ng, and took up one of the pots.

Thorpe swung on his heel, and moved briskly toward the further door,
which he could see opened upon the lawn. He was conscious of annoyance
with this moon-faced, dawdling Gafferson, who had been afforded such a
splendid chance of profiting by an old acquaintanceship--it might even
be called, as things went in Honduras, a friendship--and who had so
clumsily failed to rise to the situation. The bitter thought of going
back and giving him a half-crown rose in Thorpe's inventive mind, and he
paused for an instant, his hand on the door-knob, to think it over. The
gratuity would certainly put Gafferson in his place, but then the spirit
in which it was offered would be wholly lost on his dull brain. And
moreover, was it so certain that he would take it? He had not said "sir"
once, and he had talked about medals with the pride of a scientist. The
rules were overwhelmingly against a gardener rejecting a tip, of course,
but if there was no more than one chance in twenty of it, Thorpe decided
that he could not afford the risk.

He quitted the greenhouse with resolution, and directed his steps toward
the front of the mansion. As he entered the hall, a remarkably tuneful
and resonant chime filled his ears with novel music. He looked and saw
that a white-capped, neatly-clad domestic, standing with her back to him
beside the newel-post of the stairs, was beating out the tune with two
padded sticks upon some strips of metal ranged on a stand of Indian
workmanship. The sound was delightful, but even more so was the
implication that it betokened breakfast.

With inspiration, he drew forth the half-crown which he had been
fingering in his pocket, and gave it to the girl as she turned. "That's
the kind of concert I like," he declared, bestowing the patronage of a
jovial smile upon her pleased and comely face. "Show me the way to this
breakfast that you've been serenading about."

Out in the greenhouse, meanwhile, Gafferson continued to regard blankly
the shrivelled, fatty leaves of the plant he had taken up. "Thorpe,"
he said aloud, as if addressing the tabid gloxinia--"Thorpe--yes--I
remember his initials--J. S. Thorpe. Now, who's the man that told me
about him? and what was it he told me?"

CHAPTER VII

THE experiences of the breakfast room were very agreeable indeed. Thorpe
found himself the only man present, and, after the first few minutes of
embarrassment at this discovery, it filled hi