There was no doubt of this.  One could read it at once in the way he looked at his companion.

“I suppose you were surprised to get Syd’s telegram,” remarked Rex.  “What did he say in it?”

“Come and spend Sunday with Rex,” answered the other.  “I was here only a little while ago, but I was glad enough to come again.  It is ever so kind in you to send for me.”

“Didn’t you think there might be any other reason for our sending for you?” asked Rex, after an instant’s pause.

A troubled look crossed Miles’s face.

“No; what do you mean, Rex?”

“Don’t you remember what you found out a little while ago—­ about the man who left you with the Morriseys?”

“Oh, my father.  Has your brother heard anything about him?  Is that what you want me for?”

“It’s about that; yes.  I’m not sure whether your father has been found, but something else has been found that belongs to you.”

“And what is that?” asked Miles eagerly.

“A fortune.”

CHAPTER XXXIII

 A queer fish pond party

Miles stared at Rex as though he did not comprehend the meaning of the word.

“A fortune?” he repeated.  “What fortune?”

“Why, your fortune, to be sure,” returned Rex.

“But I don’t understand,” went on Miles.  “How can I have a fortune?”

“Easy enough, since your father has one.  Syd knows all about it.  You’re a lucky fellow, Miles.  It’s somewhere about half a million.”

Miles looked very grave for half a minute, then a smile broke out over his face.

“Come, Rex,” he said, “I see through your joke, so you might as well drop it.  You oughtn’t to have made the sum so high if you expected me to believe it.”

“It’s true, all the same, Miles.”

But Miles still shook his head and declared he should wait to believe till Mr. Sydney told him all about it.

“I wonder if Syd will tell him the whole thing tonight?” Rex asked himself, but Sydney was not home to dinner.

There was a note from him to Rex, however, asking that he and Roy and Miles should meet him at the Continental Hotel that night at eight.  This threw Rex into a great state of excitement.  He knew that the crisis was at hand.

Roy took things more quietly, but inwardly he was none the less excited.

“Syd wants us to meet him down town,” he said as they rose from the table.

He had been waiting for Rex to tell Miles, but the other had not yet brought himself to do it.

“Where are you going?” Jess wanted to know.  “To the theater?”

“No, indeed,” responded Rex.  Then he folded up his napkin quickly and left the dining room.

“Has this visit got anything to do with my father?” Miles whispered to Roy, as they went out into the hall together.