society tiresome? It is after eleven!"

Sam smiling to himself hung up his hat. He was reflecting that he must
see about those rabbits at once.

"You will understand, sir, if you please, that while you do me the
honor to live under my roof you will return to it at night at a
respectable hour. I will not sit up for you in this way. You will be
in at ten o'clock. Do you hear?"

"Yes, sir," said Sam; and added with sudden awakening of interest, "if
you would let me have a key, father, I--"

"I will not let you have a key! I will have no boy entering my house
at midnight with a key! Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," Sam murmured falling back into his own thoughts.

Mr. Wright, still talking, stood at the foot of the stairs so that his
son could not pass him. Sam yawned, then noticed how in oratorical
denunciation his father's long upper lip curved like the beak of a
bird of prey; behind his hand he tried to arch his own lip in the same
manner. He really did not hear what was said to him; he only sighed
with relief when it was over and he was allowed to go up-stairs and
tumble sleepily into bed.

As for his long-suffering hostess, when she was alone Helena Richie
rubbed her eyes and began to wake up. "That boy never knows when to
go!" she said to herself with amused impatience. Then her mind turned
to her own affairs. This little boy, David Allison, would be in Old