"Why should Mr. Barrison be about to bathe in socks and neckties?"
"He is kind enough to take the matter off my hands, Mrs. Wilbur, and make our young friend fit," said the lawyer.
The lady lifted her lorgnette and surveyed the silent boy.
Mr. Wrenn approached him. "Herbert, you have no reason to like the name of Gayne. What do you say to dropping it? What do you say to being Herbert Loring, Second?"
"If Mrs. Lowell says so," he responded. He might have said: "What's in a name?" For the excited color had settled in his cheeks. Let them call him what they liked. He was going, boldly and unafraid, to have a pencil.
CHAPTER XVII THE HEIR
Luther Wrenn gave himself the luxury of calling at the Copley-Plaza the next morning, perhaps as a bracer for his afternoon appointment. When he sent up his name, he received a summons to come to a room on the floor above Diana's.
Entering, he found the group he had left yesterday, minus Mrs. Wilbur, chatting and laughing before a boy's wardrobe spread out on the bed. As he shook hands with the boy himself, the lawyer looked him over with satisfaction. From the barber to the haberdasher, the lad had evidently been served well; and though pale and thin, Herbert Loring, Second, stood there a credit to his name already, and full of promise for the future. A wardrobe trunk in steamer size stood at one side of the room and a fine suitcase beside it.