the time, even though he tries to make me think that he looks upon me as
a very business-like young woman."

"Who is Mr. Covington?" Allen asked, bluntly, inwardly resenting the
fact that any one except her father was as intimate with Alice as the
words indicated.

"He's father's right-hand man in the Consolidated Companies. If you
could once see him and father at work and hear them talk you would
understand the fascination of it."

"Then you like business conversation?" The boy found it difficult to
comprehend.

"Better than anything else in the world."

Allen became really serious. "If that's the case," he said,
emphatically, "I'm going to become a man of affairs, just to give
you that pleasure."

Alice clapped her hands with delight. "What are you going to do?" she
asked.

He turned so blank a face to the expectant one he saw before him that
the seriousness could no longer be preserved. The vacuity turned into a
smile, and the smile into a broad grin.

"I guess I lose if I have to answer that question now," he admitted,
frankly; "but you keep your eye on Willie and the push-ball, and watch
the professor change him into a big roaring captain of industry. Then