His eyes widened. "_Oh_, yes--frightfully!" And he tendered me another cigar, and I had to light it--he made me! "Of course, the mistake was in ever sending Francis away to school--not always a wise thing, Mr. Lightnut, especially when the home life has been too cloistered. I think the reaction was too much for one so green and inexperienced as Francis. And extravagance--my!" He lifted his hands. "I thought Jack was bad enough at Cambridge with a thousand-dollar apartment on the 'Gold Coast,' as you call it--and, by George, you Harvard men have got the right name for it!--but Francis beat that in one term's drain on me for poker losses and--" "Poker?" I moistened my lips. Then I brightened, for perhaps he meant bridge--and _that_ was good form, for there was my Aunt Julia, who lived by it--fact! But his head shook impatiently when I suggested that he meant this. "Bridge!" he exploded. "Why, Francis doesn't know bridge from casino! _Poker_, I tell you, and faro--and all the rest. The plucking was done nightly at a certain--er--club, the establishment of a gentleman by the name of McGinty--'Spot' McGinty--oh, you _know_ the place, then?" For I had gasped audibly. "Only--only by reputation," I responded hastily. "Um, dare say it has got 'reputation,' all right. I guess, too, there are more crooked things than streets within a couple of miles of Harvard Square, eh? Why, do you know, Francis and a couple of classmates were caught in a raid there one night and lugged off to the station in a patrol--I had to bail 'em out by wire. That's how _I_ know about the place." And, discriminatingly, he selected a fresh cigar and lighted it. "You--you don't mean they were really arrested?" I faltered. He nodded grimly through a funnel of smoke. "How could they help being? Why, dammit, they were too drunk to get away!" He settled in his seat with a scowl. "I can tell you it was all I could do to stave off expulsion!" My jolly head spun. By Jove, Radcliffe girls must have moved on some since my day! Then they were coldly intellectual--went in strong for the earnest life, you know--the serious purpose existence--all that sort of thing. All of us looked on them with more or less awe--that is, except Smithers; he tried some intimate flirtations, one morning with a bunch in the Botanic Gardens and got stung. _He_ said they were "prunes." But _Frances_--and "Spot" McGinty's! Surely I had not heard aright. I faced him earnestly. "I--er--Judge Billings, do I understand you--that is, it can't be that you are speaking of--er--Frances?" I stammered incredulously. "I mean _your_ Frances--surely you are not!" "I just am!" His jaw set with a snap. "Just who I'm talking about and nobody else, young man! I mean, _my_ Francis--Francis Leslie Billings--who else could I mean?" He almost groaned. "Oh, you don't _know_ Francis!"