have heard of Mr. Locker," said Mr. Fox, "but I never met him before.
He must be very odd."

"He admits that himself," said Mrs. Easterfield, "but he asserts that he
spends a great deal of his time getting even with people."

In a reasonable time Mr. Locker appeared and congratulated himself upon
having struck the roast.

"As a matter of fact," he said, "we will now all begin dinner together.
What has gone before was nothing but overture. If I can help it I never
get in until the beginning of the play."

He bowed parenthetically as Mrs. Easterfield introduced him to the
company; and, as she looked at him, Olive forgot for a moment her uncle
and his visitor.

"Don't send for soup, I beg of you," said Mr. Locker, as he took his
seat. "I regard it as a rare privilege to begin with the inside cut of
beef."

Mr. Locker was not allowed to do all the talking; his hostess would not
permit that; but under the circumstances he was allowed to explain his
lateness.

"You know I have been spending a week with the Bartons," he said, "and
last night I came over from their house to the station in a carriage.
There is a connecting train, but I should have had to take it very early
in the evening, so I saved time by hiring a carriage."

"Saved time?" exclaimed Mrs. Easterfield.

"I saved all the time from dinner until the Bartons went to bed, which
would have been lost if I had taken the train. Besides, I like to travel
in carriages. One is never too late for a carriage; it is always bound
to wait for you."

In the recesses of his mind Mr. Fox now said to himself, "This is a
fool." And Mrs. Fox, in the recesses of her mind, remarked, "I am quite
sure that Mr. Fox will look upon this young man as a fool."

"I spent what was left of the night at a tavern near the station,"
continued Mr. Locker, "where I would have had to stay all night if I
had not taken the carriage. And I should have been in plenty of time for
the morning train if I had not taken a walk before breakfast. Apparently
that is a part of the world where it takes a good deal longer to go back
to a place than it does to get away from it."

"But where did the woman come in?" asked Mrs. Easterfield.

"Oh, she came in with some tea and sandwiches in the middle of the
afternoon," said Mr. Locker. "I was waiting in the parlor of the tavern.
She was fairly young, and as I ate she stood and talked. She talked
about Horace Walpole." At this even Olive smiled. "It was o