Peter looked at his watch. He had just twenty-two hours to dig up such roots as he had sprouted during his four years in France. He made the boat by the closest possible margin. Of course he would rather that it had been any vessel afloat except the Espagne haunted by the ghost of what was probably by now a dead submarine. Still catching the boat was a sort of assignment. And it was the quickest way home. Pat would be waiting on the pier in New York. Peter had cabled ahead to him. CHAPTER V It was a Pat prodigiously grown who met Peter as he came down the gangplank. Not much had altered in the look of him but just the added inches and heft gave him a curiously disturbing air of maturity. Peter would have liked to put his arms around him but he didn't dare. The handshake was not adequate and there was nothing he could say to express what he wanted to. It seemed better not to try. "Hello, Pat," he said. "Hello, Father," said the boy. "Don't," exclaimed Peter almost as if in pain. "I've got a name. I don't want to be father. I never have been father. Four years oughtn't to do that." "I'm sorry, Peter," Pat said it almost shyly. The baggage was passed promptly, but as Peter was about to leave the pier a man came up to him. "You're Peter Neale, aren't you?" he asked. Peter nodded. "I'm a reporter from the Bulletin. My name's Weed. Mr. Twice sent me down. He told me to tell you to come right up to the office." "What's the rush?" asked Peter. "I don't know. He didn't say." "I think maybe we'd better go," broke in Pat. "He gave me the same message for you yesterday. I forgot about it." "What has he got to do with you?" Peter inquired, after Weed had gone. "Don't you see, when Mr. Twice became editor he inherited me along with the paper. Mr. Miles never did anything much the last couple years about managing me. He just turned over the allowance you gave me every week. Mr. Twice has taken complete charge. He's got my whole life mapped out." "What's it going to be?" "He's got it all fixed up for me to go to Harvard one more year and then start on the Bulletin." "How do you like that?" "I like it fine. But that doesn't make any difference. It's all fixed up that way anyhow. Twice has made up his mind about it." "I'm obliged to him, but why can't he let me alone the first day. They didn't do things like this on the Bulletin in the old days. Here it is four years and I want to sit down some place and talk with you." They waited in the outer office less than half an hour before a young woman ushered them into Twice's room. Peter had seen him before. The description which Cheeves gave was not so very good after all. His hair wasn't very black. "Glad to see you back, Neale," said Twice, "and you, Pat. Won't you just sit down. I'll be with you in a second."