"We'd thought of advertising in the daily press somewhat after this fashion: 'Lost, strayed, or stolen, one Billy; comrade, good friend, and kind cheerer-up of lonely hearts.

Any information thankfully received by her bereft, sorrowing friends.'" Billy joined in the laugh that greeted this sally, but Arkwright noticed that she tried to change the subject from her own affairs to a discussion of the new song on Alice Greggory's piano.

Calderwell, however, was not to be silenced.
"The last I heard of this elusive Billy," he resumed, with teasing cheerfulness, "she was running down a certain lost calory that had slipped away from her husband's breakfast, and--" Billy wheeled sharply.
"Where did you get hold of that ?" she demanded.
"Oh, I didn't," returned the man, defensively.

"I never got hold of it at all.

I never even saw the calory--though, for that matter, I don't think I should know one if I did see it! What we feared was, that, in hunting the lost calory, you had lost yourself, and--" But Billy would hear no more.