went out in the hall while she counted up and dragged out the day's
spoils for Clara J. to look at.

Aunt Martha is Uncle Peter's wife only she weighs more and breathes
oftener.

When the two of them visit our bird cage at the same time the
janitor has to go out and stand in front of the building with a
view to catching it if it falls.

That night I waded into all the sporting papers and burned dream
pipes till the smoke made me dizzy.

The next day I hit the track with three sure-fires and a couple of
perhapses.

There was nothing to it. All I had to do was to keep my nerve and
not get side-tracked and I'd have enough coin to make Andrew
Carnegie's check book look like a punched meal ticket.

I played them--and when the Angelus was ringing Moses O'Brien and
three other Bookbinders were out buying meal tickets with my money.

Things went along this way for about a week and I was all to the
bad.

One evening Clara J. said to me, "John, I looked through your check
book to-day and I've had a cold on my chest ever since. At first I
thought I had opened the refrigerator by mistake."