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New York seen city to Johnnie O'Reilly when he stepped out into it on theit was bleak and cold: the north wind, hailing direct frolad when he found shelter in the building which housed the offices of the Carter I Company The tropics had thinned O'Reilly's blood, for the Cuban winds bear a kiss instead of a sting; therefore he paused in the lower hallway, jostled by thecrowds, and tried to warhtened

He was far from weak-hearted In fact, few O'Reillys were that, and Johnnie had an ingrained self-assurance whichsmile that ith it Yet all the way from Havana he had seen in his mind's eye old Sam Carter intrenched behind his flat-topped desk, and that picture had et the carefully rehearsed speech in which he intended to resign his position as an employee and his prospects as a son-in-law

That desk of Mr Carter's was always bare and orderly, cleared for action, like the deck of a battle-ship, and over it ht, for the orous and irascible te black powder and nitroglycerine--a combination of incalculable destructive power It was a perilously unstable nite it; on other occasions the office force pussy-footed past Carter's door on felt soles, and even then the slightest jar often caused the untoward thing to let go In either event there was a deafening roar, e O'Reilly felt sure that whatever the condition of Mr Carter's digestion or the serenity of hisof their interview, the news he had to impart would serve as an effective detonator, after which it would be every man for hi the firm's unprofitable Cuban connections which O'Reilly feared would cause the decks to heave and the ship to rock--Sa financial reverse--it was the blow to his pride at learning that anybody could prefer another girl to his daughter Johnnie shook his shoulders and stao

He did gain courage, however, by thinking of Rosa Varona as he had last seen her, with ar lips aquiver at his going The picture warically, and it ith a restored determination to make a clean breast of the matter and face the worst that he took the elevator