The caller turned several different shades of red and realized that he had struck the biggest snag he’d ever struck in any courting career, past or present.  He laughed violently for a second or two, tried to hang his hat on both knees at the same time, and finally sank his voice to a confidential undertone:—­

“Now, widdy, that’s the woman’s way o’ puttin’ it.  They’ve been jealous o’ you all ’long, fur they knew where my mind was sot.  I wouldn’t married one o’ them women for nothing,” added the widower, with another hitch toward the ironing board.

“Huh!” responded the widow, losing a trifle of her warlike cast of countenance.  “S’pose all them women hadn’t refused you, Hull Parsons, what then?”

“They didn’t refuse me, widdy,” returned the widower, trying to look sheepish, and dropping his voice an octave lower.  “S’pose I hadn’t oughter tell on ’em, but—­er—­can you keep a secret, widdy?”

“I ain’t like the woman who can’t,” remarked the widow, shortly.

“Well, then, I was the one who did the refusin’—­the hull gang went fer me right heavy, guess ’cause ‘twas leap year, or they was tryin’ on some o’ them new women’s ways, or somethin’ like that.  But my mind was sot all along, d’ye see, widdy?”

And the Widow Perkins invited Widower Parsons to stay to dinner, because she thought she saw.

+Theme LXXVII.+—­Complete the story on pages 79-80, or one of the following:—­

THE AUDACIOUS REPORTER

Soon after Fenimore Dayton became a reporter his city editor sent him to interview James Mountain.  That famous financier was then approaching the zenith of his power over Wall Street and Lombard Street.  It had just been announced that he had “absorbed” the Great Eastern and Western Railway System—­of course, by the methods which have made some men and some newspapers habitually speak of him as “the Royal Bandit.”  The city editor had two reasons for sending Dayton—­first because he did not like him; second, because any other man on the staff would walk about for an hour and come back with the report that Mountain had refused to receive him, while Dayton would make an honest effort.

Seeing Dayton saunter down Nassau Street—­tall, slender, calm, and cheerful—­you would never have thought that he was on his way to interview one of the worst-tempered men in New York, for a newspaper which that man peculiarly detested, and on a subject which he did not care to discuss with the public.  Dayton turned in at the Equitable Building and went up to the floor occupied by Mountain, Ranger, & Blakehill.  He nodded to the attendant at the door of Mountain’s own suite of offices, strolled tranquilly down the aisle between the several rows of desks at which sat Mountain’s personal clerks, and knocked at the glass door on which was printed “Mr. Mountain” in small gilt letters.

“Come!” It was an angry voice—­Mountain’s at its worst.