his circumstances had been such, financially, that his attire was
plain and perhaps old fashioned--much of it the handiwork of his
frugal and fond mother; and the absence of smart and up-to-date
ideas in clothes and shoes made him look, perhaps, even younger than
his years. Other lads of his acquaintance--those in his classes in
high school--aped their elders. Ned's time and interests were too
much given up to his boyish ambition to permit this.

Ned saw a man of about sixty years, with snow-white moustache,
dressed in blue. The man had every appearance of being both a
soldier and an officer. His face was tanned as if by much exposure
to the sun, but the line of white at the top of his forehead, where
his hat gave protection, suggested that the color was both recent
and transitory. Major Honeywell's hair, which was yet dark and only
slightly streaked with gray, was too long to suggest present active
service, as Ned at once concluded. His face, too, had something of
the student in it, and this effect was increased by a pair of large
gold spectacles with double lenses. The man's contracted eyes gave
the youth the uncomfortable feeling of being microscopically
examined, and Ned was for a moment ill at ease. The manner of the
scrutiny was that of a scholar who had before him a strange new
specimen. Ned, still with hat in hand, felt more like a dead bug
than a very live boy. Then the white-mustached man smiled, took
off his heavy-lensed glasses, and stepped forward with his hand
extended.

"I am Major Honeywell," he began in a low voice, "formerly of the
regular army and later detailed on ethnological work for the
Government. You are--"