The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-06-07

!, - to ask what Miss Shevlin thinks of all this? Is she in sympathy with your social anticS-I mean ambitions
 'T don't know. I never asked her. | never thought to. But if I did, shed l stand for 1t. You see, not bein, as old | and as wise as some of the Granite | folks, she's fallen into the habit of | thinkin' I'm just about all right. It's
 kind of nice to have some one feel that | way about you"
 '-You seem to return the compliment
 I don't blame you. It isn't every man | who finds himself guardian to an ex- | quisfte bit of animated Sevres china.
 I'm lying back to watch for the time
 when some scared youth comes to ask l your leave to marry her"
 l Whats that?" snarled Conover. | stopping and glowering up at the tall, natty figure at his side.
 | Don't get excited" laughed Caine.
 You can't expect as lovely and low l able a girl as Desiree Shevlin to live | and die an old maid. If you're so op- posed to this imaginary suitor I've con-
 Jured up. why not marry her your | sell? ?"
 "Marry? That kid? Me?' sputtered
 Conover. Why I'm past thirty and | and she ain't twenty, yet Besides Pm ' a daddy to her. If I hear of you or
 anyone else oueerin' that kids fond I ness for me by any such fool talk, | I'lI-" Esw
 "Her father was wise in appointing you her guardian" nlocked Caine. 'In | the absence of man-eating blood hounds or a regiment of cavalry,you're an ideal Dragon. I remember old | Shevlin. A first rate contractor and ward politician: but the last sort of man to have such a daughter. As for | Billy. now-he's the model of his fath- CT. A tougher little chap and great l CT contract to his sister could hard1y be imagined"
 She takes after her mother" ex- lrlo fvro6 r recalcitrant cigar. Mother was French. Came of good people, hear. Named her girl Desiree. French name. Kind of pretty name. too. Died when Billy was born. s'pose that's why the boy was named for his dad, in- stead of being called Pe-eir or Juseppy or some other furrena trademark. That's why he's tough too. Desiree was brought up. Bil1y,s bringing him self up. Same as did It's the best trainin' a boy can have. So let him go his own gait. an pay for the win dows he smashes.'
 How did Old Men Sheylin happen to leave you guardian of the two chill dren? Hadn't he any relatives?'' ''Nones but the aunt the kids live with. spose he liked me and And I have. Convent school. music and furren Hngoes an all that rot. Am she's sworthAit."
 How about Billy?"
 LIEU Io COuCeln Ol IDln6. 6S gets his clothes en' grub and goes to public school It'll all any boys got a right to ask' "Contractors are like plumbers in aren't they? One always gets that idea. The Shevlins will probably be as rich as cream" They'll have what they need" !" vouchsafed Conover b Then you're doing all this on the money that Shevlin left ?''
 Sure! You don't spose I'd waste my own cash on 'em?''
 served Caine admiringly. There! There! In this case liar is no more fighting word than paradox. Don't get red
 "what are you drivin' at?'' demand
 "Only this The wills and some other documents filed at the Hall of Records. are copied by our men and kept on file in our office. happened to be going over one of the books the old Shevlin's will. There was a. Ger tfficate of Effects with it. He left just n.100. or. to be accurate. $1.09S..73."
 4sWeI1?' challenged Conover.
 we'll" echoed Caine. 's,The rent of the house where Miss Shevlin lives, her two servants, and her food must come to several times that sum each year. To say nothing of the expenses and the support of the aunt, who lives with her. None of those are on the free list. You're an awfu1ly white chap, Conover. You went up about fifty points in my admiration when read that will. Now don't look as if I'd caught you stealing sheep. It's no affair Of mine. And as she doesn't seem to know, I'm not going to be the cheerful idiot to point out to her the resemblance between her fathers $1.- 100 and the widows cruse. It's pleas ure enough to me, as a student of my fellow animals, to know that a. pirate like you can really once in your life give something for nothing- There's the house Don't forget you're due at the Club in fifty minutes"
 Conover, red, confused, angry mum hIed word of goodbye and ran up the steps of pretty cottage that stood in it's own grounds just off the street
 Caine watched the Fighters bulky form vanish within the doorway. Then he lighted a fresh cigarette and stroll ed on.
 "I wonder ? he ruminated, what his growing list of financial victims would say if they knew that Brute Conover worshfps as ideally and reverently as a Galahad at the shrine of a little f1ower-faced nineteen-year-old girl? But.'' he added. in dismissing the quaint theme, mo one of them all would be half as surprised to know it as Conover himself!''
 CHAPTER II.
 The Girl.
 Conover lounged back and forth in the pretty little reception room of Desiree ShevIin's house, halting now prova1 at some item of it's furnishings. The room-the whole house-was to him a mystery Contentedly devoid of taste though he was. the man dimly