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Joe found out then and during the next meeting that Jack Strobe—his full name was Jackson—was in Joe’s class at school, that he lived on Temple Street, that he played left field on the nine, that he was two months older than Joe, that his father was the senior partner of Strobe and Wonson, whose big jewelry store Joe had noticed on Main Street, and several other more or less interesting facts. It was only when Joe was in the house that he recollected that he had failed to take leave of Sam Craig. He had meant to thank him for taking him out to the pond, but had been so absorbed in this red-cheeked, blue-eyed Strobe chap that he had quite forgotten Sam’s existence. He hoped the latter wasn’t thinking him uncivil, and resolved to make an apology at the first opportunity. He had agreed to go around in the afternoon and call on Jack Strobe, and at a little after two was being ushered by a maid through the rather ornate front door of the Strobe mansion and into a cosy sitting-room—or perhaps it was a library, since there were two large bookcases flanking the fireplace, in which a soft-coal fire was sputtering greasily. Jack came charging down the stairs and at once haled the visitor up to the third floor, where, on the back of the house, overlooking a wide vista of snowy roofs and distant country, Jack had his own particular sanctum.