"'Because the fellow is a cad, and would be taking all sorts of advantages. Better ignore the acquaintance at the start.'
"'Then why did you do what you did for him?'
"'I don't know, I'm sure!' Flint answered.
"That's just the sort of fellow Flint is. He may seem crusty, but in any emergency he is a man to tie to."
"If life were a series of emergencies," said Winifred, reflectively, "Mr. Flint would be invaluable; but in every-day existence, one does not quite know what to do with him."
"I can put up with a great deal," said Ben Bradford, "from a chap like that, who shows real sand and pluck when a crisis comes. I mean to tell Mr. Flint to-morrow that I think he's a daisy, and go down on my marrow bones for the things I have thought and said about him before."
"I wouldn't, if I were you, Ben," observed Winifred, with an amused smile; "for I doubt if Mr. Flint has ever had the dimmest idea that you have not been thinking well of him all along."