do I not owe to him?"

"To whom?" asked Squills. "Good Lord! what's the man talking about?"

"Yes, sir," said my father, rousing himself, "such was Giles Tibbets, M.
A., Sol Scientiarum, tutor to the humble scholar you address, and father
to poor Kitty. He left me his Elzevirs; he left me also his orphan
daughter."

"Oh! as a wife--"

"No, as a ward. So she came to live in my house. I am sure there was no
harm in it. But my neighbors said there was, and the widow Weltraum
told me the girl's character would suffer. What could I do?--Oh, yes, I
recollect all now! I married her, that my old friend's child might have
a roof to her head, and come to no harm. You see I was forced to do her
that injury; for, after all, poor young creature, it was a sad lot
for her. A dull bookworm like me,--cochlea vitam agens, Mr.
Squills,--leading the life of a snail! But my shell was all I could
offer to my poor friend's orphan."

"Mr. Caxton, I honor you," said Squills, emphatically, jumping up, and
spilling half a tumblerful of scalding punch over my father's legs. "You
have a heart, sir; and I understand why your wife loves you. You seem a
cold man, but you have tears in your eyes at this moment."

"I dare say I have," said my father, rubbing his shins; "it was
boiling!"

"And your son will be a comfort to you both," said Mr. Squills,
reseating himself, and, in his friendly emotion, wholly abstracted from
all consciousness of the suffering he had inflicted; "he will be a dove
of peace to your ark."

"I don't doubt it," said my father, ruefully; "only those doves, when
they are small, are a very noisy sort of birds--non talium avium cantos
somnum reducent. However, it might have been worse. Leda had twins."

"So had Mrs. Barnabas last week," rejoined the accoucheur. "Who knows
what may be in store for you yet? Here's a health to Master Caxton, and
lots of brothers and sisters to him."

"Brothers and sisters! I am sure Mrs. Caxton will never think of such a
thing, sir," said my father, almost indignantly; "she's much too good a
wife to behave so. Once in a way it is all very well; but twice--and as
it is, not a paper in its place, nor a pen mended the last three days:
I, too, who can only write cuspide duriuscula,--and the baker coming
twice to me for his bill, too! The Ilithyiae, are troublesome deities,
Mr. Squills."

"Who are the Ilithyiae?" asked the accoucheur.

"You ought to know," answered my father, smiling,--"the f