I. A. R. Wylie

“ He looked shyly at Middleton's injured profile. “Say, you're married! You know what the woman means to a fellow, don't you?”
“Yes,” said Peter somberly.
“Or perhaps you don't. Perhaps—say, I'm being tactless, aren't I?”
Peter laughed.
“Not a bit. I know what a woman means. All too well! But take my advice. Don't marry one with money. Sooner or later it comes between you. It's bound to. It's a sort of horrible poison which you can't shake off.”
TOM EDWARDES considered the advice in silence.
“I guess you're right, sir,” he said. “But I'm not going to lose Lizbeth because of her money. ”

“ Peter Middleton had a restaurant to his right, to his left and in front of him; and to his oversensitive nostrils the murky atmosphere was redolent with all the perfumes of the kitchen. A handsomely appointed limousine, having scraped the curb and splashed his carefully creased trousers with mud, jerked his thoughts into a new groove.
“Beastly plutocrats!” he muttered. “The world's full of them, and they all have motorcars. ”

“ The shaving stands for self-sacrifice, the trousers for resource. For me a gentleman must have both. You have both. And you are handsome. Oh,”—he waved a dirty hand in defiance of Peter's expostulations,—“I have eyes in my head, and I tell you what I see, because you must understand w'y I give a hundred pounds to you. Yes, I give a hundred pounds to you.” ”

“ Peter's jaw dropped.
“I believe you are cadging for votes or something,” he said. “Let me inform you that I am not a householder and never likely to be.”
“My dear young friend, I do not ask for a householder. I look for a gentleman—a poor gentleman. Now, I perceive you are both. You are hungry, but you have shaved, and your trousers are creased to perfection. That means sacrifice—”
“Intelligence,” Peter interposed. “By a certain patent manipulation with an ordinary mattress and a reasonable pair of trousers one can produce marvelous results on creases. ”

“ My name's Tom Edwardes, from New York. What's yours?”
“'Pon my word—” Peter began with rising exasperation.
“Dook, count, earl, baronet—which is it? I've sized it up as a dook. I guess nothing less would open Mortimer Crumm's sacred portals. Anyhow, I want to know. I want to know exactly where I stand. I'm sick to death of this rotten game. I'm getting reckless.”
Peter Middleton stopped short.
“I don't care how reckless you are,” he said, “but I wish to goodness you would go and be reckless somewhere else. There's Monte Carlo within twenty miles, and the deep sea within a few yards. ”

“ Crumm demanded wrathfully. “Where is she?”
“'She'—meaning your daughter, Miss Elizabeth Crumm—has gone for a walk,” Peter returned with bitterness.
“Walk? Of course. She always goes for walks, and I wont have it. You shouldn't have allowed her. You're a blamed fool, sir!”
Peter drew himself up, erect and flushed.
“Look here, Mr. Crumm,” he said, “if you wanted a robber-knight out of the ninth century, you should have said so. Nowadays a man can't force an unwilling woman to play tennis at the end of a poker. ”

“ And Lizbeth?”
“Miss Crumm is not marrying me for myself, either,” was the unmoved answer. “We have each something which the other wants. It is an honest exchange.”
Lizbeth appeared in the doorway, singing in the rough, untutored voice of girlhood.
“It's horrid! It's wicked!” Mrs. Middleton said. “Lizbeth's a child; she doesn't know life yet.”
“No one ever does, till it's over,” the Count returned sardonically.
Mrs. Middleton said no more. But after she had kissed Lizbeth good-by and waved to them from the gate, her face darkened with stern purpose. ”

“ Send me some one who will distract her attention from the scoundrel, some one who will keep an eye on her and see that she comes to no harm. He must be a gentleman or she will find him out; he must be a man, or she will not look at him.' That is the case as my millionaire writes it to me. What do you think?”
PETER leaned back. From a two-penny packet of cigarettes—his last earthly investment—he selected one weedy specimen and lighted it lugubriously.
“Do you mean to suggest that I should act as a sort of counter-irritant?” ”

