Burned Bridges

"Thanks," she answered. "Wouldn't it be more appropriate if you wished

that on us in person before we sail?"

"I don't know," he mumbled. "I--"

A perfectly mad impulse seized him.

"Sophie," he said sharply into the receiver.

"Yes."

He heard the quick intake of her breath at the other end, almost a gasp.

And the single word was slightly uncertain.

"What did you mean by a man standing on his own feet?"

She did not apparently have a ready answer. He pictured her, receiver in

hand, and he did not know if she were startled, or surprised--or merely

amused. That last was intolerable. And suddenly he felt like a fool.

Before that soft, sweet voice could lead him into further masculine

folly he hung up and walked out of the booth. For the next twenty

minutes his opinion of John P. Henderson's judgment of men was rather

low. He did not feel himself to be an individual with any force of

character. In homely language he said to himself that he, Wesley

Thompson, was nothing but a pot of mush.

However, there in the offing loomed the job. He turned into the first

clothing store he found, and purchased one of those all-covering duck

garments affected by motor-car workers. By that time he had recovered

sufficiently to note that an emotional disturbance does not always

destroy a man's appetite for food.