"How can I tell? Isn't it likely to be serious for any of the unprotected young of your species when a Great American Pumess gets after him?" she queried demurely. "But you can't know him very well. He's been here only a few weeks, hasn't he?" "More than a month. And from the first he's gone everywhere." "That's quite unusual for your set, isn't it? I thought you rather prided yourselves on being careful about outsiders." "No one's an outsider whom Jinny Willard vouches for. Besides every one likes Hal Surtaine for himself." "You among the number?" "Yes, indeed," she responded frankly. "He's attractive. And he seems older and more--well--interesting than most of the boys of my set." "And that appeals to you?" "Yes: it does. I get awfully bored with the just-out-of-college chatter of the boys. I want to see the wheels go round, Guardy. Real wheels, that make up real machinery and get real things done. I'm not quite an _ingenue_, you know." "Thirty-five, thirty, twenty-five, fifteen, three," murmured her uncle, rubbing his ear. "And does young Surtaine give you inside glimpses of the machinery of his business?" "Sometimes. He doesn't know very much about it himself, yet." "It's a pretty dirty business, Honey. And, I'm afraid, he's a pretty bad breed." "The father _is_ rather impossible, isn't he?" she said, laughing. "But they say he's very kindly, and well-meaning, and public-spirited, and that kind of thing." "He's a scoundrelly old quack. It's a bad inheritance for the boy. Where are you off to this morning?" "To the 'Clarion' office." "What! Well, but, see here, dear, does Cousin Clarice approve of that sort of thing?" "Wholly," Esme assured him, dimpling. "It's on behalf of the Recreation Club. That's the Reverend Norman Hale's club for working-girls, you know. We're going to give a play. And, as I'm on the Press Committee, it's quite proper for me to go to the newspapers and get things printed." "Humph!" grunted Dr. Elliot. "Well: good hunting--Pumess."