s, Captain
Selwyn--although I must say she was that polite and ladylike and," added
Mrs. Greeve irrelevantly, "a art rocker come for you, too, and another
for Mr. Lansing, which I placed in your respective settin'-rooms."

"Oh," said Selwyn, laughing in relief, "it's all right, Mrs. Greeve. The
lady who came is my sister, Mrs. Gerard; and whenever she comes you are
to admit her whether or not I am here."

"She said she might come again," nodded Mrs. Greeve as he mounted the
stairs; "am I to show her up any time she comes?"

"Certainly--thank you," he called back--"and Mr. Gerard, too, if he
calls."

He looked into Boots's room as he passed; that gentleman, in bedroom
costume of peculiar exotic gorgeousness, sat stuffing a pipe with shag,
and poring over a mass of papers pertaining to the Westchester Air
Line's property and prospective developments.

"Come in, Phil," he called out; "and look at the dinky chair somebody
sent me!" But Selwyn shook his head.

"Come into my rooms when you're ready," he said, and closed the door
again, smiling and turning away toward his own quarters.

Before he entered, however, he walked the length of the hall and
cautiously tried the handle of Gerald's door. It yielded; he lighted a
match and gazed at the sleeping boy where he lay very peacefully among
his pillows. Then, without a sound, he reclosed the door and withdrew to
his apartment.

As he emerged from the bedroom in his dressing-gown he heard the front
door-bell below peal twice, but paid no heed, his attention being
concentrated on the chair which Nina had sent him. First he walked
gingerly all around it, then he ventured nearer to examine it in detail,
and presently he tried it.

"Of course," he sighed--"bless her heart!--it's a perfectly impossible
chair. It squeaks, too." But he was mistaken; the creak came from the
old stairway outside his door, weighted with the tread of Mrs. Greeve.
The tread and the creaking ceased; there came a knock, then heavy
descending footsteps on the aged stairway, every separate step
protesting until the incubus had sunk once more into the depths from
which it had emerged.

As this happened to be the night for his laundry, he merely called out,
"All right!" and remained incurious, seated in the new chair and
striving to adjust its stiff and narrow architecture to his own broad
shoulders. Finally he got up and filled his pipe, intending to try the
chair once more under the most favourable