r," I said. "He will learn to mind."

Pythagoras looked as if he had been struck, and quickly put his arms
across his eyes. In a moment his shoulders were heaving. At last I had
found a vulnerable spot in the stoic, and I began to relent.

"See here, Pythagoras," I said, "if I let you up in time to go to the
game, will you promise me something?"

"Anything," came in a muffled voice.

"Will you promise not to spy on Beth and Rob and keep Emerald and
Demetrius from doing it?"

"Yes," he promised quickly, his arm coming down and his face
brightening. "Sure I will, but I did want to hear what they said."

"Why?" asked Rob interestedly.

"We're getting up a show, and Em is going to take the part of a girl
and he spoons with Tolly, and we didn't know what to have them say to
each other."

"I'll rehearse you on the play, and prompt you," said Beth with a
little giggle.

"Come on upstairs with me now," I said to Pythagoras.

When I landed him at his door, he leaned up against me, and rubbed his
cheek against my arm.

"Thank you for letting me go to the game," he said.

I found myself responding to his affectionate advance. This would
clearly never do. I couldn't let another Polydore squeeze himself into
my regard.

"Silvia," I said abruptly, as I came into our room, "we must really
make some immediate plan for disposing of the Polydores, or, at
least, of 'Them Three.'"

"Huldah is managing them tolerably well," demurred Silvia. "Since they
depreciated in market value from five thousand per to nothing, she has
resumed her former harsh treatment of them."

"Well, we are not going to keep them," I replied with finality. "We
are under no obligations to do so. I am going to put them in a school
for boys and use the blank check Felix Polydore left to pay for their
tuition."

"I suppose that is what we will have to do," she admitted with a
little sigh. "Yet, Lucien, it doesn't seem quite right. If they are in
a boys' school, they will keep on right along the same lines. They
need home influence and contact with women. Demetrius is fond of music
and will sit still and listen when I play. Emerald obeyed me today the
first time I spoke, and I even thought I saw a glimmer of good in
Pythagoras."

I didn't tell her that this glimmer was what had decided me to dispose
of him.

"It would, doubtless, be better for them to stay," I admitted, "but I
am not going to be a martyr to the cause. They are going."

The next