If Bar Vernon’s companion in the carriage during his ride up-town that morning had been Judge Danvers, instead of Dr. Manning, he would doubtless have been subjected to a sort of conversational “cross-examination.”

Indeed, he had half expected something of the sort, but the worthy doctor having fairly got rid of his pecuniary load and the troubles connected with it, had mentally gone back to his patients and was not a whit more talkative than his inborn politeness demanded of him.

Indeed, on arriving at the house, the doctor only waited to introduce Bar to Mrs. Manning, after a very brief talk with that lady in an inner room, and tell her to “send for Val,” and then he was off to the reception of his long-delayed “callers” and the performance of his daily routine of healing duty.

Bar’s previous experiences had led him into all[Pg 99] sorts of places, good and bad, but never before had he seen the interior of a home like that, so full of all the appliances which modern invention and the refinements of human art have provided for wealth and culture.

It was a sort of new world to him, and he found its unaccustomed atmosphere more than a little oppressive at first.

Even Mrs. Manning, with her gentle face, her beautiful gray hair and her kindly, easy, perfectly well-bred manners, seemed to him so like a being from another sphere, that her presence made him uneasy.

She understood him better than he imagined, however, and although she had plenty of questions in her mind, she considerately postponed them for a more convenient season.

“It’s very wonderful,” thought Bar. “To think of that pocketbook business bringing about all this! But I wonder who Val is?”

It was some little time before his curiosity was gratified, and then Mrs. Manning left him alone in the library, for a few minutes, to wonder at the multitude of elegant books, the folios of maps and engravings, and the rarely beautiful[Pg 100] pictures. When she returned she was accompanied by a young gentleman of about Bar’s age, though scarcely so strongly built, whom she introduced as:

“My son Valentine, Mr. Vernon. I shall have to put you in his care for the rest of the day. I hope, and so does Dr. Manning, that you will be very good friends.”

Valentine Manning was not only lighter built than Barnaby Vernon, he was a good deal lighter in the color of his hair, and the complexion of his face. His eyes were gray instead of the brownish-black of Bar’s, and he was in every respect a good deal more of a “boy,” at least to all outward appearances. He had never had the severe experiences which had so steadied and sobered his new acquaintance.

There was little danger that Bar would long feel as much shyness in his presence as in that of his mother, though he was a little awkward at first.

“Mother says you’re to visit with me,” said the doctor’s son, after they found themselves alone, “and that then you’re going out to Ogleport to school.”

[Pg 101]“Yes,” said Bar, reservedly.

“Ever been at the Academy before?” asked his new friend. “I never heard of you. What’s your first name?”

“Barnaby. Bar Vernon.”

“Bar? That’s a good handle. Mine’s Val. You can’t expect a fellow to be saying mister all the time. Did you say you’d been to Ogleport?”

“No,” said Bar, with an effort. “I was never at school in all my life.”

“Whew!” whistled Val. “What an ignoramus you must be! Did you ever study algebra?”

“Never.”

“Nor geometry?”

“I saw the word in a newspaper, once,” said Bar, “but I don’t know what it means.”

“Then won’t you have a high old time with Dr. Dryer, that’s all,” exclaimed Val. “Can’t you read?”

“Oh, yes,” said Bar, eager to come up in something; “I can read and write, and all that. Let me show you.”

Bar took up a pen, but, before he had written a half dozen lines, Val stopped him with:

[Pg 102]“There, now, that’ll do. You can beat me all hollow with a pen. Pity you don’t know French, or something.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Bar, “I can talk French, and German, too, and a little Spanish. It’s easy enough to pick up such things. What I don’t know is what you learn at school.”

“Well,” replied Val, “I wish I could pick up as much as that. Anyhow, I s’pose there’s lots of things I can teach you. Did you ever go fishing?”

“Never had a chance.”

“Nor hunting, nor skating?”

“Never,” said Bar, “but I can shoot. I had to learn that.”

“I’d like to know where you’ve lived all your life,” remarked Val.

“Maybe I’ll tell you some day,” said Bar, seriously, “but I’d rather not just now.”

Val Manning was a gentleman, boy as he was; and he colored to his ears as he replied:

“There, now, beg your pardon. Mother told me I mustn’t ask you any questions. Come on into the billiard-room and I’ll teach you how to play. Father never wants me to go to a public[Pg 103] billiard-hall, you know, so he has a tip-top table here at home. Plays himself sometimes, when the sick people give him a chance. Come on.”

Bar followed his young host into the neat and cozy apartment in the third story to which he led the way, and he felt a species of awe come over him as he passed one evidence after another of what plenty of money can do for the home of such a man as Dr. Manning.

Val picked up a cue and Bar listened in silence to the very clear and practical sort of lecture that followed on the rudiments of the game.

“Suppose we play one now,” said Bar, “and you can tell me more as we go along.”

Val assented, with hearty good-will, and he really showed a good deal of dexterity, for a boy of his age, in the noble art of knocking the ivory balls about.

He made a very good “run” before he missed, and then drew back with:

“There, Barnaby, the balls are in an awful bad position. I couldn’t make that carrom myself. Not many men could, but you’ll never learn if you don’t try. This is the shot. See?”

[Pg 104]Bar had been leisurely chalking his cue. Some things Val had said had unintentionally nettled him, and he had hardly been as frank as he should have been.

Now, however, he stepped quietly forward, made the impossible shot with an ease and quickness which altogether electrified Val, and followed it up with a dozen others of almost equal difficulty, ending by running the two red balls into a corner and scoring a clean fifty before he made a miss-cue and lost control of them.

Val had stood watching him in silence to the end, but when Bar turned to him with:

“Your turn again now!” he exclaimed.

“My turn? I should say so. Well, I’ll play the game out, but billiards isn’t one of the things that I have to teach you. You can give me lessons all the while.”

So it looked, indeed, but poor Bar had paid dearly enough for that useless bit of an accomplishment, and he would gladly have traded it with Val for a few of the things the latter probably valued very lightly.

After the billiards, Val suggested a visit to the gymnasium, not a great many blocks away, but[Pg 105] there he was even more astonished than he had been in the billiard-room.

“If you only knew a little algebra and geometry!” he exclaimed, enthusiastically, “you’d be a treasure to the Academy. Won’t we have fun!”

“How’s that?” asked Bar.

“Why, of course you don’t know,” said Val. “Wait till we get there, though. I just want some of those country fellows to try on their games again. I was almost alone last term, and they were too much for me. Got awfully thrashed twice, and I’m just dying to try ’em on again. Been training for it all vacation. But you’re worth three of me.”

“I’ll back you,” shouted Bar. “But then,” he added, “I thought we were going to the Academy to study?”

“So we are,” said Val, “and I wouldn’t disappoint my mother for anything, nor my father, either, but you can’t study all the while, and there’s any quantity of fun in the country.”

They were coming down the stairs from the gymnasium into the street, while they were talking, and just then, as they reached the sidewalk, Bar grasped his ............