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Rh immediately into a tiny cluttered office, where a lanky, sandy-haired individual untied his long legs from about the swivel chair and literally fell upon his visitor's neck.

"Barry Odell, you confounded old sleuth, where have you been keeping yourself? The fellows were all asking about you at the class reunion dinner in June, but all I could tell them was that you were too busy hunting crooks to think of the old days."

"I have been busy, Jim," Odell responded quietly; but a slight flush had mounted to his usually impassive brow. "How are all the fellows? I'd like to have seen them again."

"Then why the deuce didn't you show up? You got the announcement card, didn't you?" Jim Dilke pushed his guest into a chair and proffered a box of cigars, which he took from a drawer in the desk. "You needn't be afraid to try one; they're the kind I keep for our advertisers."

"Thanks." Odell accepted a cigar, lighted it, and settled back in his chair. "Yes, I got old Whip's announcement; but—well, I didn't graduate with the rest of you, you know, and our ways lie far apart now."

"It is you and your insufferable, stiff-necked pride that widened the path," Dilke declared with spirit. "I don't know why in thunder, when your old man died and you had to quit the university after the freshman year, you didn't stay on instead, and let some of us see you through. You could have paid it back."

Odell shook his head.

"I had to go to work then," he replied. "There were others to be taken care of, you may remember; and I don't