"You don't have to—I got Hannah's snoops for you. They're innocent enough—really, they're the soundest of sound little nuts.
"Mrs. Tweksbury had a romance! Don't grin, Joan. She didn't always look like a squaw in front of a tobacco shop—they say she was rather a stunner. She married Tweksbury before she got the bit in her mouth—afterward she clutched it good and proper and trotted the course according to the rules.
"Then came Raymond—this man's father. He somehow got it over to Mrs. Tweksbury—the real thing, you know, and she reached and got it over to him, that it was up to them to—keep it clean. Gee! Joan, her past sounds like a tract with all the sobs left out and a lot of iron put in.
"Raymond, in a year or two, married a woman who lived only long enough to produce this man upon whose trail we're scouting. This Kenneth was a measly little offspring and his mother's people undertook to give him a chance to live. He picked up and he and his father became pals—Hannah rooted out a picture of them riding horseback. Then the father was thrown from his horse and killed right before the eyes of the boy, and that put him back years—he barely escaped. I don't believe he would have, from accounts, if Mrs. Tweksbury hadn't butted in at that point and made it a matter of honour to the boy to—to—carry on!
"Well, once he mounted that horse he rode it as he did all others—hard and grim. He never played in all his life. He's been making good. Society he loathes; women do not exist for him, outside of Mrs. Tweksbury. I bet he knows her past and is paying back for his dad—he's like that.
"Well, when I'd got everything Hannah had in her safe I had a burning desire to have a look at Mr. Kenneth Raymond myself. So this afternoon I went to his office——"
"Pat!" cried Joan. "Oh! Pat, how could you?"
"Easiest thing in the world, my lamb. You see, the chance of viewing a human being—with one fortune in his pocket and another coming to him when Mrs. Tweksbury lets go—actually on a job holding it down like grim death—was a sight to gladden the heart of a tramp like me. I sallied down to Wall Street and had some fun.
"I found his building without a moment's delay and I casually asked the elevator boy where Mr. Raymond's office was, and the little chap grew effusive—either Mr. Raymond is lavish with tips, or the human touch, for his goings and comings are meat to that kid.
"He told me I had better hustle, for at four-thirty every day Mr. Raymond beat it! The boy was an artist in word-painting. He described my man as a real toff, none of your little yappers. He's going to haul in the pile and playing honest-to-God—fair, too!"