a while.
They gave me a dose of it."

These morsels of information fell from him carelessly. His "they," Dan
assumed, referred to his mother and sisters somewhere on the other side
of the Atlantic; and young Thatcher spoke of them in a curiously
impersonal and detached fashion. The whimsical humor that twinkled in
his eyes occasionally was interesting and pleasing; and Dan imagined
that he was enjoying the situation. Silk socks and overalls were
probably a part of some whim; they certainly added picturesqueness to
the scene. But the city editor must be informed that Edward G Thatcher
was beyond his jurisdiction and Dan rose and moved toward the door.
Allen jumped down and crossed to him quickly.

"Oh, I say! I really wish you wouldn't go!"

There was no doubt of the pleading in his voice and manner. He laid a
hand very gently on Dan's arm.

"But I've got to get back downtown, if your father has really gone and
isn't hidden away here somewhere."

"I've cut you a slice right out of the eternal truth on that, old man.
Father will be in New York for breakfast in the morning. Search the
house all you please; but, do you know, I'd rather like you to believe
me."

"Of course, I believe you; but it's odd the office didn't know you were
here. They told me you and your mother and sisters were abroad, but that
your father was in town. A personal item in the 'Courier' this morning
said that you were all in the Hartz Mountains."

"I dare say it did! The newspapers keep them all pretty well before the
public. But I've had enough junketing. I'm going to stay right here for
a while."

"You prefer it here--is that the idea?"

"Yes, I fancy I should if I knew it; I want to know it. But I'm all
kinds of crazy, you know. They really think I'm clear off, simply
because their kind of thing doesn't amuse me. I lost too much as a kid
being away from home. They said I had to be educated abroad, and there
you see me--Dresden awhile, Berlin another while, a lot of Geneva, and
Paris for grand sprees. And my lung was always the excuse if they wanted
to do a winter on the Nile,--ugh! The very thought of Egypt makes me ill
now."

"It all sounds pretty grand to me. I was never east of Boston in my
life."

"By Jove! I congratulate you," exclaimed the young man fervidly. "And
I'll wager that you went to school at a cross-roads school-house and
rode to town in a farm wagon to see a circus that had lions and
elephants; and you probably cho