DEAR JOHN--Sorry we had the run in but it was all my fault. Am
sending you two rosebuds this evening as a peace offering.

Yours,
BUNCH.


"Two rosebuds!" I snickered. "That boy Bunch is a honey-cooler all
right. But I'm sorry he didn't make it two cigars."

"Oh! John!" Peaches said to me a little while later, when we went
over to Uncle Peter's villa to take dinner with them and spend the
evening. "I _do_ wish I could tell you about the surprise, but
Uncle Peter made me promise not to say a single word."

"Well, if you feel tempted to give the old gentleman the double
cross and tell me, why I'll lock myself up in the doghouse till he
gives you the starting pistol," I chimed in. "Who is that dragging
the works out of the clock in the sitting room?"

"It isn't any such thing!" Peaches exclaimed indignantly. "It's
Uncle Peter, and he has a dreadful cold, but Aunt Martha has it
nearly cured now, she says."

I went in and jollied the old chap along a bit, and little by
little I heard his awful story.

He caught the cold about three days previously, but, after taking
the prescription of every loving friend within a radius of four
miles, the cold had almost disappeared. In place of the cold,