Allen liked the theatre, and exercised considerable ingenuity in devising excuses for paying for the tickets when they took young women of their acquaintance.
He pretended to Dan that he had free tickets or got them at a discount.
His father made him a generous allowance and he bought a motor car in which he declared Dan had a half interest; they needed it, he said, for their social adventures.
At the Thatcher house, Harwood caught fitful glimpses of Allen's father, a bird of passage inured to sleeping-cars.

Occasionally Harwood dined with the father and son and they would all adjourn to Allen's shop on the third floor to smoke and talk.

When Allen gave rein to his fancy and began descanting upon the grandeur of the Republic and the Beautiful Experiment making in "these states," Dan would see a blank puzzled look steal into Thatcher's face.

Thatcher adored Allen: he had for him the deep love of a lioness for her cubs; but all this idealistic patter the boy had got hold of--God knew where!--sounded as strange to the rich man as a discourse in Sanskrit.
Thatcher had not been among Bassett's callers in the new office in the Boordman, but late one afternoon, when Dan was deep in the principles of evidence, Thatcher came in.
"I'm not expecting Mr.Bassett to-day, if you wish to see him," said Dan.
"Nope," Thatcher replied indifferently, "I'm not looking for Mort.

He's in Fraserville, I happen to know.