he was waiting for the trees to grow, he put in fillers of alfalfa and strawberries.  He was operating for the new Milwaukee railroad then, and hired me to harvest his crops.  They paid my wages and the two Japs I had to help, with a snug profit.  And his trees were doing fine; thrifty, every one in the twenty acres.  Last year they began to bear, only a few apples to a tree, but for flavor and size fit for Eden.  This year he is giving up his position with the Milwaukee; his orchards are going to make him rich.  And he wrote me the other day that the old ranch I threw away is coming under the new High Line ditch.  The company that bought it has platted it into fruit tracts.  Think-of that!  Trees growing all over that piece of desert.  Water running to waste, where mother and I carried it in buckets through the sand, in the sweltering heat, up that miserable slope.”

The Society Editor drew a full breath and settled back in her chair.  Her glance fell to her glass, and she laid her fingers on the thin stem.  Jimmie refreshed himself again with the ice-water.  “I didn’t mean to go into the story so deep,” he said, “but you are a good listener.”

“It was worth listening to,” she answered earnestly.  “I’ve always wondered about your mother; I knew she must have been nice.  But you must simply hate the sight of cards now.  I am sorry I said what I did.  And I don’t care how it happened, here is to that ‘Little Streak of Luck.’  May it lead to the great pay-streak.”

She reached her glass out for Jimmie to touch with his, then raised it to her lips.  Daniels drank and held his glass off to examine the remaining liquor, like a connoisseur.  “I play cards a little sometimes,” he confessed; “on boats and places where I have to kill time.  But,” and he brightened, “it was this way about that streak of luck.  I was detailed to write up the new Yacht Club quarters at West Seattle, with illustrations to show the finer boats at the anchorage and, while I was on the landing making an exposure of the Morganstein yacht, a tender put off with a message for me to come aboard.  Mr. Morganstein had seen me from the deck, where he was nursing his injured leg.  He was lonesome, I suppose.  There was no one else in sight, though as I stepped over the side, I heard a victrola playing down below.  ‘How are you?’ he said.  ‘Have a seat.’  Then he scowled down the companionway and called:  ’Elizabeth, stop that infernal machine, will you?’

“The music was turned off, and pretty soon Miss Morganstein came up the stairs.  She was stunning, in a white sailor suit with red fixings, eyes black as midnight; piles of raven hair.  But as soon as he had introduced us, and she had settled his pillows to suit him—­he was lying in one of those invalid chairs—­he sent her off to mix a julep or something.  Then he said he presumed we were going to have a fine cut of the Aquila in the Sunday paper, if I was the reporter who made that exposure at the time of the accident to his car.