lue, his feet showed bare in toe slippers, his
wavy, yellowish hair had the tousled effect of a very recent separation
from a pillow. A cigarette depended from the corner of his mouth.

Larry started to rise. But the young man arrested the motion with a
gesture of mock imperativeness.

"Keep your seat, fair sir; I would fain have speech with thee." He
crossed and sat on a corner of Larry's table, one slippered foot
dangling, and looked Larry over with an appraising eye. "Permit me to
remark, sir," he continued in his grand manner, "that you look as though
you might be some one."

"Is that what you wanted to tell me, Mr. Sherwood?" queried Larry.

The other's grand manner vanished and he grinned. "Forget the 'Mr.
Sherwood,' or you'll make me feel not at home in my own house," he
begged with humorous mournfulness. "Call me Dick. Everybody else does.
That's settled. Now to the reason for this visitation at such an ungodly
hour. Sis has just been in picking on me. Says I was rude to you last
night. I suppose I was. I'd had several from my private stock early in
the evening; and several more around in jovial Manhattan joints where
prohibition hasn't checked the flow of happiness if you know the
countersign. The cumulative effect you saw, and were the victim of. I
apologize, sir."

"That's all right, Mr.--"

"Dick is what I said," interrupted the other.

"Dick, then. It's all right. I understand."

"Thanks. I'll call you Old Captain Nemo for short. Sis didn't tell
me your name or anything about you, and she said I wasn't to ask you
questions. But whatever Isabel does is usually one hundred percent
right. She said I'd probably be seeing a lot of you, so I'll introduce
myself. You'd learn all about me from some one else, anyhow, so you
might as well learn about me from me and get an impartial and unbiased
statement. Clever of me, ain't it, to beat 'em to it?"

Larry found himself smiling back into the ingratiating, irresponsible,
boyish face. "I suppose so."

"I'll shoot you the whole works at once. Name, Richard Livingston
Sherwood. Years, twenty-four, but alleged not yet to have reached the
age of discretion. One of our young flying heroes who helped save France
and make the world safe for something or other by flapping his wings
over the endless alkali of Texas. Occupation, gentleman farmer."

"You a farmer!" exclaimed Larry.

"A gentleman farmer," corrected Dick. "The difference between a farmer
and a gentlem