he kind they cut out of a cocoanut.

Gerald eyes her for a while; then he leans over to me and whispers, "Is
this the butler's night off?"

"Yes," says I. "He has seven a week. This is one of 'em."

After he's thought that over he grins. "I see," says he. "You means
you haven't a butler? Why, I thought everyone did."

"There's a few of us struggles along without," says I. "We don't brag
about it, though. But where do you keep your butler now, Mr. Gerald?"

That catches him with his guard down, and he begins to look mighty
puzzled.

"Oh, come," says I, "you might's well own up. You've brought the
runaway act right down to the minute, son; but barrin' the details,
it's the same old game. I done the same when I was your age, only
instead of runnin' off in a thousand-dollar bubble, I sneaked into an
empty freight car."

"Did you?" says he, his eyes openin' wide. "Was it nice, riding in the
freight car?"

"Never had so much fun out of a car ride since," says I. "But I was on
the war path then. My outfit was a blank cartridge pistol, a scalpin'
knife hooked from the kitchen, and a couple of nickel lib'ries that
told all about Injun killin'. Don't lay out to slaughter any redskins,
do you?"

He looks kind of weary, and shakes his head.

"Well, runnin' a trolley car has its good points, I s'pose," says I;
"but I wouldn't tackle it for a year or so if I was you. You'd better
give me your 'phone number, and I'll ring up the folks, so they won't
be worryin' about you."

But say, this Gerald boy, alias Mr. Smith, don't fall for any smooth
talk like that. He just sets his jaws hard and remarks, quiet like, "I
guess I'd better be going."

"Where to?" says I.

"New Haven ought to be a good place to sell the machine," says he. "I
can get a job there too."

At that I goes to pumpin' him some more, and he starts in to hand out
the weirdest line of yarns I ever listened to. Maybe he wa'n't a very
skilful liar, but he was a willin' one. Quick as I'd tangle him up on
one story, he'd lie himself out and into another. He accounts for his
not havin' any home in half a dozen different ways, sometimes killin'
off his relations one by one, and then bunchin' 'em in a railroad wreck
or an earthquake. But he sticks to Chicago as the place where he lived
last, although the nearest he can get to the street number is by sayin'
it was somewhere near Central Park.

"That happens to be in New York," says I.

"Ther