Before beginning to read the interesting document in front of him, Jonas Barton, senior member of Barton & Saltonstall, paused to clean his glasses rather carefully, in order to gain sufficient time to study for a moment the tall, good-looking young man who waited indifferently on the other side of the desk. He had not seen his late client's son since the latter had entered college--a black-haired, black-eyed lad of seventeen, impulsive in manner and speech. The intervening four years had tempered him a good deal. Yet, the Pendleton characteristics were all there--the square jaw, the rather...

For a man to keep himself consistently amused for ten years after his graduation from college, even with an inheritance to furnish ample financial assistance, suggests a certain quality of genius. This much Monte Covington had accomplished-accomplished, furthermore, without placing himself under obligations of any sort to the opposite sex. He left no trail of broken hearts in his wake. If some of the younger sisters of the big sisters took the liberty of falling in love with him secretly and in the privacy of their chambers, that was no fault of his, and did neither them nor him the slightest...