CONTENTS
CHAPTER I — THE FIVE LITTLE SYKESES
CHAPTER II — RELATING TO AN ODD RELATION
CHAPTER III — THE DEATH OF UNCLE JOE
CHAPTER IV — FORTY MINUTES LATE
CHAPTER V — THE STORY OF JOSEPH
CHAPTER VI — THE HONOURABLE THOMAS SINGLETON BINGLE
CHAPTER VII — SEARCHERS REWARDED
CHAPTER VIII — THE AFFAIRS OF AMY AND DICK
CHAPTER IX — THE MAN CALLED HINMAN
CHAPTER X — MR. BINGLE THINKS OF BECOMING AN ANGEL
CHAPTER XI — A TIMELY LESSON IN LOVE
CHAPTER XII — THE BIRTH OF NAPOLEON
CHAPTER XIII — TROUBLE, TROUBLE, TROUBLE!
CHAPTER XIV — THE LAW'S LAST WORD
CHAPTER XVI — ANOTHER CHRISTMAS EVE
CHAPTER XVII — THE LAST TO ARRIVE
A coal fire crackled cheerily in the little open grate that supplied warmth to the steam-heated living-room in the modest apartment of Mr. Thomas S. Bingle, lower New York, somewhere to the west of Fifth Avenue and not far removed from Washington Square—in the wrong direction, however, if one must be precise in the matter of emphasizing the social independence of the Bingle family—and be it here recorded that without the genial aid of that grate of coals the living-room would have been a cheerless place indeed. Mr. Bingle had spent most of the evening in trying to coax heat from the lower regions into the pipes of the seventh heaven wherein he dwelt, and without the slightest sign of success. The frigid coils in the corner of the room remained obdurate. If they indicated the slightest symptom of warmth during the evening, it was due entirely to the expansive generosity of the humble grate and not because they were moved by inward remorse. They were able, however, to supply the odour of far-off steam, as of an abandoned laundry; and sometimes they chortled meanly, revealing signs of an energy that in anything but a steam pipe might have been mistaken for a promise to do better.
Mr. Bingle poked the fire and looked at his watch. Then he crossed to the window, drew the curtains and shade aside and tried to peer through the frosty panes into the street, seven stories below. A holly wreath hung suspended in the window, completely obscured from view on one side by hoar frost, on