The Monett times., 1921-03-04

tn, 4og lad l. !. In yappins pursuit
and. in the net, yanked his young mis-
tress off her pins. He, Mr.. Randolph,
had seized one of her flying feet.
hauled her and the terrier back to
safety, and no sooner placed her up
right and smoothed down her absurdly
short skirts than he, she, and especial
ly it, the dog, became the center and
circumference of an animated pin
wheel.
Her unshaken determination to hold
to the leash. whatever happened,
brought disaster The said leash
wound three times round her ankles
and those of Mr. Randolph, bringing
them both down kerplunk and facing
each other. my. what a bumpl" she
had cried, in startled tones, and then
thrown back her curly head and
laughed.
1t was so that he remembered her
a child of ten or eleven summers and
no winters, merry as sunny day.
dark-haired. dark-eyed. pink-cheeked.
pampered but unspoiled. She had,
risen and taken his hand, told him
her name, thanked him. ordered a
fiurried nurse to thank him. shakenl
her finger at the terrier, and safd.)
"Good-by" and "Come on, Maggie" all
while he was still rubbing the seat Of
his first long trousers.
On that day she had been Miss Imo-
gene Pamela Thornton, petted darling
of the gods and Mr.. Brewster Thorn
ton, banker and widower; two months
later had come Thornton's financial
smash and, Immediately afterward, his
spiritual, moral and bodily collapse.
Everything that had made for life in
him having been swept away, he died
as matter of course, and was buried.
For sole inheritance, little Genie
Thornton found herself possessor and
possessed of one Maggie O'Rourke, ~
nurse Of long standing, of earnest and
faithful face, and monster heart i'm
prisoned in pitifully thin chest
It had taken Genie's great-uncle,
Asa Thornton, six more months to for
get a quarrel of sixteen years stand
ing with his nephew and by that time
child and nurse had been seeped into
that lower world which can't afford
morning and afternoon editions and is
too busy praying for daily bread to
look for q rain Of mama in the daily
press.
In short, Maggie and her charge,
traced down the ladder Of reputable.
disreputable and impossible lodgings,
had slipped ultimately from sight and
the ken of people with addresses, and,
as result, MFR. Robert Hervey Ran.
dOlph, whose relationship to Mr.. Asa
Thornton is of no import whatever to
this tale Of cause and effect, came into
ten thousand year and string-the
string being the possible reappearance
Of Miss Imogene Pamela.
'Bob," had said old Asa, on the
verge of tardy demise, I'm not in.
Producing you to a war between con.
science and self-interest. There's no
silly story-book test about my money;
you are under no obligation to look
for Imogene or to shout If you step on
her by any twist Of chance. My law.
yers have all the instructions neces.
sary along those lines; they are to
make every reasonable effort. and II
they, succeed, why, you're man enough
to look out for yourself, Tit isn't
going to make devil of lot Of differ
ence to me where the cash goes so
long as I die with-die with the
credit"
With that last sentence, his mind
had stumbled and wandered off to
Of his nephew Brewster
Looking back from the vantage of
twenty-six years, Randolph caught.
FOR the first time, the full import Of
Asa Thornton's farewell words to him
and to life: "Die with the credit"
They held the kernel of the old mans
measured amend.
"Great old top!" murmured Mr..
Randolph aloud, and half unconscious
y turned to the left at Forty-second
street. Five minutes later he was
,aught in the maelstrom Of the
Thanksgiving crowd milling around
Times square.
ITO "a continued