But Aunty got him out of pawn.  Panics and so on hadn’t cleaned out her share of the Stidler estate—­not so you’d notice it!  She’d been on the spot, Aunt Emma had, watchin’ the market.  Long before the jinx hit Wall Street she’d cashed in her mill stock for gold ballast, and when property prices started tumblin’ she dug up a lard pail from under the syringa bush and begun investin’ in bargain counter real estate.  Now she owns business blocks, villa plots, and shore frontage in big chunks, and spends her time collectin’ rents, makin’ new deals, and swearin’ off her taxes.

You’d most thought, with a perfectly good nephew to blow in some of her surplus on, she’d made a fam’ly pet of J. Meredith.  But not her.  Pets wasn’t in her line.  Her prescription for him was work, something reg’lar and constant, so he wouldn’t get into mischief.  She didn’t care what it brought in, so long as he kept himself in clothes and spendin’ money.  And that was about Merry’s measure.  He could add up a column of figures and put the sum down neat at the bottom of the page.  So he fitted into our audit department like a nickel into a slot machine.  And there he stuck.

“But after sportin’ around Europe so long,” says I, “don’t punchin’ the time clock come kind of tough?”

“It’s a horrible, dull grind,” says he.  “Like being caught in a treadmill.  But I suppose I deserve nothing better.  I’m one of the useless sort, you know.  I’ve no liking, no ability, for business; but I’m in the mill, and I can’t see any way out.”

For a second J. Meredith’s voice sounds hopeless.  One look ahead has taken out of him what little pep he had.  But the next minute he braces up, smiles weary, and remarks, “Oh, well!  What’s the use?”

Not knowin’ the answer to that I shifts the subject by tryin’ to get a line on the other comp’ny that’s expected for dinner.

“They’re our next-door neighbors,” says he, “the Misses Hibbs.”

“Queens?” says I.

He pinks up a little at that.  “I presume you would call them old maids,” says he.  “They are about my age, and—­er—­the truth is, they are rather large.  But really they’re quite nice,—­refined, cultured, all that sort of thing.”

“Specially which one?” says I, givin’ him the wink.

“Now, now!” says he, shakin’ his head.  “You’re as bad as Aunt Emma.  Besides, they’re her guests.  She asks them over quite often.  You see, they own almost as much property around here as she does, and—­well, common interests, you know.”

“Sure that’s all?” says I, noticin’ Merry flushin’ up more.

“Why, of course,” says he.  “That is—­er—­well, I suppose I may as well admit that Aunt Emma thinks she is trying her hand at match-making.  Absurd, of course.”

“Oh-ho!” says I.  “Wants you to annex the adjoinin’ real estate, does she?”

“It—­it isn’t exactly that,” says he.  “I’ve no doubt she has decided that either Pansy or Violet would make a good wife for me.”