"I've got to hunt him up," went on the young man, not noticing that his auditor appeared uninterested. "I'm to stay with him to-night. I was to send a telegram, but didn't think of it till it was almost train time. Guess it won't make much difference. The Clouds always used to keep open house. I suppose they have a swell place out here?" "Oh, it's quite comfortable, I believe," Howard turned over a page of the paper and fell to reading an article on the high price of sugar and the prospect of a fall. "You ought to see their dump out in Cally. It's some mansion, believe me! There wasn't anything else in that part of the State to compare with it for miles around. And cahs! They had cahs to burn! The old man was just lousy with gold, you know; struck a rich mine years ago. His wife had a pile, too. Her father was all kinds of a millionaire and left every bit to her; and Al and his sister'll get everything. Seen anything of _her_? She ought to be a winner pretty soon. She was a peach when she was little. She's some speedy kid! We used to play together, you know, and our folks sorta fixed it up we were just made for each other and all that sorta thing, you know--but I don't know--I'm not going to be bound by any such nonsense, of course, unless I like. One doesn't want one's wife to be such an awfully good shot, fer instance, you know----!" A great anger surged up in Howard's soul, and his jaw set with a fierce line that those who knew him well had learned to understand meant self-control under deep provocation. He would have liked nothing better than to surprise the insolent young snob with a well-directed blow in his pretty face that would have sent him sprawling in the aisle. His hands fairly twitched to give him the lesson that he needed, but he only replied with a slight inscrutable smile in one corner of his mouth: "It _might_ be inconvenient for _some people_." There an aloofness in his tone that did not encourage further remarks, but the young stranger was evidently not thin-skinned, or else he loved to hear himself babbling. "I'm coming on heah, you know, to look this college ovah----!" he drawled. "If it suits me, I may come heah next yeah. Got fired from three institutions out West for larking, and father thought I better go East awhile. Any fun doing out this way?" "I suppose those that go to college looking for it can find it," answered Howard noncommittally. "Well--that's what I'm looking for. That's about all anybody goes to college for anyway, that and making a lot of friends. Believe me, it would be a beastly bore if it wasn't for that. Al Cloud used to be a lively one. I'll wager he's into everything. See much of the college people down in town--do you?" He eyed his companion patronizingly. "S'pose you get in on some of the spoahts now and then?" "Oh, occasionally," said Howard with a twinkle in his eye. He was captain of the football team and forward in basket-ball, but it didn't seem to be necessary to mention it.