not he.  He came out, an’ he says:  ’B’ys, it’s hot in there, but, if you don’t mind a bit av a burn, we can get the poor fellows out.  Will yez try?’ ‘Yes!’ we shouted.  So he explained how we could push cars widout touchin’ them.  ‘Fall in,’ says he.  ’Fix bayonets.  First file to the right av the cars, second rank to the left.  Forward, march!’ An’ we went into that hell, an’ rolled them cars out just as if we was marchin’ down Broadway, wid flags, an’ music, an’ women clappin’ hands.”

“But weren’t you dreadfully burnt?”

“Oh, miss, yez should have seen us!  We was blacker thin the divil himsilf.  Hardly one av us but didn’t have the hair burnt off the part his cap didn’t cover; an’, as for eyelashes, an’ mustaches, an’ blisters, no one thought av them the next day.  Shure, the whole company was in bed, except them as couldn’t lie easy.”

“And Mr. Stirling?”

“Shure, don’t yez know about him?”

“No.”

“Why, he was dreadful burnt, an’ the doctors thought it would be blind he’d be; but he went to Paris, an’ they did somethin’ to him there that saved him.  Oh, miss, the boys were nearly crazy wid fear av losin’ him.  They’d rather be afther losin’ the regimental cat.”

Peter had been tempted to interrupt two or three times, but it was so absorbing to watch Leonore’s face, and its changing expression, as, unconscious of his presence, she listened to Dennis, that Peter had not the heart to do it.  But now Watts spoke up.

“Do you hear that, Peter?  There’s value for you!  You’re better than the cat.”

So the scenes were shifted, and they all sat and chatted till Dennis left.  Then the necessary papers were brought in and looked over at Peter’s study-table, and Miss D’Alloi took another of his pens.  Peter hoped she’d stop and think a little, again, but she didn’t.  Just as she had begun an L she hesitated, however.

“Why,” she said, “this paper calls me ‘Leonore D’Alloi, spinster!’ I’m not going to sign that.”

“That is merely the legal term,” Peter explained.  Leonore pouted for some time over it, but finally signed.  “I shan’t be a spinster, anyway, even if the paper does say so,” she said.

Peter agreed with her.

“See what a great blot I’ve made on your clean blotter,” said Leonore, who had rested the pen-point there.  “I’m very sorry.”  Then she wrote on the blotter, “Leonore D’Alloi.  Her very untidy mark.”  “That was what Madame Mellerie always made me write on my exercises.”

Then they said “Good-bye.”  “I like down-town New York better and better,” said Leonore.

So did Peter.

CHAPTER XLIII.

A BIRTHDAY EVENING.

Peter went into Ray’s office on Monday.  “I want your advice,” he said.  “I’m going to a birthday dinner to-morrow.  A girl for whom I’m trustee.  Now, how handsome a present may I send her?”