e the sullen, resentful, impudent young scapegrace
of that other night with the man of to-night.

He put out his hand to touch the second candlestick--the telephone bell
rang.

Carl frowned impatiently and answered it.

"Hello," said he. "Yes, this is Carl Granberry speaking . . .
Who? . . . Oh! Hello, Hunch, is that you?"

It plainly was. Moreover, Mr. Dorrigan was very nervous and ill at
ease. Carl laughed with relish.

"What's the trouble?" he demanded. "You're stuttering like a kid . . .
Shut up and begin over again. . . . Hello. . . . Yes. . . . Well,
I've been out of town since January. . . . Hum! . . . Well," he
hinted dryly, "there was sufficient time for an explanation before I
went. . . . I guess you're right. . . . I went up to the farm in
October with Wherry."

Mr. Dorrigan desperately admitted that some of the time between the
escape of His Nibs and Carl's departure for the farm had been spent in
panic-stricken remorse and dread--some in the hospital due to an
altercation with Link Murphy, who for reasons not immediately apparent
wished jealously to obliterate his other eye. He begged Carl to give
him an immediate opportunity of squaring himself, for he had telephoned
the house so frequently of late that the butler had grown insulting.
Mr. Dorrigan added that he hoped Mr. Granberry's wholly justified wrath
had somewhat abated, but that for purposes of initial communication the
telephone had seemed more prudent.

He was plainly relieved at the answer.

Carl glanced at the tormenting candlestick and sighed. Another delay!

"All right," he said finally to Hunch, "come along. I'll give you
twenty minutes. If you're not through then, like as not I'll stir up
the grudge again--"

The telephone at the other end clicked instantly. Conceivably Hunch
was already on his way up town.

Carl impatiently busied himself with some mail upon the table. It had
followed him from the farm to Palm Beach and from Palm Beach to New
York. There were half a dozen wild letters of gratitude from Wherry
and a letter from the old doctor, Wherry's father, that brought a flush
of genuine pleasure to Carl's face.

"Wherry, too!" said he softly. "Of course. He stuck that other night.
I've been too blind to see." Drawing his flute from his pocket, he
glanced with a curious smile and glow at a row of notches in the wood.
The first notch he had cut in the flute after the rainy night in
Philip's wigwam, th