The George Barr McCutcheon MEGAPACK ®. George Barr McCutcheon

a bombshell. The thought had come to every one, but no one had been given the courage to utter it. For them Brewster’s silence on the subject since the DeMille dinner seemed to have something ominous behind it.

      “It’s probably only a lovers’ quarrel,” said Bragdon. But further comment was cut short by the entrance of Monty himself, and they took their places at the table.

      Before the evening came to an end they were in possession of many astonishing details in connection with the coming ball. Monty did not say that it was to be given for Miss Drew and her name was conspicuously absent from his descriptions. As he unfolded his plans even the “Little Sons,” who were imaginative by instinct and reckless on principle, could not be quite acquiescent.

      “Nopper” Harrison solemnly expressed the opinion that the ball would cost Brewster at least $125,000. The “Little Sons” looked at one another in consternation, while Brewster’s indifference expressed itself in an unflattering comment upon his friend’s vulgarity. “Good Lord, Nopper,” he added, “you would speculate about the price of gloves for your wedding.”

      Harrison resented the taunt. “It would be much less vulgar to do that, Monty, saving your presence, than to force your millions down every one’s throat.”

      “Well, they swallow them, I’ve noticed,” retorted Brewster, “as though they were chocolates.”

      Pettingill interrupted grandiloquently. “My friends and gentlemen!”

      “Which is which?” asked Van Winkle, casually.

      But the artist was in the saddle. “Permit me to present to you the boy Croesus—the only one extant. His marbles are plunks and his kites are made of fifty-dollar notes. He feeds upon coupons a la Newburgh, and his champagne is liquid golden eagles. Look at him, gentlemen, while you can, and watch him while he spends thirteen thousand dollars for flowers!”

      “With a Viennese orchestra for twenty-nine thousand!” added Bragdon. “And yet they maintain that silence is golden.”

      “And three singers to divide twelve thousand among themselves! That’s absolutely criminal,” cried Van Winkle. “Over in Germany they’d sing a month for half that amount.”

      “Six hundred guests to feed—total cost of not less than forty thousand dollars,” groaned “Nopper,” dolefully.

      “And there aren’t six hundred in town,” lamented “Subway” Smith. “All that glory wasted on two hundred rank outsiders.”

      “You men are borrowing a lot of trouble,” yawned Brewster, with a gallant effort to seem bored. “All I ask of you is to come to the party and put up a good imitation of having the time of your life. Between you and me I’d rather be caught at Huyler’s drinking ice cream soda than giving this thing. But—”

      “That’s what we want to know, but what?” and “Subway” leaned forward eagerly.

      “But,” continued Monty, “I’m in for it now, and it is going to be a ball that is a ball.”

      Nevertheless the optimistic Brewster could not find the courage to tell Peggy of these picturesque extravagances. To satisfy her curiosity he blandly informed her that he was getting off much more cheaply than he had expected. He laughingly denounced as untrue the stories that had come to her from outside sources. And before his convincing assertions that reports were ridiculously exaggerated, the troubled expression in the girl’s eyes disappeared.

      “I must seem a fool,” groaned Monty, as he left the house after one of these explanatory trials, “but what will she think of me toward the end of the year when I am really in harness?” He found it hard to control the desire to be straight with Peggy and tell her the story of his mad race in pursuit of poverty.

      Preparations for the ball went on steadily, and in a dull winter it had its color value for society. It was to be a Spanish costume-ball, and at many tea-tables the talk of it was a god-send. Sarcastic as it frequently was on the question of Monty’s extravagance, there was a splendor about the Aladdin-like entertainment which had a charm. Beneath the outward disapproval there was a secret admiration of the superb nerve of the man. And there was little reluctance to help him in the wild career he had chosen. It was so easy to go with him to the edge of the precipice and let him take the plunge alone. Only the echo of the criticism reached Brewster, for he had silenced Harrison with work and Pettingill with opportunities. It troubled him little, as he was engaged in jotting down items that swelled the profit side of his ledger account enormously. The ball was bound to give him a good lead in the race once more, despite the heavy handicap the Stock Exchange had imposed. The “Little Sons” took off their coats and helped Pettingill in the work of preparation. He found them quite superfluous, for their ideas never agreed and each man had a way of preferring his own suggestion. To Brewster’s chagrin they were united in the effort to curb his extravagance.

      “He’ll be giving automobiles and ropes of pearls for favors if we don’t stop him,” said “Subway” Smith, after Monty had ordered a vintage champagne to be served during the entire evening. “Give them two glasses first, if you like, and then they won’t mind if they have cider the rest of the night.”

      “Monty is plain dotty,” chimed Bragdon, “and the pace is beginning to tell on him.”

      As a matter of fact the pace was beginning to tell on Brewster. Work and worry were plainly having an effect on his health. His color was bad, his eyes were losing their lustre, and there was a listlessness in his actions that even determined effort could not conceal from his friends. Little fits of fever annoyed him occasionally and he admitted that he did not feel quite right.

      “Something is wrong somewhere,” he said, ruefully, “and my whole system seems ready to stop work through sympathy.”

      Suddenly there was a mighty check to the preparations. Two days before the date set for the ball everything came to a standstill and the managers sank back in perplexity and consternation. Monty Brewster was critically ill.

      Appendicitis, the doctors called it, and an operation was imperative.

      “Thank heaven it’s fashionable,” laughed Monty, who showed no fear of the prospect. “How ridiculous if it had been the mumps, or if the newspapers had said, ‘On account of the whooping-cough, Mr. Brewster did not attend his ball.’”

      “You don’t mean to say—the ball is off, of course,” and Harrison was really alarmed.

      “Not a bit of it, Nopper,” said Monty. “It’s what I’ve been wanting all along. You chaps do the handshaking and I stay at home.”

      There was an immediate council of war when this piece of news was announced, and the “Little Sons” were unanimous in favor of recalling the invitations and declaring the party off. At first Monty was obdurate, but when some one suggested that he could give the ball later on, after he was well, he relented. The opportunity to double the cost by giving two parties was not to be ignored.

      “Call it off, then, but say it is only postponed.”

      A great rushing to and fro resulted in the cancelling of contracts, the recalling of invitations, the settling of accounts, with the most loyal effort to save as much as possible from the wreckage. Harrison and his associates, almost frantic with fear for Brewster’s life, managed to perform wonders in the few hours of grace. Gardner, with rare foresight, saw that the Viennese orchestra would prove a dead loss. He suggested the possibility of a concert tour through the country, covering several weeks, and Monty, too ill to care one way or the other, authorized him to carry out the plan if it seemed feasible.

      To Monty, fearless and less disturbed than any other member of his circle, appendicitis seemed as inevitable as vaccination.

      “The appendix is becoming an important feature in the Book of Life,” he once told Peggy Gray.

      He refused to go to a hospital, but pathetically begged to be taken to his old rooms at Mrs. Gray’s.

      With all the unhappy loneliness of a sick boy,