stopped the work on Gilbert's house--Mr., Morris
told me so--you've--"

The older man sprang from his seat and lunged toward the boy.

"Stop it!" he cried. "Now--quick!"

"Yes--and you've just given a dinner to the very men who helped steal
his money, and they sat here and laughed about it! I heard them as I
came in!" The boy's tears were choking him now.

"Didn't I tell you to stop, you idiot!" His fist was within an inch of
Jack's nose: "Do you want me to knock your head off? What the hell is it
your business who I invite to dinner--and what do you know about Mukton
Lode? Now you go to bed, and damn quick, too! Parkins, put out the
lights!"

And so ended the great crusade with our knight unhorsed and floundering
in the dust. Routed by the powers of darkness, like many another gallant
youth in the old chivalric days, his ideals laughed at, his reforms
flouted, his protests ignored--and this, too, before he could fairly
draw his sword or couch his lance.

CHAPTER XI

That Jack hardly closed his eyes that night, and that the first thing he
did after opening them the next morning was to fly to Peter for comfort
and advice, goes without saying. Even a sensible, well-balanced young
man--and our Jack, to the Scribe's great regret, is none of these--would
have done this with his skin still smarting from an older man's verbal
scorching--especially a man like his uncle, provided, of course, he had
a friend like Peter within reach. How much more reasonable, therefore,
to conclude that a man so quixotic as our young hero would seek similar
relief.

As to the correctness of the details of this verbal scorching, so
minutely described in the preceding chapter, should the reader ask how
it is possible for the Scribe to set down in exact order the goings-on
around a dinner-table to which he was not invited, as well as the
particulars of a family row where only two persons participated--neither
of whom was himself--and this, too, in the dead of night, with the
outside doors locked and the shades and curtains drawn--he must plead
guilty without leaving the prisoner's dock.

And yet he asks in all humility--is the play not enough?--or must he
lift the back-drop and bring into view the net-work of pulleys and
lines, the tanks of moonlight gas and fake properties of papier-mache
that produce the illusion? As a compromise would it not be the better
way after this for him to play the Harlequin, popping in and out at
the u