CHAPTER I 

THE ARRIVAL OF THE BOY 

"What's the news, Uncle?" asked Miss Patricia Doyle, as she entered the cosy breakfast room of a suite of apartments in Willing Square. Even as she spoke she pecked a little kiss on the forehead of the chubby man addressed as "Uncle"--none other, if you please, than the famous and eccentric multi-millionaire known in Wall Street as John Merrick--and sat down to pour the coffee. 

There was energy in her method of doing this simple duty, an indication of suppressed vitality that conveyed the idea that here was a girl accustomed to action. And she fitted well into the homely scene: short and somewhat "squatty" of form, red-haired, freckle-faced and pug-nosed. Wholesome rather than beautiful was Patsy Doyle, but if you caught a glimpse of her dancing blue eyes you straightway forgot her lesser charms. 

Quite different was the girl who entered the room a few minutes later. Hers was a dark olive complexion, face of exquisite contour, great brown eyes with a wealth of hair to match them and the flush of a rose in her rounded cheeks. The poise of her girlish figure was gracious and dignified as the bearing of a queen. 

"Morning, Cousin Beth," said Patsy cheerily. 

"Good morning, my dear," and then, with a trace of anxiety in her tone: "What is the news, Uncle John?" 

The little man had ignored Patsy's first question, but now he answered absently, his eyes still fixed upon the newspaper: 

"Why, they're going to build another huge skyscraper on Broadway, at Eleventh, and I see the political pot is beginning to bubble all through the Bronx, although--" 
Where are they?
the cosy breakfast room