BILLY BENSON lost no time in accepting the girls’ invitation to call on them. On the evening of the day after the ghost-hunt that developed into a tea-drinking, Billy appeared, arrayed in the “glad rags” that he had cajoled his Bond Street tailor into finishing long before the stipulated time. Finding that Mrs. Hildreth was hesitating a little about including the Harvard-Cambridge race in her itinerary, he set himself to cajole her--with equal success. First he told funny stories to make her laugh; then he unearthed the fact that his mother and she had been girlhood friends; then he alluded casually to English sports, and offered to take her to a cricket-match the next afternoon; finally he smiled his famous smile and asked her if she honestly wouldn’t like to see that race he had told the girls about. Of course he wanted to row his very best, for the honor of Harvard and the United States of America; and he could do any amount better if he knew that some good friends of his would be watching him and cheering for the crimson. Whereupon Mrs. Hildreth laughed at his ingenious reasoning and commissioned Babbie and Madeline to see about engaging passage back from an English port. And Billy, thanking her with charming deference, and taking an early and ceremonious leave, reflected, as he often had before, that it was easy enough to get things your way if you only took a little pains to be agreeable.