“Oh, there was plenty of money lying around. The job cost ten per cent. less than Walton’s estimate. If he’d come back, we’d have hauled him over the coals for that blunder. There was the usual reserve for work in inaccessible regions, and then the people we did the job for paid ten days’ bonus for finishing that much ahead of contract time.” The judge mused. “Was the job satisfactory to the people out there?” he asked. “Yes, it was,” said McDale, bluntly; “most satisfactory. But there was a funny thing there, too. They wrote that while they did not approve of Mr. Wayne’s time-saving methods, the finished work had their absolute acceptance.” The judge was silent for a moment. “You want my advice?” he asked. “Yes; not for our own sake, but for Wayne’s.” “Well,” said the judge, “I’m going to give it to you for your sake. When you stumble across a boy that can cut ten per cent. off the working and time estimates of an old hand like Walton, you bind him to you with a long contract at any salary he wants. And just one thing more: when Alan Wayne steals a cent from you, or fifty thousand dollars, you come to me, and I’ll pay it.” McDale’s eyes narrowed, and he puffed nervously at his cigar. He got up to take his leave. “Judge,” he said, “your head is on right, and your heart’s in the right place, as well. I begin to see that widow business. Wayne sized us up for a hard-headed firm when it comes to paying out what we don’t have to, and we are. It wasn’t law, but he was right. Walton’s work was done just as if he’d been alive. Even a Scotchman can see that. You needn’t worry. A man that you’ll back for fifty thousand is good enough for McDale & McDale.” CHAPTER VI It was Alix who discovered Alan as the _Elenic_ steamed slowly down the Solent. He was already comfortably established in his chair, with a small pile of fiction beside him. [Illustration: Drawn by Reginald Birch “‘IN MY TIME,’ REMARKED THE CAPTAIN, ‘A CLUB WAS FOR PRIVACY. NOW IT’S A HAVEN FOR BELL-BOYS AND A PLAYGROUND FOR WHIPPER-SNAPPERS’”] She paused before she approached him. Alan had always interested her. Perhaps it was because he had kept himself at a distance; but, then, he had a way of keeping his distance from almost everybody. Alix had thought of him heretofore as a modern exquisite subject to atavic fits that, in times past, had led him into more than one barbarous escapade. It was the flare of daring in these shameful outbursts that had saved him from a suspicion of effeminacy. Now, in London she had by chance heard things of him that forced her to a readjustment of her estimate. In six months Alan had turned himself into a mystery. “Well,” she said, coming up behind him, “how are you?” Alan turned his head slowly, and then threw off his rugs and sprang to his feet. “The sky is clear,” he said; “where did you drop from?” His eyes measured her. She was ravishing in a fur toque and coat which had yet to receive their baptism of import duty.