the scattered suburban settlements along the North shore. He always got a
hundred cents out of every dollar, and in many instances he got the
hundred cents and kept the dollar too.

Truesdale was slow in making up his mind to introduce Paston into his own
household. But Paston presently made his entree there under other
auspices; and within a month from that day Rosamund Marshall was studying
Debrett and was taking hurdles at a riding-academy.

For a third new acquaintance Truesdale was indebted to his aunt Lydia; he
had felt certain, all along, that some such indebtedness would befall.
His aunt lived two or three miles due south from his father's, near the
last brace of big hotels. Her house had a rather imposing but impassive
front of gray-stone, with many neighbors, more or less varying the same
type, to the right and to the left and over the way. The house had never
the absolute effect of extending hospitality; but he understood the
possibilities of the interior, and knew that a cup of tea late on a
November afternoon was among them.

As he drew near he found this house and the other houses combined in a
conspiracy of silence against the musical addresses of a swarthy
foreigner who had a foothold a yard beyond the curbstone, and who was
turning the crank of his instrument with all the rapid regularity of the
thorough mechanician. The whole street rang. "'Ah, perche non posso
odiarti!'" hummed Truesdale in unison with the organ, as the performer,
after an intricate cadenza, returned to the original theme. "That's the
only recognizable thing I've heard these fellows play since I came over.
I wonder who puts together all the shocking stuff they are loaded up with
nowadays."