“He is dippy,” he said, solemnly.  “No man in his senses would act like that.”

“You eavesdropper, what did you see?” Winifred Chester looked at him expectantly.

“I saw the worst-looking specimen of tramp humanity who has come under my observation for a year, with a bandage over one eye.  He is sitting in that big chair with a plate and napkin in his lap, and his ugly mouth is full of beefsteak.”

“And isn’t Red having any?” cried Martha, with a glance at the empty platter.

“Not a smell.  He’s standing up by the chimney-piece, looking the picture of contentment—­the idiot.  But he modified his benevolent expression long enough to give me a glare, when he saw me looking in.  That’s the second glare I’ve had from him to-night, and I’m going home.  I can’t stand incurring his displeasure a third time in one day.  Come, Martha, let’s get back to our happy home—­what there is left of it after the fray.  We’ll send over a plate of little cakes for the master of the house.  A couple of dozen of them may fill up that yawning cavity of his.  Of all the foolishness!”

CHAPTER IV

A RED HEAD

“Marriage,” said James Macauley, looking thoughtfully into his coffee cup, as he sat opposite his wife, Martha, at the breakfast-table, “is supposed to change a man radically.  The influence of a good and lovely woman can hardly be overestimated.  But the question is, can the temper of a red-headed explosive ever be rendered uninflammable?”

“What are you talking about?” Martha inquired, with interest.  “Ellen and Red?  Red is changed.  I never saw him so dear and tractable.”

“Dear and tractable, is he?  Have you happened to encounter him in the last twenty-four hours?”

“No.  What’s the matter?  He and Ellen can’t possibly have had any—­misunderstanding?  And if they had, they wouldn’t tell you about it.”

“Well, they may not have had a misunderstanding, but if Ellen succeeds in understanding him through the present crisis she’ll prove herself a remarkable woman.  As near as I can make it out, Red is mad, fighting mad, clear through, with somebody or something, and he can no more disguise it than he ever could.  I don’t suppose it’s with anybody at home, of course, but it makes him anything but an angel, there or anywhere else.”

“Where did you see him?  Hush—­Mary’s coming!”

Macauley waited obediently till the maid had left the room again.  Then he proceeded.  He had not begun upon the present subject until the children had gone away, leaving the father and mother alone together.

“I ran into his office last night, after those throat-tablets he gives me, and heard him at the telephone in the private office.  Couldn’t help hearing him.  He was giving the everlasting quietus to somebody, and I thought he’d burn out the transmitter.”

“Jim!  Red doesn’t swear any more.  He surely hasn’t taken it up again?”