fore he goes I must write some letters for him to take. In the
meantime Mr. Croyden wants to know if you would like to have him come
in and talk with you for a while?"

"Like it!" was the delighted exclamation.

"I believe I hear him now. Yes, here he is. Come in, Croyden!" called
the Doctor heartily. "Our patient says he will be glad to see you."

"Glad? I should say I should!"

Mr. Croyden chuckled.

"I don't know that any audience ever gave me such a royal welcome
before," he declared with amusement. "How do you find yourself this
morning, sonny? Able to talk Greek pottery?"

"Able to hear you talk it," Theo answered instantly.

"I am thinking of shifting my subject to-day and telling you about
Chinese and Japanese pottery instead."

"That will be fine."

"Very well, we'll begin our lecture right away, since the audience
seems to be assembled," observed Mr. Croyden merrily. "Not only have
you a private physician but a private lecturer, you see. My, but you
are a royal personage! One thing will be very satisfactory about this
audience. No matter whether it likes my talk or not it can't run
away."

There was a peal of laughter from Theo.

In the meantime Mr. Croyden poked the fire into a blaze and sitting
down in a comfortable chair began his story.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER IV

MR. CROYDEN'S STORY

"Hundreds and hundreds of years ago," said Mr. Croyden, "while the
Egyptians, Assyrians, Greeks, and Romans were experimenting at
pottery-making, the Chinese, inside their great walled country, were
busy with the same task. In fact as far back as two thousand years
before Christ the Chinese were famous potters, making earthenware of
such fine quality that it was difficult to tell whether it was pottery
or porcelain. For the two are quite different, you must remember,
Theo. It is not enough to say that pottery is thick and porcelain
thin, for much of the Chinese and Japanese pottery is very thin
indeed. The difference lies in the clay itself, of which the ware is
made. Do not forget that. Pottery is an opaque ware composed of
various combinations of clay which afterward may or may not have a
coating of glaze put over it. But genuine porcelain is made from a
mixture of quite different materials--a mixture of decomposed feldspar
known as kaolin, and petuntse."

Mr. Croyden paused a moment.

"There are of course so-called porcelains made from other ingredients;
but we call them soft paste ch