conduct now," was my friend's natural conclusion. Then one forenoon Scrymgeour travelled to town in the same compartment as the old gentleman, who was exceedingly frank, and made sly remarks about romantic young people who met by stealth when there was no reason why they should not meet openly. "What does he mean?" Scrymgeour asked himself, uneasily. He saw terribly elaborate explanations gathering and shrank from them.
Then Scrymgeour was one day out in a punt, when he encountered the old gentleman in a canoe. The old man said, purple with passion, that he was on his way to pay Mr. Scrymgeour a business visit. "Oh, yes," he continued, "I know who you are; if I had not discovered you were a man of means I would not have let the thing go on, and now I insist on an explanation."
Explanations!
They made for Scrymgeour's house-boat, with almost no words on the young man's part; but the father blurted out several things—as that his daughter knew where he was going when he left the Heathen Chinee, and that he had an hour before seen Scrymgeour making love to another girl.
"Don't deny it!" cried the indignant father; "I recognized you by your velvet coat and broad hat."
Then Scrymgeour began to see more clearly. The girl had encouraged the deception, and had
