what her father would say
when he found I had disobeyed his injunction about not speaking to her.
Presently the summons to luncheon came, and we went in.

From up-stairs came sounds indicating great hilarity on Billings' part.
In fact, we could hear him slapping his knee and screaming. The frump
looked at me anxiously.

"Why, I understood he was all right again," she said aside.

I shook my head dubiously. I had seen in the past day or two how rapidly
Billings' moods shifted. Twenty minutes since he had looked enraged.

"Oh, this is too good--but keep it mum!" we heard. "Come on, Professor!"

"Professor?" The frump looked at Frances, then at Wilkes inquiringly.

"I didn't know, miss," he murmured contritely. "'S why I didn't mention
it."

We were crossing the great hall in the direction of the beautiful
dining-room beyond--Elizabethan, I think Frances said it was. We all
paused expectantly as Billings rolled down the stairs in his usual
jolly, elephantine way. And then on the landing appeared an
apparition--not only an apparition, but, by Jove, a scarecrow, as well!

Professor Doozenberry, blandly smiling--his rail-like figure shrouded
flabbily in one of Billings' largest and loudest suits! Billings went
through the form of introductions, chuckling idiotically the while. But
the professor scarcely noticed any one but the frump.

"Don't wait, Wilkes," Billings directed. His nod beckoned me aside.

"Gentleman sulking in his tent over here I want you to meet," he said.
And I followed him to the library. A figure pacing the floor turned
sharply. By Jove, it was the chauffeur, and how he did scowl at me!

"Now, young man," said Billings sternly, "perhaps you'll have the nerve
to tell me before Mr. Lightnut himself that you were his guest on your
way home from Harvard."

"I certainly was!" He made the statement, chin up and eyes blazing. "I
was his guest at the Kahoka Wednesday night, and he knows it."

Billings looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.

"Don't bother denying it, old man," he said. "It's all right."

"Oh, but I say--it isn't!" I exclaimed in disgusted amaze. "Dashed
impertinence, you know--never saw this fellow before the morning at
the--er--boat, and day before yesterday when I--" I halted, remembering.

But the fellow was shaking his finger at me.

"A-a-a!" he jeered like a school-boy. "Why don't you finish? Bet you
don't know, Jack, that this paragon friend of yours was up here on the
tra