“Seems rather odd to see that chap departing humbly by any door but the front one.”

“You knew him, then.  Who was he?” inquired his sister.

“Didn’t you?  He’s a familiar figure enough about town.  Why, he’s Rich Kendrick.  Grandson of Matthew Kendrick, of Kendrick & Company, you know.  Only Rich doesn’t take much interest in the business.  You’ll find his doings carefully noticed in certain columns in certain society journals.”

“I don’t read them, thank you.  Do you?”

“Don’t need to.  Kendrick’s a familiar figure wherever the gay and youthful rich disport themselves—­when he’s in the country at all.  He’s doing his best to get away with the money his father left him.  Fortunately the bulk of the family fortune is still in the hands of his grandfather, who seems an uncommonly healthy and vigorous old man.”  Louis laughed.  “Can’t think what Rich Kendrick can be doing here with Uncle Cal.  I believe, though, he and old Matthew Kendrick are good friends.  Probably grandson Richard came on an errand.  It certainly behooves him to do grandfather’s errands with as good a grace as he can muster.”

“He was sitting in the hall quite a while before Uncle Cal saw him,” volunteered Ted, who had tagged at Roberta’s heels, and was listening with interest.

“Sitting in the hall, eh—­like any district messenger?” Louis was clearly delighted with this news.  “How did it happen, Cub?  Mary take him for an everyday, common person?”

“I let him in.  I thought he was a chauffeur,” admitted Ted.  “He was awfully wet and muddy.  Steve took him in to Uncle Cal.”

An explosion of laughter from his interested elder brother interrupted him.  “I wish I’d come along and seen him.  So he had the bad manners to sit in our hall in a wet and muddy motoring coat, and go in to see Uncle Cal—­”

“The young man had on no muddy coat when Stephen brought him in to see me,” declared Judge Calvin Gray, coming out and catching the last sentence.  “He put it on in the hall before going out.  What are you saying?  That was the grandson of my good friend, Matthew Kendrick, and so had claim upon my good will from the start, though I haven’t laid eyes upon the boy since his schooldays.  He was rather a restless and obstreperous youngster then, I’ll admit.  What he is now seems pleasing enough to the eye, certainly, though of course that may not be sufficient.  A fine, mannerly young fellow he appeared to me, and I was glad to see that he seemed willing enough to run upon his grandfather’s errands, though they took him out upon a raw night like this.”

But Louis Gray, though he did not pursue the subject further, was still smiling to himself as he obeyed a summons to dinner.