"Feel like having a game of billiards?" went on Simon. "I'll bet you ten dollars I can beat you on your own table."
"No, thank you," replied Dick, with a laugh. "I'm too busy looking after my guests to-night. Besides, I don't play for money. Come over some other time and I'll play you all you like, for fun."
"Stingy beast," muttered Simon, as Dick moved away to greet some newcomers, "and I need the money, too."
"Maybe you'd lose," suggested Guy.
"I don't play to lose," replied Simon, with an ugly leer.
The little feeling of strangeness which many of the boys and girls at first experienced gradually wore off, and soon the party was in full swing. All sorts of games were played, and Dick and his closest chums saw to it that there was no lack of liveliness. A number of the fathers and mothers of the younger children had accompanied them, and to these older folks Dick was attentive, seeing that they had seats, and sending the waiters to them to ask if they wouldn't have a cup of coffee or some ices before supper was served.
"Say," observed one man to his wife, after Dick had found them chairs, "you'd never know he was a millionaire, would you?"
"Why not?"
"Why, because he's just like other boys—he's like one of our own folks."
"Of course he is," answered his wife. "It's only the wrong kind of people that money makes any difference to. Dick Hamilton can't help being nice. His money hasn't spoiled him," which view was shared by more than one that night.