“Say, Thax,” pleaded Clive, “don’t be too sore on him. He means all right. He just has an unlucky genius for doing or saying the wrong thing. It isn’t his fault. He’s built that way. And, honest, he’s a tremendously decent chap, at heart. Please don’t be riled by this newspaper squib. It can’t really hurt you.” The man was very evidently stirred by the affair; and was wistfully eager, as ever, to smooth over his brother’s delinquencies. Yet, annoyed by what he had just read, Thaxton did not hasten, as usual, to reassure his chum. “You’re right when you say he has ‘an unlucky genius for saying the wrong thing,’” he admitted. “The last ‘wrong thing’ was what he said to me yesterday. He called me a liar.” “_No!_ Oh, Lord, man, no!” “Before I could slug him or remember he was your brother, Doris Lane strolled in between us, and the war was off. You might warn him not to say that particular ‘wrong thing’ to me again, if you like. Because, next time, Doris might not be nearby enough to stave off the results. And I’d hate, like blazes, to punch a brother of yours. Especially when he’s just getting on his feet after a sickness. But--” “I wish you’d punch _me_, instead!” declared Clive. “Gods, but I’m ashamed! I’ll give him the deuce for this. Won’t you--is there any use asking you to overlook it--to accept my own apology for it--and not to let it break off your acquaintance with Oz? It’d make a mighty hit with me, Thax,” he ended, unhappily. “I think a lot of him. He--” Thaxton laughed, ruefully. “That’s the way it’s always been,” he grumbled. “Whenever Oz does or says some unspeakably rotten thing, and just as he’s about to get in trouble for it, you always hop in and deflect the lightning. You’ve been doing it ever since you were a kid. There, stop looking as if some one was going to cut off your breathing supply! It’s all right. I’ll forget the whole thing--so far as my actions towards Oz are concerned. Only, warn him not to do anything to make me remember it again. As for this mess he’s stirred up, in the _Advocate_, I can’t see what special effect it’ll have. Uncle Oz was too well loved, hereabouts, for it to make his memory ridiculous.” * * * * * But, within the day, Thaxton learned of at least one “special effect” the news item was to have. At four o’clock that afternoon, he received a state visit from a little old lady whom he loved much for herself and more for her niece. The visitor was Miss Hester Gregg, Doris’s aunt and adoptive mother. “Please say you’re glad to see me, Thax,” she greeted Vail. “And please say it, _now_. Because when you hear what I’ve come for, you’ll hate me. Not that I mind being hated, you know,” she added. “But you lack the brain to hate, intelligently. You’d make a botch of it. And I like you too well to see you bungle. Now shall I tell you what I’ve come for?”