ng but the heartfelt desire to
escape from the gentleman who wished to improve his condition.

It was the same old story, world-old and world-wide. David, once he was
out of this apartment, would never return; with opportunity fairly
pushing against him, he turned from her in terror, refusing to know that
she was there.

Well, then, he _should_ see her!

Anthony's square chin set. He rose with a jerk and stood surveying the
nervous David, a tall, commanding, rather fearsome figure. Some little
time he transfixed the lad with his cold, hard eyes, while David grew
paler and paler; then he walked down upon David, who cringed visibly,
and seized his shoulders.

"David," he said sternly, "you have no conception at all of what I am
trying to offer you. I'm going to keep you here until you have."

"Keep me--here?" David faltered.

"Just that."

It was in Johnson Boller's mind to rise and deliver a little speech of
his own, pointing out the legal rights of David Prentiss and the chance
that, at some later date, interested parties might hear of this evening
and use it in moving Anthony toward an insane asylum. Yet he did not
speak, for he grew interested in David himself.

That bewildered youngster was shrinking and shrinking away from Anthony.
He was wilting before the stem eye, and he was smiling in the sickliest,
most ghastly fashion. And now he was nodding submissively and speaking:

"Yes, I'll stay, Mr. Fry."

"Ah!" said Anthony.

"I--I'm glad to stay," David assured him.

Then, looking at Anthony, he contrived another smile and yawned; and
having yawned once, he yawned again, vastly, and stretching the second
time.

"The--the trouble with me is that I'm sleepy," David stated, in a
strange, low voice. "I get that way because I'm not used to late hours,
and when I do get sleepy I--I can't think or talk or do anything. I'll
be myself in the morning, Mr. Fry; but if I'm going to stay here, I'd
like to go to bed now."

He yawned again and still again, quite noisily and eying Anthony in an
odd, expectant, pleading way. Anthony, after a puzzled moment, shrugged
his shoulders and smiled.

"Go to bed if you like, David," he said. "There are one or two things I
want to say to you first."

"Yes, sir," David said obediently.

"To-morrow, when you have slept on it, I'm confident that you will see
the huge opportunity that I have offered you, and that you will stay
with me as one of my little household. It is not