o back into your esteem, let me point out that the imminence
and the actuality of fatherhood constitute a somewhat disturbing
experience, which does not occur to a man every day.

Mr. Knight dipped pen in ink, and continued:

' ... who I hold to be not only the greatest poet, but also the
greatest moral teacher that England has ever produced,

'"To thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

'In conclusion, sir, I ask, without fear of contradiction, are we
or are we not, in this matter of the National Debt, to be true to
our national selves?
'Yours obediently,
'A CONSCIENTIOUS TAXPAYER.'

The signature troubled him. His pen hovered threateningly over it, and
finally he struck it out and wrote instead: 'Paterfamilias.' He felt
that this pseudonym was perhaps a little inapposite, but some impulse
stronger than himself forced him to employ it.

CHAPTER III

HIS CHRISTENING

'But haven't I told you that I was just writing the very name when Annie
came in to warn me?'

Mr. Knight addressed the question, kindly and mildly, yet with a hint of
annoyance, to his young wife, who was nursing their son with all the
experience of three months' practice. It was Sunday morning, and they
had finished breakfast in the sitting-room. Within an hour or two the
heir was to be taken to the Great Queen Street Wesleyan Methodist Chapel
for the solemn rite of baptism.

'Yes, lovey,' said Mrs. Knight. 'You've told me, time and again. But, oh
Henry! Your name's just Henry Knight, and I want his to be just Henry
Knight, too! I want him to be called after you.'

And the mother, buxom, simple, and adoring, glanced appealingly with
bright eyes at the man who for her epitomized the majesty and
perfections of his sex.

'He will be Henry Knight,' the father persisted, rather coldly.

But Mrs. Knight shook her head.

Then Aunt Annie came into the room, pushing Tom before her. Tom was
magnificently uncomfortable in his best clothes.

'What's the matter, Sue?' Aunt Annie demanded, as soon as she had
noticed her sister's face.

And in a moment, in the fraction of a second, and solely by reason of
Aunt Annie's question, the situation became serious. It jumped up, as
domestic situations sometimes do, suddenly to the temperature at which
thunderstorm