Thus ran the leisurely comment in the gray of the evening, working its way from man to man among the loungers on Tait’s porch. But in the dilapidated office-building across the railroad-tracks there was consternation. “Why, Poictiers, old man, you can’t endure it for twenty-four hours!” Tregarvon was protesting anxiously. “Look at this place--a dusty, cobwebby ruin that a self-respecting tramp wouldn’t lodge in! Heavens, man! couldn’t you see a joke when it was written out plain with a pen and ink? I would have as soon invited Elizabeth--meaning it!” Carfax had slipped out of his dust-coat and goggles, the valet assisting, and stood revealed as a handsome young fellow, a shade too well-groomed, perhaps, but with smiling good-nature atoning for the Carfax millions in every line of his beardless and almost effeminate face. “Now that is what I call downright inhospitable,” he laughed, with the faintest suspicion of a lisp on the sibilants, “after you had written me to come. Your letter is out in the go-cart, if Merkley didn’t forget to put it in my letter-case. Also, after I’ve driven that unspeakable car of yours over a thousand miles of the worst roads the rain ever rained on----” “Oh, good Lord, Poictiers--you’re welcome; as welcome as the sunshine! Don’t rub it into me that way. But the place; the--the----” Carfax’s smile was cherubic; or rather it would have been if the womanish lines of his face had not made it seraphic. “No apologies, you inexpressible old coal-digger. I knew you were only joking when you asked me--or rather dared me--to come down. But the notion seized me, and here I am. Here, likewise, is Rucker, the machinist, who will happily shift for himself; and what is more serious, perhaps, here also is Merkley. In all human probability I shall bleat like a sheep at the corn-pones and the hardtack, and all that; but Merkley was once in the service of the Duke of Marlford and his agonies----” Tregarvon laughed, and the stresses came off. “Luckily, I have acquired Uncle William, or, perhaps I should say, he has acquired me, since I wrote you, and you won’t starve, whatever happens to Merkley. Find your way up-stairs and take possession, while I tell the old uncle what he is up against in the way of supper-getting. You’ll find a bath, with ice-cold mountain spring water--my one luxury--at the end of the upper corridor.” Considering his resources, which were few and strictly limited, Uncle William shed a lustre all his own upon the dinner for two, which was served in the makeshift dining-room as soon as Carfax came down. “I’m sure you needn’t find fault with your table,” was the guest’s comment, when the snowy biscuits and the egg-bread, the fried chicken and the riced potatoes had passed in review. “I only wish I could induce an Uncle William to adopt me.”