Mr. Allen was very fond of travel, and so was his wife, but they had had little chance to gratify their tastes. A short time before this story opens Mr. Allen’s firm had some business to transact abroad, in several countries. Mr. Allen was offered the chance to go, and, as it was a long-awaited opportunity he decided to take his wife, and, while they were about it, make a tour of the world. Jack begged hard to be allowed to go, but, as it would have broken up his schooling, and as his father wanted him to become an electrical engineer, he was, much against his will, left at home. Jack attended the Westville Academy, and was one of the best students in that institution. When his parents decided to make their long trip, they discussed several plans of having their son taken care of while they were away. Finally they decided to send him to live with a former college instructor, Professor Klopper, who was an eminent authority on many subjects. The professor was a bachelor, and, with an elderly sister, lived in a somewhat gloomy house on the outskirts of Westville. There Jack had been for about a year, attending school in the meanwhile. He had never liked Professor Klopper, for the aged man was crabbed and dictatorial, and very stern when it came to lessons. He made Jack study more than any other boy who went to the academy, and was continually examining him at home, on what he had learned in school. This, undoubtedly, was good for Jack’s scholarship, but the boy did not like it. Mr. Allen had arranged that the professor should have complete charge of Jack, and a goodly sum had been left with the scientist for the keep of the boy. “Give him a little spending money,” Mr. Allen had said to the professor, “and see that he does not waste it.” The trouble was that the mathematical mind of the professor and the more liberal one of Jack’s father differed as to what a “little spending money” was, and what was meant by “wasting” it. The consequence was that Jack led a very miserable life with the professor, but he was too manly a lad to complain, so his letters to his parents said nothing about the disagreeable side of his sojourn with the former college teacher. But, of late, there had come no letters from Mr. and Mrs. Allen. Jack’s boyish epistles had not been replied to, and the professor’s long effusions, containing precise reports as to his ward’s progress, were not answered. All trace of Mr. and Mrs. Allen was lost when they got to China, though up to now Jack had not worried about them, as he realized that mail in some foreign countries is not as certain as it is in the United States. “Professor Klopper is the meanest old codger that ever lived!” exclaimed Jack, as he mounted the stairs to his room. “I wish dad and mother would come back. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen them, and things are getting worse here instead of better. The idea of not giving me a dollar!