Oh, nothing. Only that other man, though none of the best, so far as he himself was concerned, had walked up to Major Montague in the character of _the law_, and the hand so lightly laid upon the Major’s arm had been that of _power_, and all such men as he wilt like dying plants when they are brought into contact with those two things. Honesty greets the law as a brother, and charity shakes hands with power. Major Montague’s hand was shaking, indeed, but not in that way. Before Bar Vernon sat down to his broiled perch at Puff Evans’s table, his far-away uncle had been provided with quarters in a “new hotel” that was very old and musty, but from which he would make no calls on Judge Danvers until the Law should say to Power that “bail” had been found, or that other reasons required a further change of boarding-place for the Major. A strange “hotel” was that, with such strong doors and locks, and such carefully guarded windows. Perfectly “burglar-proof,” one would be inclined to think, and yet more burglars and other thieves got into it in the course of a year than into all the other hotels in the great city put together. Only some of them had too little difficulty in getting in and too much in getting out. Neither Bar Vernon nor any of his friends knew what had become of Major Montague, and perhaps none of them would have cared to ask, unless reminded of him in some way. Bar himself was too crammed full of the thoughts and things of his “new time” to dwell much just now upon the old or its individual characters. When he and Val reached home that evening they found that Mrs. Wood had kindly kept a good supper and a mild scolding ready for them, and that George Brayton was also waiting till they should get through with both and come up-stairs. They made a fair report of their operations on the lake, but did not seem to think the assistant principal of the Academy would be interested in their new mechanical contrivances. At all events, they did not say a word to him about the “trap.” He on his part listened to all that they had to tell with a degree of kindly sympathy which would have won for him the unmeasured contempt of Mrs. Dryer; but the main point of his curiosity, after all, was as to how much Latin had been captured in the intervals between the “bites.” Here, however, Brayton was destined to be altogether surprised. “Shall I hear you recite?” he said to Bar. “I can ask you questions as we go along.” Bar handed him the grammar, open at the title page, saying: “That’s where I began,” and immediately launched out into a repetition of every word on it. Brayton listened with an amused and curious air, and turned the leaf as Bar reached the “date of publication” at the bottom. Next came the preface, and then the introduction, and Bar waded rapidly but almost unerringly through them. “That’ll do,” said Brayton. “Have you gone any farther?” “Yes,” said Bar. “How far?”