“I’m obliged,” said Thomas.  “I’m not much at making calls.  It’s generally the side entrance for mine.  And, besides, I’m engaged to a girl that has the Delaware peach crop killed in the blossom.  She’s a parlor maid in a house where I deliver goods.  She won’t be working there much longer, though.  Say, don’t forget to give your friend my grandfather’s best regards.  You’ll excuse me now; my wagon’s outside with a lot of green stuff that’s got to be delivered.  See you again, sir.”

At eleven Thomas delivered some bunches of parsley and lettuce at the Spraggins mansion.  Thomas was only twenty-two; so, as he came back, he took out the handful of five-hundred-dollar bills and waved them carelessly.  Annette took a pair of eyes as big as creamed onion to the cook.

“I told you he was a count,” she said, after relating.  “He never would carry on with me.”

“But you say he showed money,” said the cook.

“Hundreds of thousands,” said Annette.  “Carried around loose in his pockets.  And he never would look at me.”

“It was paid to me to-day,” Thomas was explaining to Celia outside.  “It came from my grandfather’s estate.  Say, Cele, what’s the use of waiting now?  I’m going to quit the job to-night.  Why can’t we get married next week?”

“Tommy,” said Celia.  “I’m no parlor maid.  I’ve been fooling you.  I’m Miss Spraggins—­Celia Spraggins.  The newspapers say I’ll be worth forty million dollars some day.”

Thomas pulled his cap down straight on his head for the first time since we have known him.

“I suppose then,” said he, “I suppose then you’ll not be marrying me next week.  But you can whistle.”

“No,” said Celia, “I’ll not be marrying you next week.  My father would never let me marry a grocer’s clerk.  But I’ll marry you to-night, Tommy, if you say so.”

Old Jacob Spraggins came home at 9:30 P. M., in his motor car.  The make of it you will have to surmise sorrowfully; I am giving you unsubsidized fiction; had it been a street car I could have told you its voltage and the number of wheels it had.  Jacob called for his daughter; he had bought a ruby necklace for her, and wanted to hear her say what a kind, thoughtful, dear old dad he was.

There was a brief search in the house for her, and then came Annette, glowing with the pure flame of truth and loyalty well mixed with envy and histrionics.

“Oh, sir,” said she, wondering if she should kneel, “Miss Celia’s just this minute running away out of the side gate with a young man to be married.  I couldn’t stop her, sir.  They went in a cab.”

“What young man?” roared old Jacob.

“A millionaire, if you please, sir—­a rich nobleman in disguise.  He carries his money with him, and the red peppers and the onions was only to blind us, sir.  He never did seem to take to me.”

Jacob rushed out in time to catch his car.  The chauffeur had been delayed by trying to light a cigarette in the wind.