"Damned young scamp!" said Mr. Van Alstyne, although I have a sign in
the spring-house, "Profanity not allowed."

"EXACTLY what was he doing when you last laid eyes on him?" I asked.

"He was on the train--"

"Was he alone?"

"Yes."

"Sitting?"

"No, standing. What the deuce, Minnie--"

"Waving out the window to you?"

"Of course not!" exclaimed Mr. Van Alstyne testily. "He was raising the
window for a girl in the next seat."

"Precisely!" I said. "Would you know the girl well enough to trace her?"

"That's ridiculous, you know," he said trying to be polite. "Out of a
thousand and one things that may have detained him--"

"Only one thing ever detains Mr. Dick, and that always detains him," I
said solemnly. "That's a girl. You're a newcomer in the family, Mr. Van
Alstyne; you don't remember the time he went down here to the station to
see his Aunt Agnes off to the city, and we found him three weeks later
in Oklahoma trying to marry a widow with five children."