learned afterward that the nearest we ever came to meeting was
that our mothers had been school friends! Just then I saw Jim
beckoning to me crazily from the den. He looked quite yellow, and
he had been running his fingers through his hair.

"For Heaven's sake, come in, Kit!" he said. "I need a cool head.
Didn't I tell you this is my calamity day?"

"Cook gone?" I asked with interest. I was starving.

He closed the door and took up a tragic attitude in front of the
fire. "Did you ever hear of Aunt Selina?" he demanded.

"I knew there WAS one," I ventured, mindful of certain gossip as
to whence Jimmy derived the Wilson income.

Jim himself was too worried to be cautious. He waved a brazen
hand at the snug room, at the Japanese prints on the walls, at
the rugs, at the teakwood cabinets and the screen inlaid with
pearl and ivory.

"All this," he said comprehensively, "every bite I eat, clothes I
wear, drinks I drink--you needn't look like that; I don't drink
so darned much--everything comes from Aunt Selina--buttons," he
finished with a groan.

"Selina Buttons," I said reflectively. "I don't remember ever
having known any one named Buttons, although I had a cat once--"

"Damn the cat!" he said rudely. "Her name isn't Buttons. Her name