Foolishly they averted their glances, after
that first little laugh of sudden realisation; but again their eyes met,
and this time they laughed loud and long with a joy that took away not
only all fears of the Gratcher forever, but their first embarrassment of
themselves. Then, with no word of the matter whatsoever, each knowing that
the other understood, they began to talk of life again, feeling older and
wiser, which truly they were.

For, though many in time wax brave to beard their Gratcher even in his
lair, only the very wise learn this--that the best way to be rid of him is
to laugh him away--that no Gratcher ever fashioned by the ingenuity of
terror-loving humans can keep his evil power over one to whom he has
become funny.

The passing of the Gratcher had left no pedestal crying for another idol.
In its stead, for his own chastening and with all reverence, the little
boy erected the spirit of that God which the Bible tells of, who is
all-wise and loving, yet no sentimentalist, as witness his sudden
devastations among the first-born of all things, from white rabbits to
men.

But an idol next went down that not only left a wretched vacancy in the
boy's pantheon, but fell against his heart and made an ugly wound. It was
as if he had become suddenly clear-seeing on that day when the Gratcher
shrivelled in the blast of his laugh.

A little later came the father on his annual visit, and the dire thing was
done. The most ancient and honoured of all the idols fell with a crash. A
perfect father was lost in some common, swaggering, loud-voiced,
street-mannered creature, grotesquely self-satisfied, of a cheap, shabby
smartness, who came flaunting those things he should not have flaunted,
and proclaiming in every turn of his showy head his lack of those things
without which the little boy now saw no one could be a gentleman.

He cried in his bed that night, after futile efforts to believe that some
fearful change had been wrought in his father. But his memory of former
visits was scrupulously photographic--phonographic even. He recalled from
the past certain effects once keenly joyed in that now made his cheeks
burn. The things rioted brutally before him, until it seemed that
something inside of him strove to suppress them--as if a shamed hand
reached out from his heart to brush the whole offense into decent hiding
with one quick sweep.

This time he took care that Nancy should not meet his father. Yet he
walked the