eir houses.

Allen introduced Dan to the households he particularly fancied and they
made calls together on Dan's free evenings or on Sunday afternoons.
Snobbishness was a late arrival among us; any young man that any one
vouched for might know the "nicest" girls. Harwood's social circle was
widening; Fitch and his wife said a good word for him in influential
quarters, and the local Yale men had not neglected him. Allen liked the
theatre, and exercised considerable ingenuity in devising excuses for
paying for the tickets when they took young women of their acquaintance.
He pretended to Dan that he had free tickets or got them at a discount.
His father made him a generous allowance and he bought a motor car in
which he declared Dan had a half interest; they needed it, he said, for
their social adventures.

At the Thatcher house, Harwood caught fitful glimpses of Allen's father,
a bird of passage inured to sleeping-cars. Occasionally Harwood dined
with the father and son and they would all adjourn to Allen's shop on
the third floor to smoke and talk. When Allen gave rein to his fancy and
began descanting upon the grandeur of the Republic and the Beautiful
Experiment making in "these states," Dan would see a blank puzzled look
steal into Thatcher's face. Thatcher adored Allen: he had for him the
deep love of a lioness for her cubs; but all this idealistic patter the
boy had got hold of--God knew where!--sounded as strange to the rich
man as a discourse in Sanskrit.

Thatcher had not been among Bassett's callers in the new office in the
Boordman, but late one afternoon, when Dan was deep in the principles of
evidence, Thatcher came in.

"I'm not expecting Mr. Bassett to-day, if you wish to see him," said
Dan.

"Nope," Thatcher replied indifferently, "I'm not looking for Mort. He's
in Fraserville, I happen to know. Just talking to him on the telephone,
so I rather guessed you were alone, that's why I came up. I want to talk
to you a little bit, Harwood. It must be nearly closing time, so suppose
you lock the door. You see," he continued, idling about the room,
"Mort's in the newspapers a good deal, and not being any such terrible
sinner as he is I don't care to have his labels tacked on me too much.
Not that Mort isn't one of my best friends, you know; but a family man
like me has got to be careful of his reputation."

Harwood opened his drawer and took out a box of cigars. Thatcher
accepted one and lighted it deliber