wford did not laugh at the photographs. He was a young gentleman of
considerable discretion and he did not smile, not even at Captain Shad's
hands, the left with fingers separated and clutching a knee as if to
keep it from shaking, the right laid woodenly upon a gorgeously bound
parlor-table copy of "Lucille." Instead of laughing he praised the
originals of the pictures, talked reminiscently of his own visit
in South Harniss, and finally produced from his pocketbook a small
photographic print, which he laid upon the table beside the others.

"I brought that to show you," he said. "You were asking about my father,
you know, and I told you I hadn't a respectable photograph of him. That
was true; I haven't. Dad has another eccentricity besides his dislike of
the East and Eastern ways of living; he has a perfect horror of having
his photograph taken. Don't ask me why, because I can't tell you. It
isn't because he is ugly; he's a mighty good-looking man for his age, if
I do say it. But he has a prejudice against photographs of himself
and won't even permit me to take a snapshot if he can prevent it. Says
people who are always having their pictures taken are vain, conceited
idiots, and so on. However, I catch him unawares occasionally, and this
is a snap I took last summer. He and I were on a fishing trip up in the
mountains. We're great pals, Dad and I--more than most fathers and sons,
I imagine."

Mary took the photograph and studied it with interest. Mr. Smith,
senior, was a big man, broad-shouldered and heavy, with a full gray
beard and mustache. He wore a broad-brimmed hat, which shaded his
forehead somewhat, but his eyes and the shape of his nose were like his
son's.

Mary looked at the photograph and Crawford looked at her.

"Well, what do you think of him?" asked the young man after an interval.

"Think?" repeated Mary absently, still staring at the photograph. "Why,
I--I don't know what you mean."

"I mean what is your opinion of my respected dad? You must have one
by this time. You generally have one on most subjects and you've been
looking at that picture for at least five minutes."

"Have I? I beg your pardon; I didn't realize. The picture interested me.
I have never seen your father, have I? No, of course I haven't. But it
almost seems as if I had. Perhaps I have seen someone who looks like
him."

"Shouldn't wonder. Myself, for instance."

"Of course. That was stupid of me, wasn't it? He looks like an