reason only. 

57

 In response to a telegram from Osdene Park, Dan motored out there one afternoon, and during his absence Ruggles was surprised at his hotel by a call. 

 “My dear Mr. Ruggles,” Lord Galorey said, for he it was the page boy fetched up, “why don’t you come out to see us? All friends of old Mr. Blair’s are welcome at Osdene.” 

 Ruggles thanked Galorey and said he was not a visiting man, that he only had a short time in London, and was going to Ireland to look up “his family tree.” 

 “There are one hundred acres of trees in Osdene,” laughed Galorey; “you can climb them all.” And Ruggles replied: 58 

58

 “I guess I wouldn’t find any O’Shaughnessy Ruggles at the top of any of ’em, my lord. The boy has gone out to see you all to-day.” 

 Galorey nodded. “That is just why I toddled in to see you!” 

 Ruggles’ caller had been shown to the sitting-room, where he and Dan hobnobbed and smoked during the Westerner’s visit. There was a pile of papers on the table, in one corner a typewriter covered by a black cloth. Galorey took a chair and, refusing a cigarette, lit his pipe. 

 “I didn’t have the pleasure of meeting you in the West when I was out there with Blair. I knew Dan’s father rather well.” 

 Ruggles responded: “I knew him rather well too, for thirty years. If,” he went on, “Blair hadn’t known you pretty well he wouldn’t have sent the boy out to you as he has done. He was keen on every trail. I might say that he had been over every one of ’em like a hound before he set the boy loose.” 

 Galorey answered, “Quite so,” gravely. “I 59 know it. I knew it when Dan turned up at Osdene—” Holding his pipe bowl in the palm of his slender hand, he smoked meditatively. He hadn’t thought about things, as he had been doing lately, for many years. His sense of honor was the strongest thing in Gordon Galorey, the only thing in him, perhaps, that had been left unsmirched by the touch of the world. He was unquestionably a gentleman. 

59

 “Blair, however,” he said, “wasn’t as keen on this scent as you’d expect. His intuition was wrong.” 

 Ruggles raised his eyebrows slightly. 

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