"Now you've hit it," assented Gladwin. "So I've come home to investigate--sleuthing expedition, you might say. Didn't want him to hear I was coming and climb out. Now you've got the answer to the gumshoe riddle. My plan is to lie low and have you look him up. Nothing else on foot, Whitney? Haven't gone into mustard or Wall street, have you?" It was Whitney Barnes's turn to construct a frown and take on an air of intense seriousness, while his friend smiled at him, thinking it was one of his humorous moods. "Can't say I have anything definite on foot," said Barnes slowly, "but the pater has given me a rather important commission to fulfil, though not exactly in mustard." "Well, then," said Travers Gladwin with a trace of annoyance, "I'd better call on somebody else. I"-- "Nothing of the sort," broke in Whitney Barnes. "It may fit right in with my plans. It'll keep me circulating round a lot and that's just what I want--that and what Bateato is bringing," as the little brown man entered the room on the run, bearing a silver tray, decanter and glasses. CHAPTER IX. THE CURSE OF MILLIONS. As Travers Gladwin's valet filled the tall, slim glasses with the fizzing amber-colored fluid which constitutes the great American highball, the two friends stretched their legs and lost themselves for a few moments in aimless reverie. Bateato looked from one to the other, puzzled by their seriousness. He clinked the glasses to rouse them and glided from the room. Whitney Barnes was the first to look up and shake himself free of the sober spell that gripped him. "What the deuce made you skip abroad in such a hurry, Travers?" he asked, reaching for his glass. Travers Gladwin sat up with a start, pulled a lugubrious smile and replied: "Bored to death--nothing interested me--living the most commonplace, humdrum, unromantic existence imaginable. Teas and dances, dances and teas, clubs and theatres, theatres and clubs, motors and yachts, yachts and motors. It was horrible, and I can't help thinking it was all my dear old governor's fault. He had no consideration for me." "He left you a tidy lot of millions," drawled Whitney Barnes. Young Gladwin drained his glass, jumped to his feet and began to pace the room, hands deep in his trousers pockets. "That was just it!" he flung out. "If he'd left me nothing but a shilling or two there'd be some joy in living. I'd have had to buckle down. There's variety, interest, pleasure in having to make your own way in the world." Whitney Barnes laughed mockingly. "Go out and tell that to the toiling masses," he chuckled, "and listen to them give you the ha-ha. You're in a bad way, old chap--better see a brain specialist." "I know I'm in a bad way," Gladwin ran on fiercely, "but doctors can't do me any good. It was all right while I was a frolicking lamb, but after I got over the age of thinking myself a devil of a fellow things began to grow tame. I was romantic, sentimental--wanted to fall in love."