so on, which
forbade loitering had he been inclined to loiter. In it all he could see
no purpose, except the possible one of trying his physical endurance. He
was a strong boy, or he would have been quite exhausted long before he
reached "Env. No. 17," which was the last but three of the packet. This
read:

Reach home at 6:20 P. M. Before entering house read
No. 18. C. W., Jr.

Leaning against one of the big white stone pillars of the porch of his
home, Cyrus wearily tore open No. 18--and the words fairly swam before
his eyes. He had to rub them hard to make sure that he was not mistaken.

Go again to Kingston Heights, corner West and Dwight streets,
reaching there by 6:50. Read No. 19. C. W., Jr.

The boy looked up at the windows, desperately angry at last. If his
pride and his sense of the meaning of that phrase, "My word of honour,"
as the men of the Woodbridge family were in the habit of teaching it to
their sons, had not been both of the strongest sort, he would have
rebelled and gone defiantly and stormily in. As it was, he stood for one
long minute with his hands clenched and his teeth set; then he turned
and walked down the steps, away from the longed-for dinner, and out
toward L Street and the car for Kingston Heights.

As he did so, inside the house, on the other side of the curtain, from
behind which he had been anxiously peering, Cornelius Woodbridge,
Senior, turned about and struck his hands together, rubbing them in a
satisfied way.

"He's come--and gone," he cried softly, "and he's on time to the
minute!"

Cornelius, Junior, did not so much as lift his eyes from the evening
paper, as he quietly answered, "Is he?" But the corners of his mouth
slightly relaxed. One who knew him well might have guessed that he
thought it a simple matter to risk any number of chances on a sure
thing.

The car seemed to crawl out to Kingston Heights. As it at last neared
its terminus, a strong temptation seized the boy Cyrus. He had been on a
purposeless errand to this place once that day. The corner of West and
Dwight streets lay more than half a mile from the end of the car route,
and it was an almost untenanted district. His legs were very tired; his
stomach ached with emptiness. Why not wait out the interval which it
would take to walk to the corner and back in the little suburban
station, read "Env. No. 19," and spare himself? He had certainly done
enough to prove that he was a faithfu