"I can, boy! Believe me, I can!" Mr. Boller smiled. "Get out of that robe!" He was advancing. Ten seconds more and he would lay violent hands on David, and Anthony Fry, with a wrench that racked his very soul, hurled back every emotion and contrived a really quiet smile. More, even; when he spoke it was in the tone of one merely amused and slightly tried in patience. "You mean well, old chap," he said, laying a firm hand on Johnson Boller's arm, "but you're a crank on this gymnastic business. Don't be absurd, please--you're fairly frightening the boy. Later on, perhaps, when he is more accustomed to you and the surroundings, and all that sort of thing, you may take him in hand. Just now it is well past seven o'clock, and I'm hungry. Come to your senses and get dressed, Johnson, if only as a favor." His eye was firm and steady; and having faced it for a moment, Johnson Boller shrugged his shoulders again. And yet he had not inflicted even one bruise on David, but pressing the matter now was likely to do no more than excite Anthony, and there was still time. As head of his particular woolen concern, Johnson Boller could well spend the whole morning away from the office, so that it gained him the chance of hammering the boy to a jelly and ousting him from Johnson Boller's temporary home. Mr. Boller, therefore, sighed a little in disappointment as he said: "If you insist. I'd rather put the kid through his first paces naked, of course, because then one----" "Yes, some other time, doubtless," Anthony said hastily. "Get along now, Johnson and dress." They were alone again, Anthony and David. David's color was decidedly higher, and his eyes burned with a mixture of fright and indignation, while the bathrobe was clutched defensively about his throat. Anthony himself had lost his pallor, and on his high, thoughtful forehead a glistening glaze had come into being. He dabbed it away with his handkerchief and glanced fearfully toward the door. "This is--er--most embarrassing!" he breathed. "It is for me!" said the apparent David. "What's the matter with that man?" "He has his own ideas about most things," Anthony said with a shudder. "However, he is out of the way now and--er--the next thing is to get you out, also." "Well?" "I am sorry, Miss Mary, truly sorry if it displeases you," Anthony went on carefully; "but there is really only one way for you to leave quite safely. This house, you see, is rather different from other houses. It would be possible to send for your--ah--proper clothing and have you leave as the doubtless prepossessing young woman that you are; but to do that you would have to pass through the office downstairs, and the elevator men would know that you came from this apartment." "Ah?" said Mary, without expression. "And inasmuch as every one here knows that I'm not married, and that I have no female relatives or even friends of your age, the--ah--very painful inference----"