xtremely disagreeable task, and pleaded my cause
with all the ardor of which I was capable."

I here caught Miss Cooper indulging in a furtive little smile.

"When I concluded by bluntly asking him for the ruby, his face was a
study." Maillot drew a long breath, and shook his head over the
recollection.

"I wouldn't again undergo the ordeal of the succeeding minutes for a
whole bushel-basketful of rubies, every one as large and priceless as
the blessed stone I was after. It was a question whether I 'd have to
defend myself from a sudden assault, or be treated as a dangerous
lunatic. And all the time he sat there twiddling his thumbs,
apparently oblivious of my presence.

"I can see the old gentleman now. He was sitting there where Miss
Cooper is, his chin on his breast, and from time to time he would take
me in with a look from beneath his gathered brows, which, for sheer,
downright hyperborean iciness, had a Dakota blizzard backed away down
to the equator and stewing in its own perspiration. I was afraid to
say anything more, and at the same time I was wild with impatience to
get some inkling of what was going on behind his impassive crust.

"And, Swift, you never, never could guess how that silence was broken.
He suddenly tossed his head back, and burst out with a great guffaw of
laughter. I jumped clear out of my chair.

"'What a nephew!' he cried, while I stood staring at him in dumb
astonishment. 'Good Lord, what I 've missed by not knowing you all
these years! A chip off of the old block!' He abruptly squared round
on me, and paid me a compliment very similar to one I had heard a few
nights before.

"'See here, my boy,' said he, admiringly, 'for pure and unlimited
cheek, you 're in a class by yourself. Why, the very audacity of your
impudence is not without its attraction! Here you come into my house
and ask me to stand and deliver a fortune, with all the light and airy
assurance of a bill-collector. And the best of it is that you are dead
in earnest, too--oh, Lord!' And he went off into another gale of
laughter.

"I here timidly mentioned the fact that I had never in my life been
more dead in earnest.

"'Earnest!' he barked at me. 'D' ye suppose I can't tell when a man
means what he says? Humph!

"'But see here, my lad, it's a pity we were n't drawn together years
ago,' he broke off to snap at me. 'Sit down! I 'm not going to
bite--if I am a "hound."'

"Well! I dropped back into m