he said to himself, "he'd know that at every college the best fellows
always skate along the edge of the thin ice. But he doesn't, and so he
thinks he's disgraced." He lit another cigarette by way of consolation
and clarification.

When the father reappeared, dressed for the street, he was apparently
unconscious of the cigarette. They walked home in silence--a
striking-looking pair, with their great similar forms and their handsome
similar faces, typical impersonations of the first generation that is
sowing in labor, and the second generation that is reaping in idleness.

"Oh!" exclaimed Arthur, as they entered the Ranger place and began to
ascend the stone walk through the lawns sloping down from the big,
substantial-looking, creeper-clad house. "I stopped at Cleveland half a
day, on the way West, and brought Adelaide along." He said this with
elaborate carelessness; in fact, he had begged her to come that she might
once more take her familiar and highly successful part of buffer between
him and his father's displeasure.

The father's head lifted, and the cloud over his face also. "How is she?"
he asked. "Bang up!" answered Arthur. "She's the sort of a sister a man's
proud of--looks and style, and the gait of a thoroughbred." He
interrupted himself with a laugh. "There she is, now!" he exclaimed.

This was caused by the appearance, in the open front doors, of a strange
creature with a bright pink ribbon arranged as a sort of cockade around
and above its left ear--a brown, hairy, unclean-looking thing that gazed
with human inquisitiveness at the approaching figures. As the elder
Ranger drew down his eyebrows the creature gave a squeak of alarm and,
dropping from a sitting position to all fours, wheeled and shambled