“Bob,” said Scattergood, one auspicious day, “got any pref’rence for prosecutin’ attorneys—­married or single?”

“It depends,” said Bob, cautiously.

“Um!...  How’s Sairy behavin’, Bob?”

“She’s—­she’s—­” Bob became incoherent, and then speechless.

“Calc’late I foller you, Bob....  Git your point of view exact....  About prosecutin’ attorneys, Bob, I prefer ’em married.”

“Mr. Baines,” said Bob, “if I could get Sarah Pound to marry me, I wouldn’t give a tinker’s dam who was prosecutor.”

“Mishandlin’ of fact sim’lar to that,” said Scattergood, dryly, “has been done nigh on to a billion times....  Any idee how Sairy stands on sich a proposition?”

“She’s about equally fond of me and the letter press,” said Bob, dolefully.

“Good sign,” said Scattergood.  Then after a short pause:  “Say, Bob, still rent out drivin’ bosses at the livery?...  G’-by, Bob.”

Bob was astonished to find how easy it is to ask a girl to go driving the second time—­after you have spent an anxious, dubious, fearsome day screwing up your courage to ask her the first time.  He was delighted, too, because he even fancied Sarah now discriminated between him and the letter press—­in his favor.  Bob came fresh and unsophisticated to the business in hand, which was courtship.  Sarah had never before been courted, but she recognized a courtship when she saw it at such close range, and found it delightfully exciting.  Bob did his clumsy, earnest, honest best, and Sarah, somewhat to her surprise, became more satisfied with the universe and with her share in its destinies....  In short, matters were progressing as nature intended they should progress, and Scattergood felt almost that they might be trusted to go forward to a satisfactory denouement without his interference.

Then old Solon Beatty died!

This solved one of Bob Allen’s problems; it furnished plenty of authentic work for Sarah Pound—­for Bob was retained as attorney for old Solon’s estate, which he found to be in an amazing state of confusion.  Old Solon left behind him, reluctantly, property of divers kinds, and in numerous localities, valued at upward of a hundred thousand dollars, split and invested into as many enterprises and mortgages and savings accounts as there were dollars!  This made work.  There were papers to sort and list, to file and to schedule—­clerical work in abundance.  It interfered with the more important business of courtship, but even in this respect it was not without a certain value.

“Who’s going to get all this money?” Sarah asked, one morning after she had been listing mortgages until her head ached with the sight of figures and descriptions.  “Does Mary Beatty get it all?”

“Not unless we find a will somewhere.  Everybody thought Solon’s niece—­which is Mary Beatty—­would get the whole estate.  Solon intended it should go that way, and the Lord knows she’s worked for him and nursed him and coddled him enough to deserve it.  Gave her whole life up to the old codger ...  But we can’t find a will, and so she won’t get but half.  The rest goes to Solon’s nephew, Farley Curtis ... under the statute of descent and distribution, you know,” he finished, learnedly.