ing round somewhere,
so that I could introduce you. They're awfully nice. None of that
infernal Boston stiffness. The one you saw me talking with is married,
though."

Boardman was writing out his report from a little book with shorthand
notes in it. There were half a dozen other reporters in the car busy
with their work. A man who seemed to be in authority said to one of
them, "Try to throw in a little humour."

Mavering pulled his hat over his eyes, and leaned his head on the back
of his seat, and tried to sleep.

XXIII.

At his father's agency in Boston he found, the next morning, a letter
from him saying that he expected to be down that day, and asking Dan to
meet him at the Parker House for dinner. The letter intimated the elder
Mavering's expectation that his son had reached some conclusion in the
matter they had talked of before he left for Campobello.

It gave Dan a shiver of self-disgust and a sick feeling of hopelessness.
He was quite willing now to do whatever his father wished, but he did
not see haw he could face him and own his defeat.

When they met, his father did not seem to notice his despondency, and he
asked him nothing about the Pasmers, of course. That would not have been
the American way. Nothing had been said between the father and son as
to the special advantages of Campobello for the decision of the question
pending when they saw each other last; but the son knew that the father
guessed why he chose that island for the purpose; and now the elder knew
that if the younger had anything to tell him he would tell it, and if
he had not he would keep it. It was tacitly understood that there was no
objection on the father's part to Miss Pasmer; in fact, there had been a
glimmer of humorous intelligence in his eye when the son said he thought
he should run down to Bar Harbour, and perhaps to Campobello, but he had
said nothing to betray his consciousness.

They met in the reading-room at Parker's, and Dan said, "Hello, father,"
and his father answered, "Well, Dan;" and they shyly touched the hands
dropped at their sides as they pressed together in the crowd. The father
gave his boy a keen glance, and then took the lead into the dining-room,
where he chose a corner table, and they disposed of their hats on the
window-seat.

"All well at home?" asked the young fellow, as he took up the bill of
fare to order the dinner. His father hated that, and always made him do
it.

"Yes, yes; as usua