The Young Wheat Scout Author:Hugh C. Weir Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER THREE The Boy In The Silk Pajamas TT was not difficult to find the North home on Michigan Avenue. It was one of the show places of the fashionable re... more »sident section of the city. Surrounded by imposing mansions, representing fortunes, often in the furnishings of a single room, the residence of the Wheat King stood out with an impressiveness, scorning rivalry. There was something audacious in the very hugeness of its magnificence. It was a bold caller, indeed, who did not feel and succumb to its atmosphere of breath-taking grandeur. There were those who said that Alexander North had given his wife full power in the designing and furnishing of the house, stipulating only that he be left one room in which he could really feel at home, his private den. Few callers, and still fewer servants, ever penetrated to this room, and it was whispered that it was just as seldom that its master ever ventured to any other section of the house, except to hismeals, and those occasional receptions where his presence was absolutely required. Billy Paxton caught his breath more than once before he mustered courage sufficient to raise the huge brass knocker. He tried to pucker his lips into a soft whistle to restore his oozing spirits while he waited an answer, and it was while he was thus engaged that he became aware that the door had opened, and that a very stiff, red-faced man was staring at him. Billy stared back with interest. The man was wearing a wonderful red and gold satin suit, with silk stockings, and knee trousers, with buckles, and on his round head was perched a red and gold three-cornered hat that looked as though it must be very uncomfortable. Billy had never seen a man dressed just like this before, outside of a comic opera. The general trouble scout of the Consolidated ...« less