ble; these were not
the qualities with which Winn felt himself capable of direct dealing. He
would have liked to destroy Mr. Roper, and he thought that the situation
might eventually arrive at this point; but until it did, he saw that he
had better leave Mr. Roper alone. "You can't do anything with a worm but
tread on it," he said to himself, and in hotels people had to be careful
how they trod on worms. There was still Mrs. Bouncing, but a slight
study of that lady, which took place in the hall after dinner, put this
possibility out of the question. She called Winn a "naughty man" and
suggested his taking her tobogganing by moonlight.

Mr. Bouncing was a side issue, but Winn, despite his own marriage, held
the theory that men ought to look after their wives. He felt that if
there had been any question of other men he could have managed Estelle;
or, even short of managing Estelle, he could have managed the other men.
It occurred to him now that perhaps Mr. Bouncing could be led to act
favorably upon the question of his wife's behavior.

Mr. Bouncing could not walk at all; he could get out to the public
balcony in the sun, and when he was there, he lay with the "Pink 'Un"
and "The Whipping Post" on his lap and his thermometer beside him. All
he asked was that he should have his hot milk regularly four times a
day. He hardly talked to anybody at all. This was not because it made
him cough to talk--it didn't particularly; he coughed without being made
to--but because he had exhausted his audience.

There was only one subject left to Mr. Bouncing, and that was his
health; after he had told people all his symptoms, they didn't want to
hear any more and there was nothing left to talk about. So he lay there
in the sunshine thinking about his symptoms instead. There were a good
many of them to think about, and all of them were bad.

Mr. Bouncing was surprised when Winn sat down to talk to him, and he
explained to him at once exactly what the doctors thought of his case.
Winn listened passively, and came back the next day at the same time.

This surprised Mr. Bouncing still more, and little by little the
subjects between them widened. Mr. Bouncing still talked about himself,
but he talked differently. He told Winn things he had never told any one
else, and he was really pleased when Winn laughed at a joke he showed
him in "The Pink 'Un."

"You can laugh," he said almost admiringly. "I daren't, you know; that's
one of the t