Johnson Boller in a perfectly
human fashion. Johnson Boller, on the other hand, did not grin at all.
He merely gazed at his old friend until, after a minute or two, Anthony
asked:

"Well--what do you think?"

"I think you're a nut!" Johnson Boller said with sweet candor. "I think
you're a plain da--well, I think you're unbalanced. You know what that
young thug will do to you, don't you?"

"Eh?"

"If he's the crook he looks, he'll light out of here about three in the
morning with everything but the piano and your encyclopaedia. If he isn't
a crook, just as soon as he gets loose and talks it over with his
friends, he'll have you pinched for detaining him here against his will;
and I'll give you ten to one that he collects not less than twenty-five
hundred dollars before he's through. You scared him stiff with your
eagle eye and your crazy notions, and he pleaded guilty so he could go
to bed and get away from you. I'll have to testify to that if he calls
on me."

"Fiddlesticks!" said Anthony Fry.

"Is it? Wait and see, Anthony," Johnson Boller said earnestly. "That kid
spells trouble. I can feel it in the air."

"You can always feel it in the air," Anthony smiled.

"Maybe so; but this feeling amounts to a pain!" Boller said warmly.
"This is a hunch--a premonition--one of those prophetic aches that can't
be ignored. Why, he had a fight started before you had spoken ten words
to him, and----"

"Oh, rot!" Anthony said.

Johnson Boller drew a deep, concerned breath.

"On the level," he said, "are you going to keep this kid imprisoned
here?"

"By no means," Anthony laughed. "As a matter of fact, all I want to do
is to talk to him in the morning. I want to know, Johnson, whether he
will actually persist in fighting off the chance I'm offering
him--because it's so confounded characteristic of the whole human race.
If he's as obstinate in the morning as he is now--well, I suppose I'll
turn him loose with a ten-dollar bill, and look around for another
subject. I'd really like to approach a dozen men, picked haphazard, and
write a little paper on the manner in which they greet opportunity."

"Yes, but not while I'm with you," Johnson Boller said. "Anthony, do
this--get the kid aside in the morning and tell him you'd been drinking
heavily all day and didn't know what you were doing to-night. See? Make
a joke of it and slip him fifty to keep quiet, and then----"

"Ah, Wilkins," Anthony smiled. "Got his togs, did you