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For just one moment he was nonplussed; then he opened the door leading to the dingy apartment occupied by Messrs. Johnson and Applerod. "Mr. Johnson," said he, "will you kindly send out and get two dozen pink carnations for my room?" Quiet, big Jack Starlett, having loaded and lit and taken the first long puff, removed his pipe from his lips. "Bully!" said he. Mr.

"By the way," he added, "how soon will you need me again?" "Not before a week, at least," Sharpe replied. "Very well, then," said Bobby; "I'll be back a week from to-day." Immediately upon his arrival down-town he telegraphed the joyous news to Jack Starlett, in Washington, to prepare for an old-fashioned loafing bee.

At the theater that evening, Bobby, to his vexation, found Agnes Elliston walking in the promenade foyer with the well-set-up stranger. He passed her with a nod and slipped moodily into the rear of the Elliston box, where Aunt Constance, perennially young, was entertaining Nick Allstyne and Jack Starlett, and keeping them at a keen wit's edge, too.

He had an engagement with Allstyne and Starlett at the Idlers' that afternoon, but they found him most preoccupied, and openly voted him a bore. He called on Agnes Elliston, but learned that she was out driving, and he savagely assured himself that he knew who was handling the reins.

Bobby turned his opera-glasses at once upon that box, and pressed Jack Starlett into service. Being thus attracted, the ladies of the Starlett box, mystified and unable to extract any explanation from the two gleeful men, were compelled, by force of circumstances and curiosity, also to opera-glass and lorgnette the sufferers.

There were but two chances left to redeem himself now, and he felt much like a gambler who has been reduced to his last desperate stake. He grew almost haggard over the proposition, and he spent two solid weeks in investigation. He went to Washington to see Jack Starlett, who knew three or four newspaper proprietors in Philadelphia and elsewhere.

That night, though rather preoccupied by the grave consequences that might ensue on this flat-footed defiance of Stone and his crowd, Bobby went to the theater with Jack Starlett and Jack's sister and mother. As they seated themselves he bowed gravely across the auditorium to Agnes and Aunt Constance Elliston, who, with Uncle Dan, were entertaining a young woman relative from Savannah.

"We'll make Jack Starlett play, but the only way to get him is to go over to Washington after him. Payne, you're to go along. You always keep a full set of regalia here at the club, I know. Here, boy!" he called to a passing page. "Find out for us the next two trains to Washington." "Yes, sir," said the boy with a grin, and was off like a shot.

Besides taking the property off his shoulders you've given him nearly a ten-thousand-dollar advance for it. Fine business!" "Great!" agreed blunt Jack Starlett. "Almost as good a joke as refusing to pay a poker debt because it isn't legal." Bobby smiled his thanks for the shot, but inside he was sick.

"They tell me it's the greatest game out," commented Starlett, and just then Mr. Trimmer entered. He was a little, wiry man as to legs and arms, but fearfully rotund as to paunch, and he had a yellow leather face and black eyes which, though gleaming like beads, seemed to have a muddy cast. Bobby rose to greet him with a cordiality in no degree abashed by this appearance.