What's all this?" cut in Gladwin. "What are you going to do?"

"Never you mind," retorted Barnes, importantly; "you do as I say,
Bateato--I'm going to show your master some excitement. He'll never
get it here in town."

"Ees, sair! I pack him queeck," and Bateato vanished noiselessly,
seemingly to shoot through the doorway and up the broad staircase as
if sucked up a flue.

"But see here"----objected Travers Gladwin.

"Not a word now," his friend choked him off. "If you don't like it you
don't have to stay, but I'm going to take you in hand and show you a
time you're not used to."

"But I don't"----

"Don't let's argue about it," said Barnes, lightly. "You called me in
here to take charge of things and I'm taking charge. Just to change
the subject, tell me something about your paintings. This one, for
instance--who is that haughty looking old chap?"

Whitney Barnes had planted himself with legs spread wide apart in
front of one of the largest portraits in the room, a life-size
painting of an aristocratic looking old man who seemed on the point of
strangling in his stock.

Travers Gladwin turned to the painting and said with an unmistakable
note of pride:

"The original Gladwin, my great-grandfather. Painted more than a
hundred years ago by Gilbert Stuart."

"I guess you beat me, Travers--the original Barnes hadn't discovered
mustard a hundred years ago. But I say, here's a Gainsborough, 'The
Blue Boy.' By George! that's a stunner! Worth a small fortune, I
suppose."

Whitney Barnes had crossed the room and stood before the most striking
looking portrait in the collection, a tall, handsome boy in a vividly
blue costume of the Gainsborough period.

The owner of "The Blue Boy" turned around, cast a fleeting glimpse at
the portrait and turned away with a peculiar grimace.

"You suppose wrong, Whitney," he said, shortly. "That
isn't--so--horribly--valuable."

"What! A big painting like that, by a chap famous enough to have a hat
named after him."

"That was just about the way it struck me at first," answered
Gladwin, "so I begged two old gentlemen in London to let me have it.
Persuaded them to part with it for a mere five hundred pounds, on
condition--close attention, Whitney--that I keep the matter a
secret. I was delighted with my bargain--until I saw _the original_."

"The original?"

"Ah ha! the original. It was quite a shock for me to come face to face
with that and realize that my 'Blue Boy' had