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  “Met Dick Morton?”

It was true then! Here was the girl whom Richard ought, for his worldly good, to marry, and she was not a woman at all, only an Angora kitten, and moreover a kitten in love with Tom Beckett!

“Yes, I have met him, but I only this moment suspected it!”

“Have you known him long?”

“Less than a year.”

“That settles it!” she cried, leaping to her feet excitedly. “If Dick Morton has known you for a year he won’t want me and I can marry Tom! Goody, goody, goody!”

“Stuff and nonsense!” I said quickly. “Richard Morton is only a very dear friend.”

“Stuff and nonsense yourself! No man with an eye in his head could be a dear friend to you! And Dick Morton is the hero sort who does n’t care for Dottie Dimples, but worships Vashtis and Zuleika-Zenobias. Have you any money?”

“Not a penny!”