“You can learn a great deal from a poor boy,” said he, presently, watching the boy’s solemn, handsome face. He might have been a hearty, wholesome youngster, this grandson of Danny Hogan’s, had he but been given a chance. “The poor boy is the normal boy; a boy should be generally dirty and noisy; he should occasionally get a lecture from his mother and a licking from his father, and a black eye from some other boy. He must be a fighter. No less a man than Paul Jones has said that he never saw a liar who would fight, or a fighter who would lie; and he must not only tell the truth himself, but be ready to lick any other boy who tells him a lie, for boys are, to themselves, a law-making body, and must enforce their own laws.” “That is not the way of the boys at our school,” icily replied James Brentwood Baldwin, Junior, rising with dignity and receiving his hat from the hand of his valet. The day of Thorndyke’s arrival in Washington he was walking along the street in the bright, sunny, early afternoon of winter. He stopped to buy an afternoon newspaper, that he might see how the balloting for Senator was going in Crane’s State, when a shout aroused him, and Letty Standiford, in a gorgeous crimson automobile, with Senator Mince Pie Mulligan by her side, dashed up to the sidewalk. “Mr. Thorndyke,” shrieked Letty, playfully pretending she meant to run Thorndyke down. “I have a piece of news for you. Look out, this is my new red devil--I don’t mean Senator Mulligan, but my auto.” “I certainly shall look out when you are around in that death-dealing machine,” replied Thorndyke, dodging barely in time to save his legs. “What is your news?” “Just this. Dad gave me his word this morning that he would not be a candidate for re-election next year. I went after the doctors myself, and made them tell me the truth about Dad--he’s the only father I’ve got, you know. And they all told me the same thing--that if he could slack up work, and retire at the end of his term, he was good for twenty years more, but that if he kept at the grind, his life wasn’t worth a pin’s purchase. Dad wasn’t scared by that, but when I told him that I should die of fright and distress if he went away and left me, the poor old thing weakened, and said he’d decline a re-election, and--oh, good gracious! He told me not to breathe it to a soul! He actually shook his finger at me when he said it. Oh, heavens! If you or Senator Mulligan give me away----” “Dad will shake his finger at you again,” replied Thorndyke, laughing. Nevertheless, his pulses had started off at a great rate. “It’s not that--it’s not that I’m afraid of him--but it would break his dear old heart to think I had disobeyed him.” Letty Standiford, as she said this, was an object for angels to love, in spite of her wild air, her mannish hat and coat, her flying and dishevelled locks. “It is safe with me,” said Thorndyke, gravely, and Senator Mulligan spoke up: