Now Alfred and James Albert, Junior, think they
have a great joke on him; and they've twitted him so
much about it he'll scarcely speak to them. From
the first, Alfred says, the old chap's only repartee
was, 'You wait and you'll see!' And they've asked
him so often to show them what they're going to see
that he won't say anything at all!"

"He's a funny old fellow," Mrs. Palmer observed.
**But he's so shrewd I can't imagine his being de-
ceived for siich a long time. Twenty years, you said?"

"Yes, longer than that, I understand. It appears
when this man — this Adams — ^was a young clerk, the
old gentleman trusted him with one of his business
secrets, a glue process that Mr. Lamb had spent some



832 ALICE ADAMS

money to get hold of. The old chap thought this
Adams was going to have quite a f utm^e with the
Lamb concern, and of course never dreamed he was
dishonest. Alfred says this Adams hasn't been of
any real use for years, and they should have let him
go as dead wood, but the old gentleman wouldn't
hear of it, and insisted on his being kept on the pay-
roll; so they just decided to look on it as a sort of
pension. Well, one morning last March the man
had an attack of some sort down there, and Mr.
Lamb got his own car out and went home with him,
himself, and worried about him and went to see him
no end, all the time he was ill."

"He would,'* Mrs. Palmer said, approvingly.
