the hay-camp but that by some
unlucky fatality he had always contrived to miss the music-machine.

"Days back," rumbled the Baron thoughtfully, "I assigned to Themar the
task of discovering the identity of the man who--er--acquired a certain
roadster of mine and who, I felt fairly certain, would not lose track
of Miss Westfall but Themar, Poynter, came to grief--"

"Yes?" said Philip coolly. "You interest me exceedingly."

"He made his way back to me after many weeks of illness," said the
Baron slowly, "with a curious tale of a terrible thrashing, of a barge
and mules, of rough men who kicked him about and consigned him to a
city jail under the malicious charge of a mule-driver who swore that he
loved not black-and-tans--"

"Lord!" said Philip politely; "that was tough, wasn't it?"

"Just what, Poynter," begged the Baron, "is a black-and-tan?"

Mr. Poynter fancied he had heard the term before. It might have
reference to the color of a man's skin and hair.

An uncomfortable silence fell over the Baron's camp. The Baron himself
was the first to break it.

"Poynter," said he bluntly, "the circumstances of our separation at
Sherrill's have engendered, with reason, a slight constraint. There
was a night when you grievously misjudged me--"

"I am willing," admitted Philip politely, "to hear why I should alter
my views."

"_Mon Dieu_, Poynter!" boomed the Baron in exasperation, "you are
maddening. When you are politest, I fume and strike fire--here within!"

"Mental arson!" shrugged the Duke of Connecticut, relighting his
cigarette with a blazing twig. "For that singular crime. Excellency,
my deepest apologies."

The Baron stared, frowned, and laughed. One may know very little of
one's secretary, after all.

"You are a curious young man!" said he.

The Duke of Connecticut admitted that this might be so. Hay,
therapeutically, had effected an astonishing revolution in a nature
disposed congenitally to peace and trustfulness. Local applications of
hay had made him exceedingly suspicious and hostile. So much so indeed
that for days now he had slept by day, to the total wreck of his
aesthetic reputation, and watched by night, convinced that Miss
Westfall's camp was prone to strange and dangerous visitors.
Excellency no doubt remembered the knife and the bullet.

The Baron sighed.

"Poynter," he said simply, "to a man of my nature and diplomatic
position, a habit of candor is difficult. I wonder, howe