remembered. And I did remember him, and knew his mother well enough to
believe it all; for she did not chant his praises to organ music, but
rather hummed them to the banjo; and one felt that her own demure
humour, so signal and so permanent a charm in Catherine, would have been
the saving of half-a-dozen Bobs.

"And yet," she wound up at her starting-point, "it's about poor old Bob
I want to speak to you!"

"Not in a fix, I hope?"

"I hope not, Duncan."

Catherine was serious now.

"Or mischief?"

"That depends on what you mean by mischief."

Catherine was more serious still.

"Well, there are several brands, but only one or two that really
poison--unless, of course, a man is very poor."

And my mind harked back to its first suspicion, of some financial
embarrassment, now conceivable enough; but Catherine told me her boy was
not poor, with the air of one who would have drunk ditchwater rather
than let the other want for champagne.

"It is just the opposite," she added: "in little more than a year, when