excitement will arrive shortly. Now I wonder--"

"Howdy, Major," came in a mockingly lugubrious voice from the hall, and
David Kildare blew into the room. He looked disappointedly around,
dropped into a chair and lowered his voice another note.

"Seen Phoebe?" he demanded.

"No, haven't you?" answered the major as he lighted his pipe and regarded
the man opposite him with a large smile of welcome.

"Not for three days, hand-running. She's been over to see Andy with Mrs.
Matilda twice, and I've missed her both times. Now, how's that for luck?"

"Well," said the major reflectively, "in the terms of modern parlance,
you certainly are up against it. And did it ever occur to you that a man
with three ribs broken and a dislocated collar-bone, who has written a
play and a sprinkle of poems, is likely to interest Phoebe Donelson
enormously? There is nothing like poetry to implant a divine passion, and
Andrew is undoubtedly of poetic stamp."

"Oh, poetry--hang! It's more Andy's three ribs than anything else. He
just looks pale and smiles at all of 'em. He always did have yellow dog
eyes, the sad kind. I'd like to smash all two dozen of his ribs," and
Kildare slashed at his own sturdy legs with his crop. He had dropped in
with his usual morning's tale of woe to confide to Major Buchanan, and he
had found him, as always, ready to hand out an incendiary brand of
sympathy.

"He ought not to have more than twenty-three; one on the right side