“Jones seems a vary gentlemanly young fellow,” said Mr. Merrick.  “He is a bit shy and retiring, which is perhaps due to his lonely life on his island; but I think he has been well brought up.”

As they came out from dinner they observed the porters wheeling several big trunks up the east corridor.  The end of each trunk was lettered:  “A.  Jones.”

“Well,” said Beth, with an amused smile, “he intends to stay a while, anyhow.  You’ll have a chance to meet him yet, Maud.”

“I’m glad of that,” answered Maud, “for I am anxious to calculate the worth of the life I helped to save.  Your reports are ambiguous, and I am undecided whether you are taking the boy seriously or as a joke.  From your description of his personal appearance, I incline to the belief that under ordinary circumstances I would not look twice at Mr. Jones, but having been partly instrumental in preserving him to the world, I naturally feel a proprietary interest in him.”

“Of course,” said Flo.  “He’s worth one look, out of pure curiosity; but it would be dreadful to have him tagging you around, expressing his everlasting gratitude.”

“I don’t imagine he’ll do that,” observed Patsy Doyle.  “A.  Jones strikes me as having a fair intellect in a shipwrecked body, and I’ll wager a hatpin against a glove-buttoner that he won’t bore you.  At the same time he may not interest you—­or any of us—­for long, unless he develops talents we have not discovered.  I wonder why he doesn’t use his whole name.  That mystic ‘A’ puzzles me.”

“It’s an English notion, I suppose,” said Mrs. Montrose.

“But he isn’t English; he’s American.”

“Sangoese,” corrected Beth.

“Perhaps he doesn’t like his name, or is ashamed of it,” suggested Uncle John.

“It may be ‘Absalom,’” said Flo.  “We once knew an actor named Absalom, and he always called himself ‘A.  Judson Keith.’  He was a dignified chap, and when we girls one day called him ‘Ab,’ he nearly had hysterics.”

“Mr. Werner had hysterics to-day,” asserted Maud, gravely; “but I didn’t blame him.  He sent out a party to ride down a steep hill on horseback, as part of a film story, and a bad accident resulted.  One of the horses stepped in a gopher hole and fell, and a dozen others piled up on him, including their riders.”

“How dreadful!” was the general exclamation.

“Several of the horses broke their legs and had to be shot,” continued Maud; “but none of the riders was seriously injured except little Sadie Martin, who was riding a bronco.  The poor thing was caught under one of the animals and the doctor says she won’t be able to work again for months.”

“Goodness me!  And all for the sake of a picture?” cried Patsy indignantly.  “I hope you don’t take such risks, Maud.”

“No; Flo and I have graduated from what is called ‘the bronco bunch,’ and now do platform work entirely.  To be sure we assume some minor risks in that, but nothing to compare with the other lines of business.”