he would have done had
conditions been otherwise. He was politely welcomed but not cordially.
That would not have been fitting.

"Now what will you do to amuse yourself, son?" inquired Mr. Burton,
after Tim had bowed them in the front door and called the elevator. "You
are to please yourself. I shall be too busy to give a thought to you."

"Oh, I don't expect to be entertained," returned Christopher brightly.
"Don't have me on your mind at all. I'll look after myself."

"That's right! That's right!" exclaimed his father, as if relieved by
the intelligence. "You are welcome to go anywhere you like. Everybody
knows you by sight and understands you are to be around here for a
while. Just don't get into mischief. And see you are ready promptly at
one to go to luncheon with me."

"You can count on me for that!"

"I'll wager I can."

With these words Mr. Burton opened the door of his office and
disappeared.

Christopher hung up his hat and coat and hesitated uncertainly for a
moment. He did not really know what he wanted to do. A general
atmosphere of business of which he became instantly aware made him feel
like an intruder. The men greeted him, it is true, but with minds
focused far less on the salutation than on the various missions that
drove them hither and thither.

There was something almost ludicrous about the seriousness with which
they took this matter of rings and necklaces. One would have thought the
affairs of a nation occupied them, so anxious and hurried were they.

He sauntered along the balcony in the wake of a red-cheeked young clerk
who had bowed to him pleasantly and looked less as if he were speeding
to save a burning ship or warn the king he was about to be blown up than
did some of the others; and when this guide turned into a long,
brilliantly lighted room, Christopher, having nothing better to do,
entered too.

"You haven't finished that bracket clock yet, have you, McPhearson?"
called the salesman, approaching a little old man who with a microscope
to one eye was bending over a bench littered with small steel tools.

"Not yet, Bailey," the clockmaker replied without, however, looking up.
"She's a queer piece, that clock--not one for ordinary treatment."

"But you can put her in shape, can't you?" came a bit anxiously from
Bailey.

At the words a slow smile puckered the Scotchman's lips and for the
first time he stole a glance at the speaker.

"Don't fret, Bailey," he drawled.

"I