een
fined pudding at lunch for her caustic comments on the batting of her
brother Reggie in important fixtures. Cricket was a tradition in the
family, and the ladies, unable to their sorrow to play the game
themselves, were resolved that it should not be their fault if the
standard was not kept up.

On this particular morning silence reigned. A deep gasp from some
small Jackson, wrestling with bread-and-milk, and an occasional remark
from Mr. Jackson on the letters he was reading, alone broke it.

"Mike's late again," said Mrs. Jackson plaintively, at last.

"He's getting up," said Marjory. "I went in to see what he was doing,
and he was asleep. So," she added with a satanic chuckle, "I squeezed
a sponge over him. He swallowed an awful lot, and then he woke up, and
tried to catch me, so he's certain to be down soon."

"Marjory!"

"Well, he was on his back with his mouth wide open. I had to. He was
snoring like anything."

"You might have choked him."

"I did," said Marjory with satisfaction. "Jam, please, Phyllis, you
pig."

Mr. Jackson looked up.

"Mike will have to be more punctual when he goes to Wrykyn," he said.

"Oh, father, is Mike going to Wrykyn?" asked Marjory. "When?"

"Next term," said Mr. Jackson. "I've just heard from Mr. Wain," he
added across the table to Mrs. Jackson. "The house is full, but he is
turning a small room into an extra dormitory, so he can take Mike
after all."

The first comment on this momentous piece of news came from Bob
Jackson. Bob was eighteen. The following term would be his last at
Wrykyn, and, having won through so far without the infliction of a
small brother, he disliked the prospect of not being allowed to finish
as he had begun.

"I say!" he said. "What?"

"He ought to have gone before," said Mr. Jackson. "He's fifteen. Much
too old for that private school. He has had it all his own way there,
and it isn't good for him."

"He's got cheek enough for ten," agreed Bob.

"Wrykyn will do him a world of good."

"We aren't in the same house. That's one comfort."

Bob was in Donaldson's. It softened the blow to a certain extent that
Mike should be going to Wain's. He had the same feeling for Mike that
most boys of eighteen have for their fifteen-year-old brothers. He was
fond of him in the abstract, but preferred him at a distance.

Marjory gave tongue again. She had rescued the jam from Phyllis, who
had shown signs of finishing it, and was now at liberty to