"I took my friend on the Adelphi board partly into my confidence, and between him and the doctor employed by the association to safeguard the health of the boys, the matter was easily arranged. The doctor's regular weekly visit to the institution fell yesterday. He saw the boy, and making believe to be struck by something in his appearance, put him through an examination. He hinted to the boy that he was in rather a bad way, and instructed him to report to my office for advice this morning.
"The young fellow showed up in a very sober state of mind. He is really as sound as a dollar, but for the present I am keeping him anxious without being too explicit. He appears to be quite as attractive a youth as your friend said. I am very much interested, but am not yet prepared to make up my mind about him. He is coming to-morrow at two-thirty. If it is convenient for you to be here, I will arrange a meeting as if by accident."
Needless to say, I was at the doctor's office at the time specified. I found the blonde boy already waiting among other patients in the outer office. It was easy to recognise him from Mr. Dunsany's description. He was better than merely good-looking; he had nice eyes. He was dressed a little too showily as is natural to a boy of that age when he is allowed to consult his own taste exclusively.
There happened to be a vacant chair beside him and I took it. Presently I addressed some friendly commonplace to him. He responded naturally. Evidently he was accustomed to having people like him. Soon we were talking away like old friends. I was more and more taken with him. Primarily, it was his good looks, of course, the universal safe-conduct, but in addition to that I was strongly affected by a quality of wistfulness in the boy's glance, of which he himself was quite unconscious. Surely, I said to myself, a boy of his age had no business to be carrying around a secret sorrow. The doctor, issuing from his consulting room, saw us hobnobbing together, and allowed us to wait until everybody else had been attended to.
He had me into the consulting room first. "Well, what do you think of him?" he asked.
"I am charmed," I said. "There are no two words about it."
"So was I," he said, "but I didn't want to raise your hopes too high in my letter."
After discussing a little what we would do with him, we had the boy in.
"Ralph, my friend, Mr. Boardman, wished to be regularly introduced," said the doctor.
Boardman was the name I had taken in my present disguise.