"Never again," said she, "shall I do wrong. The possibilities of discovery are too nerve-racking." "Father used to say—" began the Watermelon. "I’ll bet your mother didn’t talk much," laughed Bartlett. But the general had passed through an unhappy half hour and had no heart for jesting. "If you knew the Browns, Mr. Batchelor," said he, "it was your duty to have told us so." "Yes," said Henrietta. "I have aged ten years, and at my time of life that is tragedy." "And why," asked Billy, "if you had the key, didn’t we go in by the front door last night?" The Watermelon stared from one accusing face to the other in frank surprise. Even Mike with his fat wits would have grasped the situation. "I didn’t know them," he protested. "When I can go in by a door, I don’t choose the window." "But the key," objected Billy. "Dick and Lizzie," added Henrietta. "Their very ages," climaxed the general. "It was only a bluff," said the Watermelon wearily. "I remembered their names and ages from books I had seen around the room last night and on the dresser, sort of birthday presents and things, you know. I never saw one of them." The general roared and loved the boy. Henrietta leaned forward and patted him on the shoulder. "Wonderful, wonderful Holmes!" said she. "Did you take the key on purpose?" asked Billy, all athrill with admiration. The Watermelon flushed. He had taken the key if by any chance he should ever be in that neighborhood again, and the family away, he could spend the night in a comfortable bed instead of under a hayrick. Besides keys always came in handy. He didn’t look at Billy. Like a sudden flash of lightning on a dark night, he had seen the difference between them, between what he had become and what he had been. But it came and was gone and the old careless indifference rushed back. He laughed and changed his seat to the one between the two girls. "When I locked the front door, I slipped the key out without thinking, I suppose," said he. "Besides, keys are handy. When you are stony broke, you can rattle them and make the other fellow think maybe they’re the mon." "Now for breakfast," cried the general gaily, never long forgetful of his meals. "Tell me," begged Henrietta, "what would father say?" "Grace," said the Watermelon. The general, as he informed Henrietta at the first roadhouse they came to and at which they stopped for breakfast, was full of the old Nick. He felt that there might be no limit to his daring, he might go as far as to rob an apple orchard and make no attempt to repay the owner, that was, if the apples were ripe. Henrietta’s own spirits were rising. One never realized what liberty was until one threw aside conventionality—not honor, but conventionality, the silly, foolish laws of senseless ages. Billy as usual laughed at every remark, while the general, the tramp and the financier grew fairly brilliant beneath the spur of two pretty women’s laughing eyes.