urned after
the final scholastic triumph in Boston; and for the first few days he
escaped asphyxiation chiefly because the affairs of Gordon and Gordon
and the Chiawassee Consolidated gave him no time to test its quality.

But after the first week he began to breathe it unmistakably. One
evening he called on the Farnsworths; the ladies were not at home to
him. The next night he saddled Saladin and rode over to Fairmont; the
Misses Harrison were also unable to see him, and the butler conveyed a
deftly-worded intimation pointing to future invisibilities on the part
of his mistresses. The evening being still young, Tom tried Rockwood
and the Dell, suspicion settling into conviction when the trim
maidservant at the Stanley villa went near to shutting the door in his
face. At the Dell he fared a little better. The Young-Dicksons were
going out for an after-dinner call on one of the neighbors, and Tom met
them at the gate as he was dismounting. There were regrets apparently
hearty; but in recasting the incident later, Tom remembered that it was
the husband who did the talking, and that Mrs. Young-Dickson stood in
the shadow of the gate tree, frigidly silent and with her face averted.

"Once more, old boy, and then we'll quit," he said to Saladin at the
remounting, and the final rein-drawing was at the stone-pillared gates
of Rook Hill. Again the ladies were not at home, but Mr. Vancourt
Henniker came out and smoked a cigar with his customer on the piazza.
The talk was pointedly of business, and the banker was urbanely
gracious--and mildly inquisitive. Would there be a consolidation of the
allied iron industries of Gordonia when the Farleys should return? Mr.
Henniker thought it would be undeniably profitable to all concerned, and
offered his services as financiering promoter and intermediary. Would
Mr. Gordon come and talk it over with him--at the bank?

Tom found his father smoking a bedtime pipe on the picturesque veranda
at Woodlawn when he reached home. Whistling for William Henry Harrison
to come and take his horse, he drew up one of the porch chairs and
filled and lighted his own pipe. For a time there was such silence as
stands for communion between men of one blood, and it was the father who
first broke it.

"Been out callin', son?" he asked, marking the Tuxedo and the white
expanse of shirt front.

"No, I reckon not," was the reply, punctuated by a short laugh. "The
Avenue seems to be depopulated."

"So? I had