when I came, another little boy came just afterwards, and he
died, that little boy did. And mamma, too. Father told me.'

'Yes, yes,' said Aunt Annie, closing the door. 'Bee-by.'

'I didn't promise,' Tom murmured to his conscience. 'But it's a good
secret,' he added brazenly. He climbed over the edge of the cot, and let
himself down gently till his feet touched the floor. He found his
clothes, which Aunt Annie invariably placed on a chair in a certain
changeless order, and he put some of them on, somehow. Then he softly
opened the door and crept down the stairs to the second-floor. He was an
adventurous and incalculable child, and he desired to see the baby.

Persons who called on Mr. Henry Knight in his private capacity rang at
the side-door to the right of the shop, and were instructed by the
shop-caretaker to mount two flights of stairs, having mounted which they
would perceive in front of them a door, where they were to ring again.
This door was usually closed, but to-night Tom found it ajar. He peeped
out and downwards, and thought of the vast showroom below and the
wonderful regions of the street. Then he drew in his head, and concealed
himself behind the plush portiere. From his hiding-place he could watch
the door of Uncle Henry's and Aunt Susan's bedroom, and he could also,
whenever he felt inclined, glance down the stairway.

He waited, with the patience and the fatalism of infancy, for something
to happen.

After an interval of time not mathematically to be computed, Tom heard a
step on the stairs, and looked forth. A tall gentleman wearing a high
hat and carrying a black bag was ascending. In a flash Tom recollected a
talk with his dead father, in which that glorious and gay parent had
explained to him that he, Tom, had been brought to his mother's room by
the doctor in a black bag.

Tom pulled open the door at the head of the stairs, went outside, and
drew the door to behind him.

'Are you the doctor?' he demanded, staring intently at the bag to see
whether anything wriggled within.

'Yes, my man,' said the doctor. It was Quain Short, wrenched from the
Alhambra.

'Well, they don't want another one. They've got one,' Tom asserted,
still observing the bag.

'You're sure?'

'Yes. Aunt Annie said particularly that they didn't want another one.'

'Who is it that has come? Do you know his name? Christopher--is that
it?'

'I don't know his name. But he's come, and he's in the bedroom now, with
Au