Mr. Pett started violently. There was something in Ann's voice
and, as he looked at her, something in her face which made him
fear the worst. Her eyes were flashing with an inspired light of
a highly belligerent nature, and the sun turned the red hair to
which she owed her deplorable want of balance to a mass of flame.
There was something in the air. Mr. Pett sensed it with every
nerve of his apprehensive person. He gazed at Ann, and as he did
so the years seemed to slip from him and he was a boy again,
about to be urged to lawless courses by the superior will of his
boyhood's hero, Hammond Chester. In the boyhood of nearly every
man there is a single outstanding figure, some one youthful
hypnotic Napoleon whose will was law and at whose bidding his
better judgment curled up and died. In Mr. Pett's life Ann's
father had filled this role. He had dominated Mr. Pett at an age
when the mind is most malleable. And now--so true is it that
though Time may blunt our boyish memories the traditions of
boyhood live on in us and an emotional crisis will bring them to
the surface as an explosion brings up the fish that lurk in the
nethermost mud--it was as if he were facing the youthful Hammond
Chester again and being irresistibly impelled to some course of
which he entirely disapproved but which he knew that he was
destined to undertake. He watched Ann as a trapped man might
watch a ticking bomb, bracing himself for the explosion and
knowing that he is helpless. She was Hammond Chester's daughter,
and she spoke to him with the voice of Hammond Chester. She was
her father's child and she was going to start something.

"I've arranged it all with Jerry," said Ann. "He's going to help
me smuggle Ogden away to that friend of his I told you about who
keeps the dog-hospital: and the friend is going to keep him until