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214 In the meantime, Mr. McFaddan had come to the conclusion that the young man at the next table but one was obnoxious. It isn't exactly the way Mr. McFaddan would have put it, but as he would have put it less elegantly, it is better to supply him with a word out of stock.

The dashing young woman upon whom Stuyvesant lavished his bold and significant glances happened to be Mrs. McFaddan, whose scant twelve months as a wife gave her certain privileges and a distinction that properly would have been denied her hearth-loving predecessor who came over from Ireland to marry Con McFaddan when he was promoted to the position of foreman in the works,—and who, true to her estate of muliebrity, produced four of the most exemplary step-children that any second wife could have discovered if she had gone storking over the entire city.

Cornelius had married his stenographer. It was not his fault that she happened to be a very pretty young woman, nor could he be held responsible for the fact that he was approximately thirty years of age on the day she was born. Any way you look at it, she was his wife and dependent on him for some measure of protection.

And Mr. McFaddan, being an influence, sent for the proprietor of the café himself, and whispered to him Whereupon, Mr. Spangler, considering the side on which his bread was buttered, whispered back that it should attended to at once.

"And," pursued Mr. McFaddan, purple with suppressed rage, "if you don't, I will."

A minute or two later, one of the waiters approached