" said the newcomer, taking rapid stock of Paul's shabby serge
suit and worn looks. "I thought I was right."

The voice, if not the face, awoke old memories.

"Hay--Grexon Hay!" cried the struggling genius. "Well, I am glad to see
you," and he shook hands with the frank grip of an honest man.

"And I you." Hay drew his friend up the side street and out of the human
tide which deluged the pavement. "But you seem--"

"It's a long story," interrupted Paul flushing. "Come to my castle and
I'll tell you all about it, old boy. You'll stay to supper, won't you?
See here"--Paul displayed a parcel--"a pound of sausages. You loved 'em
at school, and I'm a superfine cook."

Grexon Hay always used expression and word to hide his feelings. But
with Paul--whom he had always considered a generous ass at Torrington
school--a trifle of self-betrayal didn't matter much. Beecot was too
dense, and, it may be added, too honest to turn any opportunity to
advantage. "It's a most surprising thing," said Hay, in his calm way,
"really a most surprising thing, that a Torrington public school boy, my
friend, and the son of wealthy parents, should be buying sausages."

"Come now," said Paul, with great spirit and towing Hay homeward, "I
haven't asked you for money."

"If you do you shall have it," said Hay, but the offer was not so
generous a one as would appear. That was Hay all over. He always said
what he did not mean, and knew well that Beecot's uneasy pride shied at
loans however small.

Paul, the unsophisticated, took the shadow of generosity for its
substance, and his dark face lighted up. "You're a brick, Hay," he
declared, "but I don't want money. No!"--this in reply to an eloquent
glance from the well-to-do--"I have sufficient for my needs, and
besides," with a look at the resplendent dress of the fashion-plate
dandy, "I don't glitter in the West End."

"Which hints that those who do, are rich," said Grexon, with an arctic
smile. "Wrong, Beecot. I'm poor. Only paupers can afford to dress well."

"In that case I must be a millionaire," laughed Beecot, glancing
downward at his well-worn garb. "But mount these stairs; we have much to
say to one another."

"Much that is pleasant," said the courtly Grexon.

Paul shrugged his square shoulders and stepped heavenward. "On your
part, I hope," he sang back; "certainly not on mine. Come to Poverty
Castle," and the fashionable visitor found his host lighting the fire in
an apartment suc