t lot of
trouble."

"Where was it you saw him on the night of his taking off?" asked the
investigator.

"Why, at Danforth's. Things were a little dull," as though feeling an
explanation of his presence in the gambling-house were necessary, "and I
thought I'd drop around and get a little excitement out of the game if I
could. Burton was there and had just been cleaned out; he was in an
impatient sort of humor and was damning things at a tolerable speed.
Nothing vicious, you know, but just enough to show his ginger."

"Had you much of a conversation with him?"

"Yes; quite a long one." Dennison puffed at his cigarette, quite pleased
that he had an interested audience for his, for the time, favorite
topic. "You see, when Tom was in hard luck, he was a great fellow for
going back and calling up a lot of disagreeable things that had happened
to him. Maybe that doesn't sound very cheerful, but it wasn't so bad to
listen to. Burton had a past that was a bit different, you see. While
I'm sure he was a first-class sport in all essential things, still he
had mingled with a lot of people such as one seldom hears of outside
novels. His comments upon his family were also rather frequent. Usually,
if a fellow dislikes his family, he keeps it to himself, but Burton,
when he was in the dumps, talked about it. His son, Frank, who draws the
sporting cartoons for the _Standard_ came in for an especially strong
dressing down that night. It seems he makes a remarkable salary--for
he's devilish clever, I think--and yet, when his father was broke, and
called on him at odd times, over the telephone, for a little tide to
carry him over the bar, he always turned him down flat. Tom regarded
this as rank ingratitude. He was the boy's father, he said, and was
entitled to certain consideration and respect. He boiled over the thing
and said he meant to square the account some day."

"Burton as the wronged father is funny," observed Scanlon. "Why didn't
he have a little quivery music, and some paper snow flakes to fall on
him? That would have increased the effect."

"Maybe he wasn't altogether wrong," said Dennison, as though feeling
bound to defend his friend. "A son has certain duties toward his father,
I believe. But Burton couldn't expect much of that sort of thing from
his children; for it seems they weren't trained right. You know their
mother must have been a queer sort; set in her ways, and always
complaining. She had the country school