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 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