d many times listened to the Reverend Mr. Weightman read the parable
from the pulpit, but he had never reflected how it would be to be the
father of a real prodigal. What was to be done about the calf? Was there
to be a calf, or was there not? To tell the truth, Hilary wanted a calf,
and yet to have one (in spite of Holy Writ) would seem to set a premium
on disobedience and riotous living.

Again, Austen had reached thirty, an age when it was not likely he would
settle down and live an orderly and godly life among civilized beings,
and therefore a fatted calf was likely to be the first of many follies
which he (Hilary) would live to regret. No, he would deal with justice.
How he dealt will be seen presently, but when he finally reached this
conclusion, the clipping from the Pepper County Plainsman had not yet
come before his eyes.

It is worth relating how the clipping did come before his eyes, for no
one in Ripton had the temerity to speak of it. Primarily, it was because
Miss Victoria Flint had lost a terrier, and secondarily, because she
was a person of strong likes and dislikes. In pursuit of the terrier she
drove madly through Leith, which, as everybody knows, is a famous colony
of rich summer residents. Victoria probably stopped at every house
in Leith, and searched them with characteristic vigour and lack of
ceremony, sometimes entering by the side door, and sometimes by the
front, and caring very little whether the owners were at home or not.
Mr. Humphrey Crewe discovered her in a boa-stall at Wedderburn,--as his
place was called,--for it made little difference to Victoria that Mr.
Crewe was a bachelor of marriageable age and millions. Full, as ever, of
practical suggestions, Mr. Crewe proposed to telephone to Ripton and put
an advertisement in the Record, which--as he happened to know--went to
press the next day. Victoria would not trust to the telephone, whereupon
Mr. Crewe offered to drive down with her.

"You'd bore me, Humphrey," said she, as she climbed into her runabout
with the father and grandfather of the absentee. Mr. Crewe laughed as
she drove away. He had a chemical quality of turning invidious remarks
into compliments, and he took this one as Victoria's manner of saying
that she did not wish to disturb so important a man.

Arriving in the hot main street of Ripton, her sharp eyes descried the
Record sign over the drug store, and in an astonishingly short time she
was in the empty office. Mr. Par