It was in the early part of September when J. Rufus, clad according to his notions of what a gentleman farmer should look like--a rich brown velvet corduroy suit with the trousers neatly tucked into an eighteen-dollar pair of seal leather boots; a twenty-dollar broad-brimmed felt hat upon his head; a brown silk neglige shirt and a scarf of a little deeper shade in the "V" of his broad vest; an immense diamond gleaming from the scarf--arrived at the Wallingford estate in a splendid equipage drawn by a pair of sleek bays. Marching in time to the ringing "Soldiers' Chorus" from _Faust_, Blackie Daw came down the walk from the wide Colonial porch, carrying in his arms the huge phonograph from which the music proceeded, and greeted the laughing new master and mistress of the house with extravagant ceremony, while three country girls, a red-cheeked one, a thin one, and a mortally ugly one, stood giggling upon the porch. "Welcome to Wallingford Villa!" exclaimed Blackie, setting the blaring phonograph on the gate post, and, with his left hand tucked into his coat bosom, extending his right hand dramatically toward the porch. "Welcome to your ancestral estates and adoring tenantry!" "Fine business!" approved J. Rufus, shaking hands with Mr. Daw. "Invite the band in to have a drink, Blackie." "Hush!" admonished Mr. Daw in a hoarse stage whisper. "_Not_ Blackie. Here, in hiding from the minions of Uncle Sam, I am Horatio Raven. Remember the name." "What's the matter?" asked Wallingford, detecting something real beneath all this absurdity. "I called at your place in Boston, and found a corn doctor's sign on the door. I didn't mean to plant you out here." "Plant is the word," responded Mr. Daw, "and I've rooted fast in the soil. I'm going to take out naturalization papers and grow a chin beard. You're harboring a fugitive, Jim. The very day I got your letter from dear old Lunnon, throwing open a section of your bank account and telling me to buy a farm, the postal authorities took it into their heads to stop all traffic in the Yellow Streak gold mine; also they wanted to mark one Horace G. Daw 'Exhibit A,' and slam him in a cold cage for future reference; so I put on my green whiskers and snuck here to the far, far prairies." A certain amount of reserve had been quite noticeable in Mrs. Wallingford, and it was still apparent as she asked courteously: "Where is Mrs. Daw?" "Raven, if you please," he corrected her, and, in spite of his general air of flippancy, his face lengthened a trifle. "Mrs. Violet Bonnie D.," he replied, "has returned to the original lemon box of which she was so perfect a product, and is now delighting a palpitating public in 'The Jolly Divorcee,' with a string of waiting Johnnies from the stage door two blocks down Broadway every night. Let us mention the lady no more lest I use language."