d on her shoulder, turned her about, and she was gone.

Johnson Boller looked after them and at his old friend.

"Aren't you going to send the youngster after her?" he asked with the
superior air of a man who has proved his case beyond a doubt.

"Quite possibly," Anthony said, smiling a dangerous little smile. "But I
mean to have a chat with David first."

Johnson Boller gazed at David for a moment and smiled himself, almost
happily. Unless indications were highly deceptive, Anthony, with his
precious reputation all mussed up by the pretty little French girl, was
mad enough to beat up David.

But Johnson Boller had no idea of sitting around and watching it, later
to waste days in a police court for David's wretched sake. Hence he
thumped out of David's room and back to his own.

Alone with his find, Anthony said not a word for a full minute, nor did
David. The boy, hunched on the edge of his bed, had passed the
capability of motion and even of thought; he merely stared at Anthony
with dazed, thunder-struck eyes that were very far from being
intelligent.

"David," Anthony said savagely, "however slightly unusual the
circumstances may have been, I brought you to this apartment for your
own good."

"Um," David said numbly.

"And last night I laid down for you the rule that you were to have no
women here."

David said nothing at all.

"Yet even before we've dressed this morning, you manage to worm an
infernal woman in here and--what the devil do you mean by it, anyway,
you infernal little whelp?" Anthony cried, as his temper snapped. "Don't
sit there and shiver! Answer me!"

Still David said nothing.

"Answer or I'll shake some wits into you!" Anthony cried.

And by way of doing this he seized David's thick brown hair and gave a
first, threatening shake.

And having shaken--Anthony Fry, the chilly and self-contained, emitted
one rattling, half-shrieking gasp and reeled backward!

CHAPTER VI

Johnson Boller Proposes

The whole head of brown hair had come free in his hand, and from David's
cranium, billow upon billow of red-gold glory floated down about the
bathrobed shoulders.

David, in fine, with no warning at all, had turned into a decidedly
pretty young woman!

Through Anthony's astounded brain, impressions pursued one another so
rapidly, those first few seconds, that the room danced crazily. There
were two or three Davids and oceans of reddish-gold hair; there were
several pairs of so