, but it would do for the present.

"Just have that cleared out and a 'phone put in. I'll get right down
to business this afternoon and see about the fittings for it." Then he
looked at his watch once more. "By George!" he exclaimed, "I almost
forgot that I was to see Nick Allstyne at the Idlers' Club about that
polo match. Just have one of your boys stand out at the curb along
about twelve, will you, and tell my chauffeur to report at the club."

Johnson eyed the closed door over his spectacles.

"He'll be having blue suits and brass buttons on us two next," he
snorted.

"He don't mean it at all that way," protested Applerod. "For my part,
I think he's a fine young fellow."

"I'll give you to understand, sir," retorted Johnson, violently
resenting this imputed defection, "that he is the son of his father,
and for that, if for nothing else, would have my entire allegiance."

Bobby, meanwhile, feeling very democratic and very much a man of
affairs, took a street-car to the Idlers', and strode through the
classic portals of that club with gravity upon his brow. Flaxen-haired
Nick Allstyne, standing by the registry desk, turned to dark Payne
Winthrop with a nod.

"You win," he admitted. "I'll have to charge it up to you, Bobby. I
just lost a quart of the special to Payne that since you'd become
immersed in the cares of business you'd not be here."

Bobby was almost austere in his reception of this slight.

"Don't you know," he demanded, "that there is nobody who keeps even
his social engagements like a business man?"

"That's what I gambled on," returned Payne confidentially, "but I
wasn't sure just how much of a business man you'd become. Nick, don't
you already seem to see a crease in Bobby's brow?"

"No, that's his regular polo crease," objected lanky Stanley Rogers,
joining them, and the four of them fell upon polo as one man. Their
especially anxious part in the tournament was to be a grinding match
against Willie Ashler's crack team, and the point of worry was that so
many of their fellows were out of town. They badly needed one more
good player.

"I have it," declared Bobby finally. It was he who usually decided
things in this easy-going, athletic crowd. "We'll make Jack Starlett
play, but the only way to get him is to go over to Washington after
him. Payne, you're to go along. You always keep a full set of regalia
here at the club, I know. Here, boy!" he called to a passing page.
"Find out for us the