“No, they don’t, sometimes,” said Leonore severely.  Then she unbent a little.  “Why haven’t you been to see us?  You’ve had a full week.”

“Yes,” said Peter, “I have had a very full week.”

“Are you going to call on us, Mr. Stirling?”

“To whom are you talking?”

“To you.”

“My name’s Peter.”

“That depends.  Are you going to call on us?”

“That is my hope and wish.”

Leonore unbent a little more.  “If you are,” she said, “I wish you would do it soon, because mamma said to-day she thought of asking you to my birthday dinner next Tuesday, but I said you oughtn’t to be asked till you had called.”

“Did you know that bribery is unlawful?”

“Are you going to call?”

“Of course I am.”

“That’s better.  When?”

“What evening are you to be at home?”

“To-morrow,” said Leonore, beginning to curl up the corners of her mouth.

“Well,” said Peter, “I wish you had said this evening, because that’s nearer, but to-morrow isn’t so far away.”

“That’s right.  Now we’ll be friends again.”

“I hope so.”

“Are you willing to be good friends—­not make believe, or half friends, but—­real friends?”

“Absolutely.”

“Don’t you think friends should tell each other everything?”

“Yes.”  Peter was quite willing, even anxious, that Leonore should tell him everything.

“You are quite sure?”

“Yes.”

“Then,” said Leonore, “tell me about the way you got that sword.”

Watts laughed.  “She’s been asking every one she’s met about that.  Do tell her, just for my sake.”

“I’ve told you already.”

“Not the way I want it.  I know you didn’t try to make it interesting.  Some of the people remembered there was something very fine, but I haven’t found anybody yet who could really tell it to me.  Please tell about it nicely, Peter.”  Leonore was looking at Peter with the most pleading of looks.

“It was during the great railroad strike.  The Erie had brought some men up from New York to fill the strikers’ places.  The new hands were lodged in freight cars, when off work, for it wasn’t safe for them to pass outside the guard lines of soldiers.  Some of the strikers applied for work, and were reinstated.  They only did it to get inside our lines.  At night, when the substitutes in the cars were fast asleep, tired out with the double work they had done, the strikers locked the car-doors.  They pulled the two cars into a shed full of freight, broke open a petroleum tank, and with it wet the cars and some others loaded with jute.  They set fire to the cars and barricaded the shed doors.  Of course we didn’t know till the flames burst through the roof of the shed, when by the light, one of the superintendents found the bunk cars gone.  The fire-department was useless, for the strikers two days before, had cut all the