either."

Jason stared. "I don't know what you mean about the school," he
returned. "I am speaking of his stepfather."

"His STEPFATHER!"

"Yes; his father, Van Buren Sluysdael, died, you know--a year after they
left Greyport. The widow was left all the money in trust for Johnny,
except about twenty-five hundred a year which he was in receipt of as a
separate income, even as a boy. Well, a glib-tongued parson, a fellow by
the name of Belcher, got round the widow--she was a desperate fool--and,
by Jove! made her marry him. He made ducks and drakes of not only her
money, but Johnny's too, and had to skip to Spain to avoid the trustees.
And Johnny--for the Sluysdaels are all fools or lunatics--made over his
whole separate income to that wretched, fashionable fool of a mother,
and went into a stockbroker's office as a clerk."

"And walks to business before eight every morning, and they say even
takes down the shutters and sweeps out," broke in Circe impulsively.
"Works like a slave all day, wears out his old clothes, has given up his
clubs and amusements, and shuns society."

"But how about his health?" I asked. "Is he better and stronger?"

"I don't know," said Circe, "but he LOOKS as beautiful as Endymion."

*****

At his bank, in Wall Street, Bracy that afternoon confirmed all that