“Well, you just keep it,” said John, sliding back the change.  “It’s for good luck, you know, my boy.  Same as drinking your long life and prosperity.  And, Oh yes, by the way, you may tell your mother I’ll have a friend to dinner with me to-day.”

“Yes, sir, and thank you, sir,” said the beaming boy.

“Handsome boy!” mused John, as he walked down street.  “Takes that from his father, though, I’ll wager my existence!”

Upon his office desk John found a hastily written note.  It was addressed in the well-known hand of his old chum.  He eyed the missive apprehensively, and there was a positive pathos in his voice as he said aloud, “It’s our divorce.  I feel it!” The note, headed, “At the Office, 4 in Morning,” ran like this: 

“Dear Mack—­I left you slumbering so soundly that, by noon, when you waken, I hope, in your refreshed state, you will look more tolerantly on my intentions as partially confided to you this night.  I will not see you here again to say good-bye.  I wanted to, but was afraid to ’rouse the sleeping lion.’  I will not close my eyes to-night—­fact is, I haven’t time.  Our serenade at Josie’s was a pre-arranged signal by which she is to be ready and at the station for the 5 morning train.  You may remember the lighting of three consecutive matches at her window before the igniting of her lamp.  That meant, ’Thrice dearest one, I’ll meet thee at the depot at 4:30 sharp.’  So, my dear Mack, this is to inform you that, even as you read, Josie and I have eloped.  It is all the old man’s fault, yet I forgive him.  Hope he’ll return the favor.  Josie predicts he will, inside of a week—­or two weeks, anyhow.  Good-bye, Mack, old boy; and let a fellow down as easy as you can.

     Affectionately,

     BERT.”

“Heavens!” exclaimed John, stifling the note in his hand and stalking tragically around the room.  “Can it be possible that I have nursed a frozen viper?  An ingrate?  A wolf in sheep’s clothing?  An orang-outang in gent’s furnishings?”

“Was you callin’ me, sir?” asked a voice at the door.  It was the janitor.

“No!” thundered John; “Quit my sight! get out of my way!  No, no, Thompson, I don’t mean that,” he called after him.  “Here’s a half dollar for you, and I want you to lock up the office, and tell anybody that wants to see me that I’ve been set upon, and sacked and assassinated in cold blood; and I’ve fled to my father’s in the country, and am lying there in the convulsions of dissolution, babbling of green fields and running brooks, and thirsting for the life of every woman that comes in gunshot!” And then, more like a confirmed invalid than a man in the strength and pride of his prime, he crept down into the street again, and thence back to his hotel.

Dejectedly and painfully climbing to his room, he encountered, on the landing above, a little woman in a jaunty dusting-cap and a trim habit of crisp muslin.  He tried to evade her, but in vain.  She looked him squarely in the face—­occasioning him the dubious impression of either needing shaving very badly, or having egg-stains on his chin.