“Eleanor!  This is too wonderful—­look!”

Eleanor looked, and read:  “Mr. David Pendleton Lance.”  “Why, Grandmother, it’s Dad’s name—­David Pendleton Cabell.  And the Lance—­”

Mrs. Cabell, stronger on genealogy than the younger generation, took up the wandering thread.  “The ‘Lance’ is my mother’s maiden name—­Virginia Lance she was.  And her brother was David Pendleton Lance.  I named your father for him because he was born on the day my young uncle was killed, in the battle of Shiloh.”

“Well, then—­who’s this sailing around with our family name?”

“Who is he?  But he must be our close kin, Eleanor.  My Uncle David left—­that’s it.  His wife came from California and she went out there again to live with her baby.  I hadn’t heard of them for years.  Why, Eleanor, this boy’s father must have been—­my first cousin.  My young Uncle David’s baby.  Those years of trouble after we left home wiped out so much.  I lost track—­but that doesn’t matter now.  Aunt Basha,” spoke Miss Jinny in a quick, efficient voice, which suddenly recalled the blooming and businesslike mother of the young brood of years ago, “Aunt Basha, where can I find your young Marse David?”

Aunt Basha smiled radiantly and shook her head.  “Cayn’t fin’ him, honey?  I done tried, and he warn’t dar.”

“Wasn’t where?”

“At de orfice, Miss Jinny.”

“At what office?”

“Why, de Daybreak orfice, cose, Miss Jinny.  What yether orfice he gwine be at?”

“Oh!” Miss Jinny followed with ease the windings of the African mind.  “He’s a reporter on the Daybreak then.”

“’Cose he is, Miss Jinny, ma’am.  Whatjer reckon?”

Miss Jinny reflected.  Then:  “Eleanor, call up the Daybreak office and ask if Mr. Lance is there and if he will speak to me.”

But Aunt Basha was right.  Mr. Lance was not at the Daybreak office.  Mrs. Cabell was as grieved as a child.

“We’ll find him, Grandmother,” Eleanor asserted.  “Why, of course—­it’s a morning paper.  He’s home sleeping.  I’ll get his number.”  She caught up the telephone book.

Aunt Basha chuckled musically.  “He ain’t got no tullaphome, honey chile.  No, my Lawd!  Whar dat boy gwine git money for tullaphome and contraptions?  No, my Lawd!”

“How will we get him?” despaired Mrs. Cabell.  The end of the council was a cryptic note in the hand of Jackson, the chauffeur, and orders to bring back the addressee at any cost.

Meanwhile, as Jackson stood in his smart dark livery taking orders with the calmness of efficiency, feeling himself capable of getting that young man, howsoever hidden, the young man himself was wasting valuable hours off in day-dreams.  In the one shabby big chair of the hall bedroom he sat and smoked a pipe, and stared at a microscopic fire in a toy grate.  It was extravagant of David Lance to have a fire at all, but as long as he gave up meals to do it likely