THE PUZZLE IS FAR FROM BEING SOLVED When, a little later on, the two chums came away from the Hosmer home, Thad seemed unusually quiet, for him.

Hugh, noticing this, and wishing to ascertain whether the other had begun to get on the track of the truth, presently remarked: "What makes you so glum, Thad?
Coming over you rattled away like a blue streak, and now you haven't so much as said ten words since we started back home ?" "Well, to tell you the truth," admitted Thad, shaking his head after the manner of one who is sadly puzzled, "I just don't know what to say, after seeing that little affair." "Do you mean you feel badly because Matilda was so reduced in finances that she couldn't even meet a small account like her milk bill ?" asked Hugh, fishing for a bite.
"Why, yes, partly that," said Thad, slowly; "but it knocked me all in a heap to see that old rascal of a Brother Lu walk out with the last dollar he had in the wide world, and gladly hand it over to liquidate that same account.

Say, if we didn't just know he was a bad one, I'd call that a really generous act." "Oh," chuckled Hugh, "not so very generous, after all, when you come to examine things closer.

Don't forget, Thad, that he's been sponging on that poor couple for a good many weeks already; and then, if our calculations are correct, he means to fasten on them for keeps." "That's so," agreed the other, heaving a sigh as though he felt somewhat relieved in his mind to have his comrade point out a solution to the problem.

"Of course, he's imposing on his relatives something shameful, and the least he could do was to toe the scratch when an emergency came along.