g, in my name and your name--John
Wingfield!"

Jack was swallowing spasmodically; he moistened his lips; he grasped the
balcony railing so tight that his knuckles were white knobs on the bronze
back of his hand. The father in his enthusiasm hardly noticed this.

"What couldn't I have done," he added, "if I had had all this to begin
with! All that you will have to begin with!"

Jack managed a smile, rather thin and wavering.

"Yes, I am going to try my best."

"All I ask! You have me for a teacher and I know one or two little
things!" said the father, fairly grinning in the transmission of his
joke. "Now, you must be short on clothes," he added; "so you can get
something ready-made downstairs while you have some making at
Thompson's."

"Don't you buy your clothes, your best clothes, I mean, in your own
store?" Jack asked. It was his first question in getting acquainted with
his future property.

"No. We cater to a little bigger class of trade--one of the many twists
of the business," was the answer. "And now we'll meet at dinner, shall
we, and have a good long talk," he concluded, closing the interview and
turning to the door, his mind snapping back to the matter he was about to
take up when he had been interrupted with more eagerness than ever, now
that his egoism thrilled with a still greater purpose.

"I--I left my hat on your desk," Jack explained, as he followed his
father into the office.

"Well, you don't want to be carrying packages about," said John
Wingfield, Sr. "That is hardly the fashion in New York, though John
Wingfield's son can make it so if he wants to. I'll have that
flat-brimmed western one sent up to the house and you can fit out with
another when you go downstairs for clothes. That is, I suppose you will
want to keep this as a memento, eh?" and he held out the cowpuncher,
sweeping it with a sardonic glance.

"No," Jack answered decisively, out of the impulse that came with the
sight of the veteran companion that had shielded him from the sun on
the trail. It was good to have any kind of an impulse after his
giddiness on the balcony at sight of all the phantasmagoria of detail
that he must master.

If he were to be equal to this future there must be an end of temptation.
He must shake himself free of the last clinging bit of chrysalis of the
old life. His amazed father saw the child of the desert, where convention
is made by your fancy and the supply of water in your canteen, go to the