r grown old."

"William Adolphus Turnpike, Epstein, retired comedian, Tommy Watson,
auctioneer," said Whimple softly, and then looking up he found Watson
regarding him with a whimsical smile.

"Us three, and no more--Amen, as the Three Guardsmen used to say,"
Tommy said.

"Well, not exactly in those words," Whimple replied.

"But meaning the same," Tommy retorted, "so what's the difference?
Believe me," he went on, "the boy is safe with us. If his ambition
sticks--why, he'll land."

"You're a good sort, Tommy Watson," said Whimple warmly as he left the
shop, "I wish I could do more to help the boy."

"You're doing lots," said Tommy genially, "lots, and--well, the legal
world'll take off its hat to you yet."

CHAPTER IV

Meanwhile our hero, as Vivian de Vere de Softley, the author of one
thousand love stories, would say, was pensively leaning out of one of
the office windows and thoughtfully taking pot shots at passers-by with
a pea-shooter. Preferably he selected as his marks gentlemen who
carried weight, and considered his best shot that which stung the ear
of an elderly banker who wore a silk hat, and was detested by all who
listened to his exhaustive speeches at banquets given by associations
that could not afford to leave him off their programmes. The banker
was exceedingly wrath, but as William was an expert in concealment, his
victim was foiled in his attempts to discover the cause of the sudden
stoppage of his flow of thought on his next great speech.

The banker finally passed on, and William was aiming for his next shot
when something struck him on the shoulder. He turned smartly to
encounter the stern gaze of a lady, an elderly lady. Her parasol was
descending for another blow, but William adroitly dodged it. Nothing
daunted, she raised it again, and this time succeeded in rapping "our
hero" smartly across the arm.

William dropped to the floor, crawled under the table, rose again and
waited. The lady walked gravely toward him, whereupon William again
followed the under-the-table route, and finally flopped into a chair by
his own desk. The lady regarded these manoeuvres with a gleam of anger
in her fine dark eyes.

The boy had swiftly "taken her in," to use his own expressive phrase,
and afterwards was able to say that she wore a bonnet, not a hat, that
long ringlets of grey hair hung down each side of her face, that her
dress was of silk and black, and that she held in her hand a s