The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-11-30

 conscientious and laboricas courtship had been in progress for oyer two weeks and was nearing the stage when he felt that the pos- sibility of revealing his state Of mind to Ruth was not so remote as 1t had been, that a chance visit of Percy Shsnalya to the studio during the afternoon solved the mystery.
 One calls it chance visit because Percy had not been meaning to borrow twenty dollars from Kirk that day at all. The man siated>for the loan was one Burrows, kind ly member of the Lambs Club. But fate and a telegram from a manager removed Burrows to Chicago, while Percy was -actu- ally circiing preparatory to the swo0p' and tie only other man in New York who seemed to Percy good for the necessary sum at that precise moment was KHk.
 He flew to Kirk and found him with Ruth. Kirks utter absence of any enthusiasm at the sight of him, the reluctance with which he made the introduction, the glumness with which he bore his share of the three cornered conversational these things con- yinced Percy that this was no ordinary visitor.
 Many years of living by his wits had de- veleped in Percy highly sensitive powers of observation. Brief as his visit was- he came away as certain that Kirk was in love with this girl, and that the girl was in love with Kirk, as he had ever been of anything in his fife.
 As he walked slowly downtown he was thinking hard The subject occupying his mind was the problem of how this thing, was to be stopped.
 He had placed Ruth at once.. directly he had heard her name. He remembered hav- ing seen her photograph in the society sec ton of the Sunday paper which he bor- rowed each week. This was the daughter of old John Bannister. There was no doubt about that How she had found her way to Kirk's studio he could not understand; but there she certainly was, and Percy was willing to bet the twenty dollars which, de- spite the excitement of the moment, he had not forgotten to extract from Kirk in hurried conversation at the door. that her presence there was not known and approved by her father. =
 The only reasonable explanation that Kirk was painting her portrait he dismissed
 Bailey Bannister, that strong, keen Napo- leon of finance, was not above little relax ation of an evening when his father hap pened to be out of town. That giant mind, weary with the strain of business, needed refreshment.
 And so, at eleven-thi1fy that night, his father being in Albany, and not expected home till next day, Bailey might have been observed, beautifully arrayed and discreetly joviat. partaking of lobster at one of those broadway palaces where this fish is in brisk
  bit-faced friend Clarence Grayling, and two members of the chorus of a neighboring musical comedy.
 One of the two, with whom Clarence was oonversng in a lively manner that showed his heart had not been irFeparably broken as the result of his recent interview with Ruth, we may dismiss. The other, who, not finding Bailey's measured remarks very gripping, was allowing her gaze to wander idly around the room, has this claim to a place in the scheme of things, that she had played wordless part in comedy in which Percy Shanklyn had appeared as the Eng fish dude and was on terms of friendship with him.
 Consequently, seeing him enter the room. as he did at that moment, she signaled him to approach.
 "It's little feNer who was with me in The Man From Out West,'" she explained to Bailey.
 Percy, meanwhile, threaded his way among the tables, little knowing that fate had already solved the problem which had worried him the greater part of the day.
 He had come to the restaurant as re- lief from his thoughts. He had ebeyed Miss Frede Reece's signal because it was inlpos- sible to avoid doing 50.
 ''Why, Perce," said Miss Reece, T ain't saw you in years. Where you been hiding