rner of a big room."

Sickeningly aware of his feebleness in contrast with this easy, honest
vigor, Claude made an effort to be manly and matter-of-fact. "Mr. Fay
selling off?"

"Not exactly selling off. Fixed things up with father. Father's taken
the stock, and Mr. Fay's going in with him. Didn't want this old place
any longer," Jim continued, loftily. "Kind o' clung to it because he'd
put money into it, like. Money-eater; that's what it was. Make more in a
year with father than he would in this old rockery in ten. Hadley B.
Hobson's bought the place. Know that, don't you? Come to think of it, it
was your old man who owned it. Well, it's Hadley B. Hobson's now--or
will be the day after to-morrow. Have a swell residence here. Good
enough for that, but too small for a plant like Mr. Fay's."

Claude did his best to digest such details in this information as were
new to him while he nerved himself to say, "Is Miss Fay a-about?"

Jim nodded toward the blank windows of the house. "Moved. Better take a
fern-tree, Claude. Won't get a bargain like this, not if every florist
in the town goes bankrupt. This one's a peach, and yet you'll call it a
scream compared to the one I've got inside. Bring it out so as you can
get a squint at it. Can't wait, can't you? Well, so long! Got to finish
my job. Back, Maud, back! Any time you do want a fern-tree, Claude--"

Claude was obliged to speak peremptorily in order to detain him. "I want
to know where the Fays have moved to."

"To town," was the ready answer. "Well, so long! If I don't get on with
my job--"

"What part of town?"

Jim turned at the hothouse door. "Oh, a very nice part."

"But that's not telling me."

"No," the young Irishman threw back, with his peculiar smile, "and if
you take my advice you won't ask anybody else. If old man Fay was to see
you within a mile of the place--"

Claude decided to be confidential. "Old man Fay has no reason to be
afraid any longer, Jim--not as far as I'm concerned."

"Oh, it isn't as far as you're concerned; it's as far as he is. The
boot's on that foot now."

Claude loathed this discussion with a man so inferior to himself, but he
was obliged to get his information somehow. "If he thinks--"

"It's not what he thinks, but what he knows. That's what's the matter
with old man Fay. If I was you I'd give him a darned wide berth--from
now on."

"Yes, but Jim, you don't understand--"

"I understand what I'm telling you, Claude. If