money he has left, and how much we have got to supply, in
order to make up his shortage."

Matt now perceived the extent of his father's purpose, and on its plane
he honored it.

"Father, you're splendid!"

"Stuff! I'm in a corner. What else is there to do? What less could we
do? What's the money for, if it isn't to--" Hilary choked with the
emotion that filled him at the sight of his son's face.

Every father likes to have his grown-up son think him a good man; it is
the sweetest thing that can come to him in life, far sweeter than a
daughter's faith in him; for a son _knows_ whether his father is good or
not. At the bottom of his soul Hilary cared more for his son's opinion
than most fathers; Matt was a crank, but because he was a crank, Hilary
valued his judgment as something ideal.

After a moment he asked, "Can this fellow be got at?"

"Oh, I imagine very readily."

"What did Maxwell say about him, generally?"

"Generally, that he's not at all a bad kind of fellow. He's a reporter
by nature, and he's a detective upon instinct. He's done some amateur
detective work, as many reporters do--according to Maxwell's account.
The two things run together--and he's very shrewd and capable in his
way. He's going into it as a speculation, and of course he wants it to
be worth his while. Maxwell says his expectation of newspaper promotion
is mere brag; they know him too well to put him in any position of
control. He's a mixture, like everybody else. He's devotedly fond of his
wife, and he wants to give her and the baby a change of air--"

"My idea," Hilary interrupted, "would be not to wait for the Social
Science Convention, but to send this--"

"Pinney."

"Pinney at once. Will you see him?"

"If you have made up your mind."

"I've made up my mind. But handle the wretch carefully, and for heaven's
sake bind him by all that's sacred--if there's anything sacred to
him--not to give the matter away. Let him fix his price, and offer him a
pension for his widow afterwards."

XXI.

Mrs. Hilary was a large woman, of portly frame, the prophecy in
amplitude of what her son might come to be if he did not carry the
activities of youth into his later life. She, for her part, was long
past such activities; and yet she was not a woman to let the grass grow
upon any path she had taken. She appointed the afternoon of the day
following her talk with Matt for leaving the farm and going to the
shore; Louise was to go wi