had so utterly neglected through all these years. Therefore, his
plan was to have the boy where they would meet as strangers; where he
could have an opportunity to watch, weigh, and come to know him in the
most casual way; and thereafter to act as he saw fit.

So there, in the shabby lodging-house, the little scheme was hatched
out. Surface undertook by his own means to draw his son, as the magnet
the particle of steel, to his city. Tim, to whom the matter was sure to
be broached, was to encourage the young man to go. But more than this:
it was to be Tim's diplomatic task to steer him to the house where
Surface, as Nicolovius, resided. Surface himself had suggested the
device by which this was to be done; merely that Tim, mentioning the
difficulties of the boarding-house question in a strange city, was to
recall that through the lucky chance of having a cousin in this
particular city, he knew of just the place: a house where accommodations
were of the best, particularly for those who liked quiet for studious
work, and prices ridiculously low. The little stratagem worked
admirably. The address which Tim gave young Surface was the address of
Mrs. Paynter's, where Surface Senior had lived for nearly three years.
And so the young man had gone to his father, straight as a homing
pigeon.

How strange, how strange to look back on all this now!

Half reclining in the nurse's chair, unseeing eyes on the shaded and
shuttered window, for the fiftieth time Queed let his mind go back over
his days at Mrs. Paynter's, reading them all anew in the light of his
staggering knowledge. With three communications of the most fragmentary
sort, his father had had his full will of his son. With six typewritten
lines, he had drawn the young man to his side at his own good pleasure.
Boarding-house gossip made it known that the son was in peril of
ejectment for non-payment of board, and a twenty-dollar bill had been
promptly transmitted--at some risk of discovery--to ease his stringency.
Last came the mysterious counsel to make friends and to like people, the
particular friends and people intended being consolidated, he could
understand now, in the person of old Nicolovius. And that message out of
the unknown had had its effect: Queed could see that now, at any rate.
His father clearly had been satisfied with the result; he appeared as
his father no more. Thenceforward he stalked his prey as
Nicolovius--with what consummate skill and success!