“Yes,” assented the young millionaire without animation, “but, as I said before, I soon got tired of it. The pastime of collecting pictures became a burden, and I was glad to get abroad and forget it.”

“Well,” said Barnes, “I guess the only thing for you to do is to go to work at something.”

“I know it,” grumbled Gladwin, “but what’s the incentive? I don’t want any more money––what I 66 have now is the biggest sort of a nuisance. Just see the trouble I’m in for with my lawyer and that man Watkins, though to tell you the truth I am beginning to enjoy the novelty of that.”

The young man got up and assumed a more lively expression.

“Do you know, Whitney,” he ran on, “this travelling incognito isn’t half bad. They are really getting suspicious of me at the Ritz.”

“But surely some one there ought to know you.”

“Not a soul! It was opened while I was abroad. You know I registered as Thomas Smith and I even took a chance and went down into the grill room for lunch. And there, Whitney,” cried Gladwin with an explosive burst of enthusiasm, “I nearly got a thrill––another one like that on the trolley car. The last place you’d expect it, too, in the midst of stiff formality and waiters so cold and haughty they might have risen from the dead.”

“I suppose this was the ravishing girl at the cigar counter?” said Barnes, ironically.

“Nothing of the sort––never smoked a cigar in her life––I mean, that is, well, something entirely different. But she was a beauty! Golden bronze hair––Titian never painted anyth