ys boasted to his sons that he'd never in his
life made a mistake in trusting the wrong man. Now Alfred and James
Albert, Junior, think they have a great joke on him; and they've twitted
him so much about it he'll scarcely speak to them. From the first,
Alfred says, the old chap's only repartee was, 'You wait and you'll
see!' And they've asked him so often to show them what they're going to
see that he won't say anything at all!"

"He's a funny old fellow," Mrs. Palmer observed. "But he's so shrewd I
can't imagine his being deceived for such a long time. Twenty years, you
said?"

"Yes, longer than that, I understand. It appears when this man--this
Adams--was a young clerk, the old gentleman trusted him with one of his
business secrets, a glue process that Mr. Lamb had spent some money to
get hold of. The old chap thought this Adams was going to have quite
a future with the Lamb concern, and of course never dreamed he was
dishonest. Alfred says this Adams hasn't been of any real use for years,
and they should have let him go as dead wood, but the old gentleman
wouldn't hear of it, and insisted on his being kept on the payroll; so
they just decided to look on it as a sort of pension. Well, one morning
last March the man had an attack of some sort down there, and Mr. Lamb
got his own car out and went home with him, himself, and worried about
him and went to see him no end, all the time he was ill."

"He would," Mrs. Palmer said, approvingly. "He's a kind-hearted
creature, that old man."

Her husband laughed. "Alfred says he thinks his kind-heartedness
is about cured! It seems that as soon as the man got well again he
deliberately walked off with the old gentleman's glue secret. Just
calmly stole it! Alfred says he believes that if he had a stroke in the
office now, himself, his father wouldn't lift a finger to help him!"

Mrs. Palmer repeated the name to herself thoughtfully. "'Adams'--'Virgil
Adams.' You said his name was Virgil Adams?"

"Yes."

She looked at her daughter. "Why, you know who that is, Mildred," she
said, casually. "It's that Alice Adams's father, isn't it? Wasn't his
name Virgil Adams?"

"I think it is," Mildred said.

Mrs. Palmer turned toward her husband. "You've seen this Alice Adams
here. Mr. Lamb's pet swindler must be her father."

Mr. Palmer passed a smooth hand over his neat gray hair, which was not
disturbed by this effort to stimulate recollection. "Oh, yes," he said.
"Of course--cer