Bob answered smoothly:  “Certainly I understand; you think ninety dollars is too much for a suit.  Perhaps I can show you something in scarfs of an exclusive design?”

“Don’t be funny!” growled his father.

“Really, dad, you’d better go.  That suit of yours is a sight.  Somebody may think we made it for you.”

Mr. Wharton remained silent for a moment.  “The situation is impossible, and anybody but you would see it.  We can’t accept that woman, and we won’t.  She’s notorious.”

“No more so than I—­or you, for that matter.”

“She’s a grafter.  She’d quit you if I paid her enough.”

“How do you know?”

“Her mother has been to see me half a dozen times.  I’ve offered to pay her anything within reason, but they’re holding out for something big.  You come back, Bob.  Let her go back to her own people.”

“And what’s to become of the other one?” Bob was smiling faintly.

“The other one?  What do you mean?”

“I mean there will be three in the family soon, dad; you’re going to be a grandfather.”

The effect of this announcement was unexpected.  Hannibal Wharton was momentarily stricken dumb, for once he was utterly at a loss.  Then, instead of raising his voice, he spoke with a sharp, stuttering incisiveness: 

“So that’s her game, eh?  I suppose she thinks she’ll breed her way into the family.  Well, she won’t.  It won’t work.  I was willing to compromise before—­so long as there was no tangible bond between that family and mine—­but they’ve got their blood mixed with mine; they’ve got a finger-hold in spite of hell, and I suppose they’ll hold on.  But I won’t acknowledge a grandchild with scum like that in its veins.  Good God!  Now listen—­you.”  Wharton’s jaw was outthrust, his gaze hard and unwavering.  “No child tainted with that blood will share in one penny of my money, now or at any other time.  Understand?”

“Perfectly.”  Bob’s color had receded, but in no other way did he show his struggle for self-mastery.  “My wife isn’t having a baby to spite you, and if it ever needs a grandfather we’ll adopt one.”

“They’ve pulled you down into the mud; now they’ve tied you there.  Heredity’s stronger than you or I; watch your child grow up, and watch its mother’s blood tell.  Then remember that I tried to free you before it was too late.  Well, I’m through.  This settles me.  Good-by, and God help you with that rotten gang.”  Hannibal Wharton turned and strode out of the room shaking his head and mumbling.

Jimmy Knight had fallen upon evil times.  A combination of circumstances had seriously affected his mode of making a living, and that of his friends.  To outward appearances the frequenters of Tony the Barber’s place were as thrifty as usual, but in the pinochle-room at the rear there was gloom.  Reason for these hard times lay in an upheaval of public sentiment that had galvanized the Police Department into one