eyes. "I
should say you send for 'em," he observed, "whenever you've got a pain;
why they're always hangin' about. Look at that table chock full of
medicines. 'Nuff to kill a horse--where do they come from?"

"Hold your infernal tongue, Sir!" shouted Sir Peter. "What do I have
'em for? I have 'em here to expose them! That's why--I just let them try
it on, and then hold them up to ridicule! Do you find I ever pay the
least attention to 'em, Sarah?" he demanded from his wife.

"Not as a rule," Lady Staines admitted, "unless you're very bad indeed,
and then you do as you like directly the pain has stopped."

"Well, why shouldn't I!" said Sir Peter triumphantly. "Once I get rid of
the pain I can do as I like. When I've got red hot needles eating into
my toes, am I likely to like anything? Of course not, you may just as
well take medicine then as anything else, but as to taking orders from a
pack of ill-bred bumpkins, full of witch magic as a dog of fleas, I see
myself! Don't stand grinning there, Charles, like a dirty, shock-headed
barmaid's dropped hair pin! I won't stand it! I can't see why all my
sons should have thin legs, neither you nor I, Sarah, ever went about
like a couple of spilikin's. I call it indecent! Why don't you get
something inside 'em, Charles, eh? No stamina, that's what it is!
Everybody going to the dogs in motor cars with manicure girls out of
their parents' pockets--! Why don't you answer me, Charles, when I speak
to you?"

"Nobody can answer you when you keep roaring like a deuced megaphone,"
said Charles wearily. "Let's hear what the chap's got to say for
himself, Mater."

Lady Staines read Winn's letter out loud in a dry voice without
expression; it might have been an account of a new lawn mower which she
held beneath it.

"I've managed to crock one of my lungs somehow, but they say I've
got a chance if I go straight out to Davos for six months. Ask the
guv'nor if he'll let me have some money. I shall want it badly. My
wife and the kid will go to her people. You might run across and
have a look at him sometimes. He's rather a jolly little chap. I
shall come down for the week-end to-morrow unless I hear from you
to the contrary.

"Your affectionate son,
"WINN."

"I think that's all," said his mother.

"What!" shouted Sir Peter. He had never shouted quite like this before.
Charles groaned and buried his head in his hands. Even Lady Staines
l