Bompas particularly
wished to know on account of some special prescription the boy was to try
that night. On his failure to appear at the appointed time, the doctor
had telephoned to the address in question, only to learn that the boy had
not stayed there at all. He had been given another address with the same
result, except that from the second house he gathered that the young
gentleman had gone on to some hotel. Horace was left to imagine a
professional opinion of such proceedings, and asked for his own on the
facts as a man of the world.

"Exactly like young Tony!" quoth Horace, never afraid to say what he
thought.

"What! Like a lad of sixteen to go and put up at some hotel?"

"Like Tony," repeated Horace significantly. "Trust him to do what nobody
else ever did."

"But how could Spearman give him the chance?"

"Heaven knows! Fred and I never got it."

"I thought he was to stay at Coverley's?"

"So I heard."

"I don't like it! It's all wrong at his age," said Mr. Upton. He had his
notions of life and its temptations, and he was blunt enough with his
elder sons, yet it was not without some hesitation that he added: "You
don't think there's any question of bad company, do you?"

And though Horace had "no use for" his so-called pocket edition, he
answered without any hesitation at all: "Not for a moment, from what I
know of Tony."

Mr. Upton was sorry he had said so much. He excused himself by mentioning
his wife's dream, now family property, which had been on his mind all this
time. Horace, however, had no hesitation in informing him that nobody
nowadays believed in dreams.

"Well, I never have, certainly," said Mr. Upton. "But what can it be?"

"He probably went up to Lord's, and forgot all about his doctor."

"I hope not! You're too down on him, Horace."

"If there was nobody to put him up it was the game to go back to school."

"But he's said to have gone to some hotel."

"I don't suppose he did," said Horace. "I expect he got back somehow."

The question was still under discussion when a telegram from Mr. Spearman
settled it. Where was Tony? He had not returned when due the day before,
and his friends in London wired that they knew nothing about him.

"What friends?" cried Mr. Upton, in a fury. "Why the devil couldn't
Spearman give their names or Bompas the addresses he talked about?"

Horace could only think of Mr. Coverley or "that Knaggs crowd." Neither
he nor Fred had been