Compton had an apartment on the third floor—sitting room, bathroom, bedroom and guest chamber. Bobby examined the suite with manifest delight. Everything was modern and in a sense elegant. If there were anything lacking to John Compton’s comfort, John Compton did not know it, nor did Bobby discover it. Bobby’s critical faculty was not as yet strongly developed. He had nevertheless an abundance of enthusiasm which he was not slow in expressing, and which failed him only in his survey of the pictures and photographs clustered thickly upon the walls of the sitting room. They were, with the exception of several photographs of Compton himself, all women, mainly actresses and all in every variety of dress and the contrary.
“Say, are all your friends women?” exclaimed the youth.
Compton colored and looked uneasy.
“You’re my friend,” he replied.
“There’s something queer about a lot of these pictures,” the boy went on. “I don’t like them.”
Mr. Compton changed the subject. Within twenty-four hours, nevertheless, a good many of those pictures found their way to a place where they properly belonged, and were seen no more in the land of sunshine.
“By the way, Bobby,” he resumed presently, “You haven’t said a word about your mother to-day.”
“I know it,” said Bobby cheerfully.
“Well, I have bad news to tell you.”
“I’ll bet you haven’t.”