“ Nothing could ever come of it. It's just silly of him to be so crazy as to suppose it could. Papa would thrust him out, neck and crop too, if he thought it worth while. But he knows it isn't. There's one thing Papa and I are agreed about—it's the only thing, so it's worth mentioning: Whoever it is, he's got to be somebody. Papa's plumped for the second son of a duke, and I for an Italian count. And there you are.”
“And there's the Count,” said Mrs. Middleton, sighing. “I suppose he got tired of waiting. I wonder where love comes in.”
“Oh, love!' said Miss Lizbeth Crumm scornfully. ”

“ Middleton sighed.
“That's right,” she agreed. “But it's our fault, all the same. It's the fault of our unholy hanker after things we haven't got and oughtn't to have. Now we've both got dollars. That's legitimate enough. Our papas piled them, and it's up to us to unpile them as satisfactorily as we can. But that doesn't satisfy us. We have hankers—you after a title, and Yours Truly after an English gentleman.”
“A what?” inquired Miss Lizbeth Crumm with interest.
“An English gentleman. Queer, wasn't it? But I made up my mind and Papa was all there about it. ”

“ Miss Crumm laid a brown, sympathetic paw on the quivering shoulders.
“Nowadays,” she said, “folks make their pile in their sleep—”
“Peter might—in his sleep,” Mrs. Middleton interrupted with a sob and a laugh. “He never could in a waking state. He hasn't got the business instinct of a grasshopper.”
“I've heard a story about a grasshopper—” Miss Crumm began, and then started violently. “My! It's five o'clock, and I promised the Count I'd be at the flagstaff a quarter of an hour ago: I must just fly. ”

“ You will play tennis, you will golf, you will ride, you will motor, you will distract her. When you have distracted, you will go away. You will kill lions in South Africa—voilà!”
“But supposing—” Peter began. “Supposing I am a scoundrel? Supposing I made the most of my opportunities? Supposing I—I refused to go?”
Mr. Johnson smiled.
“I have been in my profession twenty years,” he said. “I have the best testimonials from the worst members of the aristocracy—and I have learnt many things. I have learnt that a scoundrel is never hungry—and he never pawns his overcoat. He steals some one else's. ”

“ He tapped Peter mysteriously on the arm. “I need all sorts for my company: cads and ruffians, mountebanks and burglars, ladies—and gentlemen.”
“What do you want with 'gentlemen'?” Peter inquired with sternness.
“That is what I will tell you. Now, in a little villa near Mentone, I have a client—a millionaire with much money. Now, my millionaire has gout in both legs and a daughter. And the daughter has a will and a temper. That suggests nothing to you? No? But I will tell you. The lady has fallen in love. The father writes to me: 'I can do nothing. I am an invalid. ”

“ You don't appreciate her,” he stammered eagerly. “You don't know her as I do—I've known her ever since we were kiddies. We've always been such pals together, and—it was practically settled when they came over. And then they got the title mania—all our American women get it—it's a sort of Republican measles—and of course I was nowhere. ”

“ Shake hands, Mr.——”
“Call me Guy Mannering,” said Peter Middleton.
IN a pleasant little bay between Mentone and Monte Carlo there is a little villa—very white and dainty—built in a lovely garden, like a diamond in a setting of emerald. The villa changes its name every winter according to the nationality of the owner. Sometimes it is called “Mon Répos,” and then the owner, you may be sure, is English; and sometimes “Salve,” and then the owner is French; and sometimes “Mentone Lodge,” and then the owner is German. But it is always beautiful. Mrs. ”

“ Peter. “But I doubt my abilities. I am beginning to notice something in Miss “Crumm's manner which suggests weariness in my forms of entertainment.”
“I don't care. You've got to keep her going,” Mr. Crumm burst in testily. “Tennis, golf, riding, swimming—anything you like; but don't give her time to breathe. And if I get her back to New York safely, I'll give you an extra two hundred and fifty dollars. ”

“ Peter looked up at him with grim amusement.
“That surprises you, doesn't it? Yes, I'm Miss Lizbeth Crumm's chaperon at the rate of two hundred dollars a week, and my business is to keep off ineligible counts. You've knocked out the wrong man, Mr. ”

“ Peter Middleton, but he couldn't stand living on her money; so he departed, vowing he'd not come back till he had money of his own. These stories of Peter's adventures in search of fortune are among the best the author of “Toward Morning” ever wrote.
The Road to Fortune
By I. A. R. WYLIE
Illustrated by R. L. Lambdin
“ALL the winners! ”