y colonel,' isn't he? He looks it."

The Bostonian avenged himself at Winton's expense for the unwelcome
interruption.

"So much for your woman's intuition," he laughed. "Speaking of idlers,
there is your man to the dotting of the 'i'; a dilettante raised to
the _nth_ power."

Miss Carteret's short upper lip curled in undisguised scorn.

"I like men who do things," she asserted with pointed emphasis;
whereupon the talk drifted eastward to Boston, and Winton was ignored
until Virginia, having exhausted the reminiscent vein, said, "You are
going on through to Denver?"

"To Denver and beyond," was the reply. "Winton has a notion of
hibernating in the mountains--fancy it; in the dead of winter!--and he
has persuaded me to go along. He sketches a little, you know."

"Oh, so he is an artist?" said Virginia, with interest newly aroused.

"No," said Adams gloomily, "he isn't an artist--isn't much of
anything, I'm sorry to say. Worse than all, he doesn't know his
grandfather's middle name. Told me so himself."

"That is inexcusable--in a dilettante," said Miss Virginia mockingly.
"Don't you think so?"

"It is inexcusable in anyone," said the Technologian, rising to take
his leave. Then, as a parting word: "Does the Rosemary set its own
table? or do you dine in the dining-car?"

"In the dining-car, if we have one. Uncle Somerville lets us dodge the
Rosemary's cook whenever we can," was the answer; and with this bit of
information Adams went his way to the Denver sleeper.

Finding Winton in his section, poring over a blue-print map and making
notes thereon after the manner of a man hard at work, Adams turned
back to the smoking-compartment.

Now for Mr. Morton P. Adams the salt of life was a joke, harmless or
otherwise, as the tree might fall. So, during the long afternoon which
he wore out in solitude, there grew up in him a keen desire to see
what would befall if these two whom he had so grotesquely
misrepresented each to the other should come together in the pathway
of acquaintanceship.

But how to bring them together was a problem which refused to be
solved until chance pointed the way. Since the Limited had lost
another hour during the day there was a rush for the dining-car as
soon as the announcement of its taking-on had gone through the train.
Adams and Winton were of this rush, and so were the members of Mr.
Somerville Darrah's party. In the seating the party was separated, as
room at the crowded tables c