mr. Carr gazed calmly around and twisted his mustache with a satisfied and retrospective smile.

“That’s very decent of you, Yates; you must pardon me; I was naturally half scared to death at first; but I realize you are acting very handsomely in this horrible dilemma——­”

“Naturally,” interrupted Yates.  “I must stand by the family into which I am, as you know, destined to marry.”

“To be sure,” nodded Carr, absently; “it really looks that way, doesn’t it!  And, Yates, you have no idea how I hated you an hour ago.”

“Yes, I have,” said Yates.

“No, you really have not, if you will permit me to contradict you, merry old Top.  I—­but never mind now.  You have behaved in an unusually considerate manner.  Who the devil are you, anyway?”

Yates informed him modestly.

“Well, why didn’t you say so, instead of letting me bully you!  I’ve known your father for twenty years.  Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to marry Drusilla, instead of coming and blushing all over the premises?  I’d have told you she was too young; and she is!  I’d have told you to wait; and you’d have waited.  You’d have been civil enough to wait when I explained to you that I’ve already lost, by marriage, two daughters through that accursed machine.  You wouldn’t entirely denude me of daughters, would you?”

“I only want one,” said John Yates, simply.

“Well, all right; I’m a decent father-in-law when I’ve got to be.  I’m really a good sport.  You may ask all my sons-in-law; they’ll admit it.”  He scrutinized the young man and found him decidedly agreeable to look at, and at the same time a vague realization of his own predicament returned for a moment.

“Yates,” he said unsteadily, “all I ask of you is to keep this terrible n-news from my innocent d-daughters until I can f-find out what sort of a person is f-fated to lead me to the altar!”

Yates took the offered hand with genuine emotion.

“Surely,” he said, “your unknown intended must be some charming leader in the social activities of the great metropolis.”

“Who knows!  She may be m-my own l-laundress for all I know.  She may be anything, Yates!  She—­she might even be b-black!”

“Black!”

Mr. Carr nodded, shuddered, dashed the unmanly moisture from his eyeglass.

“I think I’d better go to town and tell my son-in-law, William Destyn, exactly what has happened to me,” he said.  “And I think I’ll go through the kitchen garden and take my power boat so that those devilish reporters can’t follow me.  Ferdinand!” to the man at the door, “ring up the garage and order the blue motor, and tell those newspaper men I’m going to town.  That, I think, will glue them to the lawn for a while.”

“About—­Drusilla, sir?” ventured Yates; but Mr. Carr was already gone, speeding noiselessly out the back way, through the kitchen garden, and across the great tree-shaded lawn which led down to the boat landing.