He affected to be examining the register for a little while, then suddenly looked up to remark: “I say, Pell, that’s a deuced pretty sister of yours.” I won’t say that Rex did right, I can’t say that he did wrong, but on the instant and without a word he leaned forward and hit J. Ashby Stout a blow on the chin that sent him staggering backward over a chair that stood just behind him. There happened to be no one else in the office just at that moment. So Mr. Stout was obliged to pick himself up, which he did, muttering wrathfully under his breath, while Rex, very white, went on with his work. “If you’re not a coward, sir, you’ll come out here and give me satisfaction for that insult, sir.” So spoke Mr. Stout. Rex closed his books and came out in front of the desk. “I allow no one to speak of my sister in that tone,” he said. “And I allow no one to strike me,” blustered Mr. Stout, launching out a blow directly at Rex’s face. Rex dodged and planted another blow on Mr. Stout’s chin. Then they both went at it. Sometimes one was struck, sometimes the other. I am aware that this is contrary to all precedents in story writing. Following out these, J. Ashby Stout should have gone down under the first blow, and then been glad to slink off without risking another encounter with the redoubtable hero. But then as I think I have remarked once before, Rex is not the hero of this story. He is a boy of very impulsive nature, as often wrong as right in his motives. Perhaps he might have taken a wiser method of standing up for his sister on the present occasion. Be this as it may, he did not regret the black eye he went up to his room to bathe a little while later. And while the battle did not result in a decisive victory for either side, it was noticeable that Mr. J. Ashby Stout did not again accompany Driscoll to the Homestead. But some one else appeared the next day to whom Rex found it necessary to explain how he came by his battered visage. CHAPTER XXXVI MILES BREAKS THE NEWS A compromise had been effected with the striking waiters, and the heat had lessened a little in its intensity. The two things, together with the nonappearance of Ashby Stout were blessings for which Rex had to be grateful. But when the stage came in and he recognized among the passengers Miles Darley and the latter’s father, he did not know whether he was glad or not. They were links connecting him with that past life which he was trying his best to forget. Now it seemed to him that only by forgetting it and thus doing away with the power of contrast, could he be happy in the present. “You dear old fellow!” Miles rushed forward with this exclamation and fairly took Rex in his arms. He had grown much in the past few months and the clothes he wore set off his figure to great advantage. “I won’t say where on earth did you come from,” said Rex, “but where in the world are you going to, that you should take in this forsaken place?”