ifferent to the reporter's restlessness, and
Dan's professional pride rebelled.

"Pardon me, but I must see Mr. Thatcher. Where is he, please?"

"He's gone, skipped! No manner of use in looking for him. On my honor,
he's not in town."

"Then why didn't you say so and be done with it?" demanded Dan angrily.

"Please keep your seat," replied the young fellow from the workbench. "I
really wish you would."

He drew on his pipe for a moment, and Dan, curiously held by his look
and manner and arrested by the gentleness of his voice, awaited further
developments. He had no weapons with which to deal with this composed
young person in overalls and scarlet hose. He swallowed his anger; but
his curiosity now clamored for satisfaction.

"May I ask just who you are and why on earth you brought me up here?"

"Those are fair questions--two of them. To the first, I am Allen
Thatcher, and this is my father's house. To the second--" He hesitated a
moment, then shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "Well, if you must
know,--I was so devilish lonesome!"

He gazed at Harwood quizzically, with a half-humorous, half-dejected
air.

"If you're lonesome, Mr. Thatcher, it must be because you prefer it that
way. It can't be necessary for you to resort to kidnapping just to have
somebody to talk to. I thought you were in Europe."

"Nothing as bad as that! What's your name, if you don't mind?"

When Dan gave it, Thatcher nodded and thanked him.

"College man?"

"Yale."

"That's altogether bully. I envy you, by George! You see," he went on
easily, as though in the midst of a long and intimate conversation,
"they took me abroad, and it never really counted. They always treated
me as though I were an invalid; and kept me for a year or two squatting
on an Alp on account of my lungs. It amused them, no doubt; and it
filled in my time till I was too old to go to college. But now that I'm
grown up, I'm going to stay at home. I've been here a month, having a
grand old time; a little lonesome, and yet I'm a person of occupations
and Hans cooks enough for me to eat. I haven't been down town much, but
nobody knows me here anyhow. Dad's been living at the club or a hotel,
but he moved up here to be with me. Dad's the best old chap on earth. I
guess he liked my coming back. They rather bore him, I fancy. We've had
a bully day or two, but dad has skipped. Gone to New York; be back in a
week. Wanted me to go; but not me! I've had enough travel for