She tumbled into his lap, and he pushed her out until he could set aside
the Angora cat and the Airedale and his pet guinea pig, then he said
politely, "Is this your seat?" and she perched on his knee.

"Do you love me, dear?" she asked, her voice full of a dumb pathos.

"Ooooooooooooooooooo! I'm sleepy," he said, with a cavernous yawn and a
Herculean stretch that threw her out on the floor. "Want any money?" She
looked at him. He was not unlike John Barrymore in The Jest, and Warble
fell for him afresh.

"You are so beautiful--" she wailed. "I wish you loved me--"

"I wish I did," he returned, honestly, "but you are such a butter-ball."

"Oh, Butterfly Thenter calls anybody Butter-ball who weights over
ninety-five! If you're so cut up about it I won't live under this roof
another minute! I can earn my own living, and all I want, too! You can get
a divorce and marry some thread of a woman who has ptomaines all the time!"

"Pish, tush, Warb, don't be a damfool! Lay off the melodrama. I do love
you--at least, I love ninety-five pounds of you. Now, will you be good?"

"Yeth."

"And will you try to think of me as a devoted and loving husband, even if
I'm not one?"

"Oh, my dear, I am unjust to you! I will take what you give me--what you
can spare from the little dog and the cat and the guinea pig. And I will be