partner thinks it is, I'll cable a cancellation, and you can tear that nice fat order up and forget it. I don't intend to have you and that gang of penny-pinching card-room engineers up at the Engineers' Club remind me of the old adage that a fool and his money are soon parted.”     

       From Daingerfield's office Webster went forth to purchase a steamer-trunk, his railway ticket and sleeping-car reservation—after which he returned to his hotel and set about packing for the journey.     

       He sighed regretfully as he folded his brand-new raiment, packed it in moth balls in his wardrobe-trunk, and ordered the trunk sent to a storage warehouse.     

       “Well, I was a giddy old bird of paradise for one night, at least,”       he comforted himself, as he dressed instead in a suit of light-weight olive drab goods in which he hoped to enjoy some measure of cool comfort until he should reach Buenaventura and thus become acquainted with the foibles of fashion in that tropical centre.     

       The remainder of the afternoon he spent among his old friends of the Engineers' Club, who graciously tendered him a dollar table d'hote dinner that evening and saw him off for his train at ten o'clock, with many a gloomy prophecy as to his ultimate destiny—the prevailing impression appearing to be that he would return to them in a neat long box labelled: This Side Up—With Care—Use No Hooks.     

       Old Neddy Jerome, as sour and cross as a setting hen,' accompanied him in the taxicab to the station, loth to let him escape and pleading to the last, in a forlorn hope that Jack Webster's better nature would triumph over his friendship and boyish yearning for adventure. He clung to Webster's arm as they walked slowly down the track and paused at the steps of the car containing the wanderer's reservation, just as a porter, carrying some hand-baggage, passed them by, followed by a girl in a green tailor-made suit. As she passed, John Stuart Webster looked fairly into her face, started as if bee-stung, and hastily lifted his hat. The girl briefly returned his scrutiny with sudden interest, decided she did not know him, and reproved him with a glance that even passé old Neddy Jerome did not fail to assimilate.     

  

  

      

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