"Oh! come, it's nothing like that, Hugh, so don't allow your
imagination to carry you away. I did get something of a shock, though,
and I guess you'll feel the same way when you learn about it. Well,
the old gentleman asked me who I was, and if I knew his grandson Owen,
as well as a lot of other questions. Fact is, Hugh, I rather guess he
must have taken a violent liking for me right on, the spot, for when I
said I must be going two different times, he begged me to stay with him
just a little while longer.

"I knew I would be too late for the ball practice anyhow, and besides I
didn't have on my old suit, because mother had asked me not to wait to
change my clothes. So I sat down again each time, and answered some
more questions. The old gentleman interested me a whole lot in the
bargain, and I soon made up my mind that those silly people who had
been hinting that Old Mr. Dugdale might be that notorious Wall Street
speculator who had such a bad name, and who'd disappeared several years
ago, didn't know what they were talking about. Why, he is a polished
gentleman, and a foreigner at that, I tell you, Hugh.

"He started talking about his grandson. How his wrinkled face lighted
up when I said my chum, Hugh Morgan, had taken a great fancy for Owen,
and that I shared in the same feeling. You could see easily enough
that Mr. Dugdale believes the sun rises and sets in that boy of his.
Nothing would do, finally, but that he should take me to seen the den
Owen had fitted up for himself, because there was plenty of room in the
big house, and every fellow he knew had some kind of a den in which he
could keep his boyish treasures, in the way of foreign postage stamp
albums, photos taken by himself connected with outings he had been on,
college flags and burgees, and well, just such traps as the average boy
liked to see around him when he's out of school, and settling down to