note-paper with cinnamon roses. It might even be a boy. One letter
indeed smelt very strongly of being a boy--and mighty good tobacco,
too! And great heavens! what have I got to prove that it isn't even an
old man--some poor old worn out story-writer trying to ease out the
ragged end of his years?"

[Illustration: Some poor old worn-out story-writer]

"Have you told your fiancée about it?" asked the Doctor.

Stanton's jaw dropped. "Have I told my fiancée about it?" he mocked.
"Why it was she who sent me the circular in the first place! But,
'tell her about it'? Why, man, in ten thousand years, and then some,
how could I make any sane person understand?"

"You're beginning to make me understand," confessed the Doctor.

"Then you're no longer sane," scoffed Stanton. "The crazy magic of it
has surely then taken possession of you too. Why how could I go to any
sane person like Cornelia--and Cornelia is the most absolutely,
hopelessly sane person you ever saw in your life--how could I go to
anyone like that, and announce: 'Cornelia, if you find any perplexing
change in me during your absence--and your unconscious neglect--it is
only that I have fallen quite madly in love with a person'--would you
call it a person?--who doesn't even exist. Therefore for the sake of
this 'person who doesn't exist', I ask to be released."

"Oh! So you do ask to be released?" interrupted the Doctor.

"Why, no! Certainly not!" insisted Stanton. "Suppose the girl you love