Wilkins hesitated; then he said slowly: "Tommy's." "We were at Billy's." Wilkins abruptly changed the subject, and soon after he left us. We rushed to the Harrow register. Yes, in Tommy's house, some seven years before our time, there had been a certain Theodore Vane Wilkins. Ajax, whose imagination runs riot, began to prattle about a Dinah, a Delilah of a Dinah, who had wrecked our schoolfellow's life. And, during the ensuing week, Dinah was continually in his mouth. Wilkins had moved camp, and we saw nothing of him. What we heard, however, must be set down. Silas Upham asked us to spend Sunday at his house. At dinner I sat next pretty little Hetty, and at once she spoke of Wilkins. To my annoyance, Ajax introduced the ridiculous Dinah, the perfidious creature of his fancy. Ajax was in his salad days, but he ought to have known, even then, that if you want to interest a maid in a man, tell her that the man has suffered at the hands of another maid. Hetty's blue eyes sparkled, her dimpled cheeks glowed with sympathy and indignation. "Schoolfellow o' yours, was he? Well--I may make that feller foreman one o' these days," said Silas, with a fond, foolish glance at his daughter. Hetty could do what she pleased with her sire--and knew it. "Poppa," said Miss Hetty, "you're all sorts of a darling, and I must kiss you." Then she and Ajax strolled on to the verandah, and I found myself alone with my host. He said meaningly: "Wilkins has had a tough row to hoe--eh? But he's a perfect gentleman, straight, sober, and a worker. I've been looking for a man that is a man to run things here, now that I'm getting a bit stiff in the joints. Hetty likes him first-rate too." All this in an interrogatory tone. Of course, it was easy to fill the _lacunae_ in the text. Silas Upham adored his daughter and his ranch. If Hetty married Wilkins, the artful Silas would gain an able- bodied, capable major-domo, and he would not lose his pet lamb. I said, rather tartly-- "Look here, Upham, you know nothing of Wilkins, and I advise you and-- er--Miss Hetty to go slow." "I do go slow," said my host, "but Hetty likes to buzz along. She's a mover, she is." As we rode home I told Ajax that Opportunity had thrust into Wilkins' hand a very tempting morsel. Was he going to swallow it? And ought we to ask some questions? I think it was on the following Wednesday that Wilkins walked over to the ranch-house, and asked for a job. "I've left Upham," he said curtly. We had not much to offer; such as it was, Wilkins accepted it. Ajax drove to Upham's to fetch Wilkins' blankets and belongings. When he came back, he drew me aside. "Silas offered him the billet of foreman. Wilkins _refused it_." * * * * *