tled. "Whew! I didn't know they had the cash!"

"They haven't," said Paul briefly.

"Oh, chattel-mortgage?" surmised the other.

"Lease-contract," Paul corrected. "That doesn't have to be recorded."

"What's the matter with recording it?"

"Afraid of their credit. They don't want Dunn's sending all over
creation that they've put chattel-mortgages on their equipment, do
they?"

"No; sure! I see." The boy grasped instantly, with a quick nod, the
other's meaning. "Well, that's _one_ way of gettin' 'round it!" he added
admiringly after an instant's pause.

Lydia had laid down her work and was looking intently at her two
companions. At this she gave a stifled exclamation which made the boy
turn his head. "Say, Mrs. Hollister, aren't you looking kind of pale
this evening?" he asked. "These first hot nights do take it out of a
person, don't they? Mr. Hollister ought to take you to Put-in-Bay for a
holiday. Momma'd take care of the baby for you and welcome. She's crazy
about babies." He was again the overgrown school-boy that Lydia knew.
The conversation drifted to indifferent topics. Lydia did not take her
usual share in it, and when their caller had gone Paul inquired if she
really were exhausted by the heat.

"Oh, no," she said; "you know I don't mind the heat."

"You didn't say much when Walter was here, and I--"

"I was thinking," Lydia broke in. "I was thinking that I couldn't
understand a word you and Walter were saying any more than if you were
talking Hebrew. I was thinking that that little boy knows more about
your business than I do."

Paul did not attempt to deny this, but he laughed at her dramatic
accent. "Sure, he does! And about how to tie a four-in-hand, and what's
the best stud to wear at the back of a collar, and where to buy socks.
What's that to you?"

Lydia looked at him with quivering, silent lips.

He answered, with a little heat: "Why, look-y here, Lydia, suppose I
were a doctor. You wouldn't expect to know how many grains of morphine
or what d'you call 'em I was going to use in--"

"But Dr. Melton _is_ a doctor, and I know lots about what he thinks of
as he lives day after day--there are other things besides technical
details and grains of morphine--other problems--human things--Why, for
instance, there's one question that torments him all the time--how much
it's right to humor people who aren't sick but think they are. He talks
to me a great deal about such--"

Paul laughed, rising