"Sometimes--sometimes I'm inclined to think it will never 'tear'; that another than I will be the first to reach the heavenly bodies." Toandoah sighed. "For where are the funds coming from, Pem, the little bonanza--fairy gold-mine--necessary to gorge our Thunder Bird for its record flight--fit it out for its novel migration to the moon, eh?" The inventor clasped his hands behind his head, whistling ruefully. "Funds, child! Already, it has pecked through the biggest slice of mine!" "Ah! but--ah! but--" the girl suddenly flashed upon him a sky-blue wink--"ah! but the third _nut_ hasn't been cracked yet, remember, for the Bird to peck at that. Isn't it in four weeks from now--oh! in five--" the slight figure swaying like the blue-eyed grass upon its tall green stem, blown by a wild breeze--"in five weeks from now that the third drawer will be opened, containing the third and last installment of Mr. Hartley Graham's queer, queer drawn-out will. When it is--oh! when it is--maybe, then, at last, there will be something coming to the University, our University, to benefit your inventions, Daddy." "My child! when that third nut is cracked, 'twill only benefit a 'nut'." The man chuckled drily now. "In other words, the remainder of Friend Hartley's fortune, all that his sister, Mrs. Grosvenor, hasn't already got, will still be held in trust by me, as executor of the will, for--for that griffin of a younger brother of his who cleared out over twenty years ago and hasn't sent a line to his family since." "Was Mr. Treffrey Graham--really--such a--zany?" Pem asked the question for the nineteenth time, her black eyebrows arching. "My word! 'Was he?' A--a regular hippogriff he was, child! A hot tamale, like that Mexican fruit which burns you if you bite into it! At college one could hardly come near him without getting scorched by his tricks. Remember my telling you about my putting in an appearance in class one day--Physics 3--boasting of the latest thing in student's bags, setting it down beside me--and not seeing it again for three weeks? The terrible Treff, of course! The climax came, as you know, when he locked a gray-haired professor into the padded cell for opposing baseball too early in the season, while the campus was still soft." "Mer-rcy! And kept him there for ages--in that stuffy little room, all wadded and lined with brown burlap, used for analyzing sound--the prof not able to make himself heard!" The listener, girl-like, drew fresh excitement from a faded tale. "Yes--that meant expulsion, of course, and his family, one and all, turning a cold shoulder on Treff, before he went away for good--nobody knew where. His engagement was broken off. His brother Hartley saw to that--married the girl himself." "I wonder--I wonder if the Terrible Treff ever married?" Pem musingly nursed her chin,--and with it a wildfire interest in the "hot tamale."