We were crossing the great hall in the direction of the beautiful dining-room beyond--Elizabethan, I think Frances said it was. We all paused expectantly as Billings rolled down the stairs in his usual jolly, elephantine way. And then on the landing appeared an apparition--not only an apparition, but, by Jove, a scarecrow, as well! Professor Doozenberry, blandly smiling--his rail-like figure shrouded flabbily in one of Billings' largest and loudest suits! Billings went through the form of introductions, chuckling idiotically the while. But the professor scarcely noticed any one but the frump. "Don't wait, Wilkes," Billings directed. His nod beckoned me aside. "Gentleman sulking in his tent over here I want you to meet," he said. And I followed him to the library. A figure pacing the floor turned sharply. By Jove, it was the chauffeur, and how he did scowl at me! "Now, young man," said Billings sternly, "perhaps you'll have the nerve to tell me before Mr. Lightnut himself that you were his guest on your way home from Harvard." "I certainly was!" He made the statement, chin up and eyes blazing. "I was his guest at the Kahoka Wednesday night, and he knows it." Billings looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. "Don't bother denying it, old man," he said. "It's all right." "Oh, but I say--it isn't!" I exclaimed in disgusted amaze. "Dashed impertinence, you know--never saw this fellow before the morning at the--er--boat, and day before yesterday when I--" I halted, remembering. But the fellow was shaking his finger at me. "A-a-a!" he jeered like a school-boy. "Why don't you finish? Bet you don't know, Jack, that this paragon friend of yours was up here on the train day before yesterday." Billings stared, for he did not know. The chap grew more impudent. "Yah, see him turn red!" "By Jove!" I exclaimed, warming up, you know. "Say, Billings, who the devil is this fellow?" And I advanced angrily--dashed annoyed, you know. Billings interposed. "My brother," he said quietly. "Yes, his brother," almost shouted the other. Then he lowered his voice at Billings' command: "And I say, you didn't tell Jack you were on the train yesterday, posing as a 'Mr. Smith,' and that you insulted Frances." He shook off his brother's hand angrily. "Oh, yes he did--sister told me about it! I knew it was you when I got to thinking about it this morning!" He panted for breath. "I can't call you a liar, Lightnut, when you say I wasn't at your rooms, because you're a quicker hitter than I am, and--" He looked around and shrugged. "And because we are in this house. But you're an infernal hypocrite, and I want Jack to know it." He laughed mockingly and faced his brother. "Ask your friend, Mr. Lightnut, about that girl in black pajamas in his rooms!" And he flung himself from the room with a Parthian shot: "Ask him to tell you about her as he did me. Ask him who it _was_!" Billings seemed to groan. "More black pajamas!" he muttered.