Mrs. Pell was helping Eva shell peas for dinner.

He went straight up to her and put his arm affectionately about her neck.

"Moms," he said in his winning way, "I want to run up to the city for this afternoon. I'm a quarter short to buy my ticket. Won't you please let me have it? I can pay you back out of my allowance."

"What do you want to go to the city for, Rex?"

"Oh, I can't stay here in uncertainty. I want to see Syd to know for sure about things. Besides, it will keep me from shocking you here if I go."

"But Sydney is sure to be very busy. You will bother him by going to the office."

"No, I won't. He never lets me bother him. Besides, I only want to see him for a minute. You know I haven't been in town since school closed. The train goes in twenty minutes, and I'll come back with Syd. Please, moms."

"All right, Rex, you may go, but remember I trust you not to annoy Sydney. You will find my purse in my top bureau drawer, left hand corner."

"You are the best mother a boy ever had." With a hasty kiss Rex was off, secured his quarter, and then with a wave of his hand toward the family, struck out across the pasture for the path that led up over the hill in a short cut to the station.

There was nobody so easy to get along with as Rex— as long as you allowed him to have his own way.

"That is a crazy notion of his, wanting to go in to town just because he can't wait till Syd comes out," remarked Roy when he heard of it. At the same time he felt a sensation of relief to think that his impulsive brother was out of Marley and away from the temptation to disquiet the family by telling his fellow townsmen what he meant to do with their money when they came into it.

Rex meanwhile was enjoying himself hugely. He saw nobody he knew at this unusual hour of going to town, but he lay back in his seat while the breeze, created by the swift motion of the cars, rushed refreshingly past him, and built air castles of the most luxurious description.

"It must be so," he told himself, whenever the doubts suggested by Jess arose in his mind to trouble him. "Dr. Martin congratulated Roy. Everybody has known that Mr. Tyler had lots of money somewhere."

When the train reached Philadelphia, Rex hurried off to the law office where Syd had his desk. It was some distance from the station, but having spent all his money for his excursion ticket, he had none left for car fare.

"This will be the last time I'll be so short," he mused, a smile which he could not repress playing about the corners of his mouth.

Buoyed up by this reflection he did not so much mind the distance, nor the heat, which he found much more oppressive here in the city than it was in Marley. He reached Syd's place at last only to find that his brother was out and that the boy was not just sure when he would be back.

"But he'll be here before he goes to the train, won't he?" asked Rex.

"Oh yes, sure," was the reply. "His satchel is here with the books he always takes."

"I'll come back again then." Rex went out, thinking that now there was no danger of his ever having to step into the shoes of this office boy. Syd had remarked once or twice that he thought he could get him a position in a law office when he was through school.

Rex wandered along the street aimlessly for a while. If it hadn't been midsummer he might have gone over to Spruce and Walnut and called on some of his friends, but they were either at their summer homes in Marley or off traveling.

He was therefore reduced to walking to kill time, choosing the shady side and watching for any incident of city life that might divert his mind. He came to a bicycle emporium presently and stood for some time in front of it, trying to decide which wheel he should select when he came to purchase as he hoped to do very shortly now.

"That's the dandy kind," remarked a voice over his shoulder. "The Wizard motor. You can ride over all sorts of roads with it."

Rex turned and saw a fellow about a year older than himself. He had a red face and wore an outing shirt that was not as fresh as it might have been.

Rex, who was rather fastidious as to his friends, simply said "Yes," and moved on.

The fellow noticed the look which accompanied the word.

"The dude!" he muttered. "Thinks he's too good to talk with the likes o' me. I'll get even with him."

He waited an instant and then followed Rex at a distance. Presently something that he espied ahead caused him to scan the sidewalk and the street next it closely.

Then he stepped out into the roadway and picked up a piece of coal that had dropped from a passing cart. He quickened his steps and nearly caught up with Rex just as the latter was passing a Chinese laundry.

"Run for your life! Runaway team behind you!" he exclaimed suddenly, darting forward and calling out the words almost in Rex's ear. At the same instant he flung the piece of coal he had picked up straight into the window of the Chinese laundry.

There was a crash of glass and Rex, connecting the sound with the warning he had received, immediately took to his heels.

"There he goes!" called out the red faced youth to the Chinaman who promptly appeared in the door of his shop.

The Celestial's almond eyes caught sight of Rex's fleeing figure. It was enough. He dropped his iron and rushed after Rex, the conscienceless hoodlum joining in the chase.

Rex, hearing no further sound to tell him that a dangerous runaway was close upon him, had just decided to slacken his pace and turn around to investigate, when he felt a hand laid on his shoulder.

"Me got you," crowed a wheezy voice in his ear. "Now for pleecy man."

Rex was horrified to find himself in the grasp of a Chinese laundryman.

"Let go of me! What do you want?" he cried, struggling to get free.

"You breakee glass. You go to jailee. Here pleecyman now."

True enough, among the crowd that had hastily collected, was a blue-coated officer.

"Make him let me go," exclaimed Rex, appealing to the representative of the law. "I didn't do anything to him."

"Yes, he did," called out a bystander, whose sympathies had been awakened for the much suffering heathen. "I saw him running for all he was worth. That's pretty strong evidence, isn't it?"

The policeman appeared to think so, for he came up and caught Rex by the arm.

CHAPTER VII

REGINAND'S HUMILIATION

Rex never felt so humiliated in his life. Here he was, surrounded by a crowd, captured by a policeman and accused by a miserable Chinaman of breaking a pane of glass.

"It's all a mistake, I tell you," he cried, starting to wrest himself loose from the officer's grasp, and then suddenly remaining passive as he reflected that this was undignified.

"What did you run for then!" questioned the policeman.

"Because he told me to— the fellow with the red face," and Rex looked around in the throng to pick out the cause of his misfortune, but that individual had discreetly disappeared.

"I don't see him now," he went on.

"I guess you don't," put in the bystander who had already spoken. "Do you run every time anybody tells you to?"

"He said there was a runaway team behind me. Then I heard the glass break. He must have thrown the stone himself."

Rex tried to speak calmly, but he was boiling over with rage at the trick which he now realized had been played upon him.

"Me wantee new glass," the Chinaman insisted. "Play money."

How fervently Rex wished at that moment that they had come into their inheritance. He would have put his hand into his pocket, drawn out a five dollar bill with a lordly air and handed it over with the words: "Take this. I didn't break the glass, but I pity the poor heathen's distress."

As it was, he had not a penny about him. It was difficult to keep up an air of bravado under these circumstances.

The crowd was growing bigger each minute. The