y that he was "in wrong" just the same, and he had no intention
of languishing heroically in jail if he could possibly keep out of it.

He hesitated, and finally he went to the house and let himself in
through a window whose lock he had "doctored" months ago. His mother
would not let him have a key. She believed that being compelled to
ring the bell and awaken her put the needful check upon Jack's habits;
that, in trailing downstairs in a silk kimono to receive him and his
explanation of his lateness, she was fulfilling her duty as a mother.

Jack nearly always humored her in this delusion, and his explanations
were always convincing. But he was not prepared to make any just now.
He crawled into the sun parlor, took off his shoes and slipped down
the hall and up the stairs to his room. There he rummaged through his
closet and got out a khaki outing suit and hurried his person into it.
In ten minutes he looked more like an overgrown boy scout than
anything else. He took a cased trout rod and fly book, stuffed an
extra shirt and all the socks he could find into his canvas creel,
slung a pair of wading boots over his shoulder and tiptoed to the
door.

There it occurred to him that it wouldn't be a bad idea to have some
money. He went back to his discarded trousers, that lay in a heap on
the floor, and by diligent search he collected two silver dollars and
a few nickels and dimes and quarters--enough to total two dollars and
eighty-five cents. He looked at the meagre fund ruefully, rubbed his
free hand over his hair and was reminded of something else. His hair,
wavy and trained to lie back from his forehead, made him easily
remembered by strangers. He took his comb and dragged the whole heavy
mop down over his eyebrows, and parted it in the middle and plastered
it down upon his temples, trying to keep the wave out of it.

He looked different when he was through; and when he had pulled a
prim, stiff-brimmed, leather-banded sombrero well down toward his
nose, he could find the heart to grin at his reflection.

The money problem returned to torment him. Of what use was this
preparation, unless he had some real money to use with it? He took off
his shoes again, and his hat; pulled on his bathrobe over the khaki
and went out and across to his mother's room.

Mrs. Singleton Corey had another illusion among her collection of
illusions about herself. She believed that she was a very light
sleeper; that the slightest noise wok