Wink's moustache was getting quite bushy, but his manner was still grand, gloomy and peculiar. He would walk by me, but would not talk to me, although I made every effort to make myself agreeable. He tugged viciously at his little moustache until I felt like telling him: "Kill it, but don't worry it to death!"

Just before we got on the train he said to me in a cold and formal tone: "May I write to you, Miss Allison?"

"Certainly, Mr. White!"

"But will you answer my letters?" He looked so sad and melodramatic that I burst out laughing.

"Of course I will, Wink! Don't be so silly!"

The last I saw of him he was trying seemingly to pull his poor little moustache out by the roots.


CHAPTER XXIII.

UNTIL NEXT TIME.