absorbed by my own work. I have none to give to a wild-goose chase such
as that, on the mere chance that, if found, he would agree to pay my
board for the future."
If he had been less in earnest he would have been grotesque. As it was,
Sharlee was by no means sure that he escaped it; and she could not keep
a controversial note out of her voice as she said:--
"Yours must be a very great work to make you view the finding of your
father in that way."
"The greatest in the world," he answered, drily. "I may call it,
loosely, evolutionary sociology."
She was so silent after this, and her expression was so peculiar, that
he concluded that his words conveyed nothing to her.
"The science," he added kindly, "which treats of the origin, nature, and
history of human society; analyzes the relations of men in organized
communities; formulates the law or laws of social progress and
permanence; and correctly applies these laws to the evolutionary
development of human civilization."
"I am familiar with the terms. And your ambition is to become a great
evolutionary sociologist?"
He smiled faintly. "To become one?"
"Oh! Then you are one already?"
For answer, Mr. Queed dipped his hand into his inner pocket, produced a
large wallet, and from a mass of papers selected a second envelope.
"You mention references. Possibly these will impress you as even better
than friends."
Sharlee, seated on the arm of Major Brooke's chair, ran through the
clippings: two advertisements of a well-known "heavy" review announcing
articles by Mr. Queed; a table of contents torn from a year-old number
of the _Political Science Quarterly_ to the same effect; an editorial
from a New York newspaper commenting on one of these articles and
speaking laudatorily of its author; a private letter from the editor of
the "heavy" urging Mr. Queed to write another article on a specified
subject, "Sociology and Socialism."
To Sharlee the exhibit seemed surprisingly formidable, but the wonder in
her eyes was not at that. Her marvel was for the fact that the man who
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