"For a French person," observed Mrs. Bines, guardedly, "I always liked the baron." "Of course," said her son, to Mauburn's mystification, "and the noblest men on this earth have to wear 'em." The surmise regarding the Baron de Palliac and Millie Higbee proved to be correct. Percival came upon Higbee in the meditative enjoyment of his after-dinner cigar, out on the broad piazza. "I s'pose you're on," he began; "the girl's engaged to that Frenchy." "I congratulate him," said Percival, heartily. "A real baron," continued Higbee. "I looked him up and made sure of that; title's good as wheat. God knows that never would 'a' got me, but the madam was set on it, and the girl too, and I had to give in. It seemed to be a question of him or some actor. The madam said I'd had my way about Hank, puttin' his poor stubby nose to the grindstone out there in Chicago, and makin' a plain insignificant business man out of him, and I'd ought to let her have her way with the girl, being that I couldn't expect her to go to work too. So Mil will work the society end. I says to the madam, I says, 'All right, have your own way; and we'll see whether you make more out of the girl than I make out of the boy,' I says. But it ain't going to be _all_ digging up. I've made the baron promise to go into business with me, and though I ain't told him yet, I'm going to put out a line of Higbee's thin-sliced ham and bacon in glass jars with his crest on 'em for the French trade. This baron'll cost me more'n that sign I showed you coming out of the old town, and he won't give any such returns, but the crest on them jars, printed in three colours and gold, will be a bully ad; and it kept the women quiet," he concluded, apologetically. "The baron's a good fellow," said Percival. "Sure," replied Higbee. "They're all good fellows. Hank had the makin's of a good fellow in him. And say, young man, that reminds me; I hear all kinds of reports about your getting to be one yourself. Now I knew your father, Daniel J. Bines, and I liked him, and I like you; and I hope you won't get huffy, but from what they tell me you ain't doing yourself a bit of good." "Don't believe all you hear," laughed Percival. "Well, I'll tell you one thing plain, if you was my son, you'd fade right back to the packing-house along with Henry-boy. It's a pity you ain't got some one to shut down on you that way. They tell me you got your father's capacity for carrying liquor, and I hear you're known from one end of Broadway to the other as the easiest mark that ever came to town. They say you couldn't walk in your sleep without spending money. Now, excuse my plain speaking, but them are two reputations that are mighty hard to live up to beyond a certain limit. They've put lots of good weight-carriers off the track before they was due to go. I hear you got pinched in that wheat deal of Burman's?" "Oh, only for a few hundred thousand. The reports of our losses were exaggerated. And we stood to win over--"