r his tomfool paper, and said
that typewritten copy was absolutely necessary. Out goes the pater and
buys a typewriter, and engages a girl to operate it. Got her from some
typewriting school in town, and a rippin' fine little girl she was, too!
Name, Katie Walters. Pretty as a picture and lively as a cricket. Well,
Katie and I became jolly good pals. Pater found it out, and then just
what you might have expected happened. I got a lecture, and Katie got
the sack and was packed off to town before I could get a private word
with her. Now, the letter my father handed me this afternoon was
supposed to come from that girl."

"And didn't?"

"No, it didn't. It asked me to run up to town and meet her just outside
the typewriting school when the day's work was over. I went, but I
didn't do exactly as I'd been asked. I suppose the party that wrote it
hoped that I'd wait there until dark, and that when she didn't come out
I'd come to the conclusion that I'd missed her, and, being in town,
would probably go somewhere else and make a night of it, as I most
likely should have done under ordinary circumstances. But I didn't feel
like waiting round for that bally school to close; so as soon as I got
there, I walked upstairs and asked to see her."

"Humph! And she wasn't there?"

"No, she wasn't. And what's more, she hadn't been there for weeks and
weeks. Had got a position up in Scotland, and is going to be married to
a bank clerk next month."

"Oho!" said Cleek, "I see! I see!"

He walked over to the other side of the room, where there was a huge
potted azalea on an ebony pedestal. He had admired and he had examined
that azalea earlier in the evening, so it was, perhaps, only natural
that he should be attracted by it now. Still, for once in a way, it was
not the blossoming beauty of the plant that lured him to it, much as
flowers always had and always would appeal to him. He could see the
trend of young Raynor's tale now, the dim, shadowy outline of the
argument he was putting forth, the suspicion he was endeavouring to
lead; and he was afraid that something in his face or his eyes might
betray the true state of his feelings if he remained there in the bright
light for the man to study him. The big azalea offered the refuge of
shadow. He walked there and stood in the shade of it, and began idly
poking at the earth in the huge pot.

"Naturally, dear boy," he went on, "when you heard that you knew that
you had been taken in."